Closing the Ring (23 page)

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I also outlined my thought upon the political state of Italy, and upon the now cruel reality of civil war spreading in that unhappy country.

  The escape of Mussolini to Germany, his rescue by paratroops, and his attempts to form a Quisling Government which, with German bayonets, will try to refix the Fascist yoke on the necks of the Italian people, raise of course the issue of Italian civil war. It is necessary in the general interest, as well as in that of Italy, that all surviving forces of Italian national life should be rallied to gether around their lawful Government, and that the King and Marshal Badoglio should be supported by whatever Liberal and Left-Wing elements are capable of making head against the Fascist-Quisling combination, and thus of creating conditions which will help to drive this villainous combination from Italian soil, or, better still, annihilate it on the spot. We are coming to the rescue and liberation of Italy. [A Member interjected: “You will not get the Italian people to rise behind the banner of turncoats.”] I think the honourable gentleman may be not thinking quite sufficiently of the importance of diminishing the burden which our soldiers have to bear. … The Government certainly intend to pursue a policy of engaging all the forces they can to make head against the Germans and drive them out of Italy. We are not going to be put off that action by any fear that perhaps we should not have complete unanimity on the subject. Parliament does not rest on unanimity; democratic assemblies do not act on unanimity. They act by majorities. That is the way they act. I wish to make it perfectly clear that we are endeavouring to rally the strongest forces together in Italy to make head against the Germans and the Mussolini-Quisling-Fascist combination.

  My final words were somewhat unceremonious—but true.

The best method of acquiring flexibility is to have three or four plans for all the probable contingencies, all worked out with the utmost detail. Then it is much easier to switch from one to the other as and where the cat jumps.

  These arguments convinced the House and there was no effective challenge.

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On the same day that I finished this lengthy speech, I and my colleagues suffered a very heavy and unexpected loss in the sudden death of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I did not hear the news till I awoke on the morning of the 22d. Kingsley Wood had become in later years a close personal friend of mine. After he went to the Air Ministry in 1938, we worked for the same objects. I gave him my full support, and undoubtedly he made an invaluable contribution to the readiness of the Royal Air Force to meet the mortal trial of 1940. He had been Chancellor of the Exchequer from the time I was called upon to form the National Government, and his record was a very fine one. His third Budget, balanced at five and three-quarter thousand millions, conformed to all the soundest principles of war-time finance. Half was raised by taxation. Our rate of borrowing was incredibly low. Instead of the slogan “Security and six per cent” of the First World War, we succeeded in borrowing enormous sums in the fifth year of this war at an average rate of two per cent. The cost of living had not risen by more than thirty per cent over the pre-war level. The “Pay as you earn” principle had occupied the closing weeks of Kingsley Wood’s life, and on the very day that he died he was looking forward to making a statement to the House on the subject. He had given effect, with high efficiency, to the request I made to him in 1940 to provide compensation for those whose homes and businesses were destroyed in the Blitz, by the elaborate insurance scheme which he devised. I spent the few hours that remained before the House met in preparing a tribute to him, which is on record.

In Sir John Anderson, at this time Lord President of the
Council and Chairman of our most important Cabinet Committee, and our chief representative on “Tube Alloys,” I found a worthy successor. John Anderson had been Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and also Head of the Home Office for ten years, but he had a far wider outlook than can be gained from any department. In the Irish troubles he had risked his life continually with the utmost composure, and this bearing was repeated when as Governor of Bengal an attempt was made to assassinate him. He had an acute and powerful mind, a firm spirit, and long experience of widely varied responsibilities. His appointment was announced on September 24.

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Except for a few chats on the deck, I had seen little of Sir Dudley Pound on our homeward voyage, as he kept to his cabin. On the train journey to London he sent me a letter formally resigning his office of First Sea Lord, of the burden of which I had relieved him when his illness became pronounced in Washington. The question of his successor required careful consideration. Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham was an obvious choice, proposed by the First Lord, Mr. Alexander, on account of the reputation which he had won in all the fighting in the Mediterranean. Could he, on the other hand, be spared from this scene at a time when so much was going forward and all operations expanding? In Admiral Fraser, then commanding the Home Fleet, we had an officer of the highest seagoing reputation, who had also long experience of Admiralty administration and Staff work. It was to him I first offered the post. The Admiral said that of course he would serve wherever he was sent, but that he thought Andrew Cunningham was the right man. “I believe I have the confidence of my own fleet,” he said. “Cunningham has that of the whole Navy.” He asked me to weigh the matter longer. I replied that his attitude was most becoming, and after further thought and consultation I took him at his word and decided to face the serious change in the Mediterranean fighting command Admiral Andrew Cunningham was therefore
chosen. His second-in-command, Admiral John Cunningham, took his place. The changes were announced to the public and the Service, who knew nothing of Pound’s illness, on October 4, when I published the following letter to Sir Dudley Pound:

  I am sorry indeed that you have felt it necessary to lay down your charge on account of your health, and that our four years’ work together in this war must come to an end. No one knows better than I the quality of your contribution, at the Admiralty and on the Chiefs of Staff Committee, to the safety of the country and the success of our arms. Your vast and precise knowledge of the sea war in all its aspects, your fortitude in times of anxiety and misfortune, your resourcefulness and readiness to run the risks without which victory can never be won, have combined to make your tenure as First Sea Lord memorable in the records of the Royal Navy.

You leave us at a moment when the control of the Mediterranean is virtually within our grasp, when the Italian Fleet has made its surrender in Malta Harbour, and when, above all, the U-boat peril has been broken in a degree never before seen in this war. These results have been of measureless value to your country, and your notable share in them sheds lustre on your name.

  Pound lived for barely a fortnight. He became completely paralysed by another more severe stroke. The last time I saw him, though his mind was as good as ever, he could neither speak nor move the greater part of his body. When I shook his left hand on parting, he gripped me with a most surprising strength. He had been a true comrade to me, both at the Admiralty and on the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He died on October 21, Trafalgar Day.

Admiral Fraser went back to his fleet at Scapa. At the end of the year he had the distinction of fighting in his own flagship and sinking the
Scharnhorst
in a direct encounter. This was a naval episode of high honour and importance. When I next saw him in London, I reminded him of the famous lines:

Not once or twice in our rough island-story
The path of duty was the way to glory.

The Admiral seemed all the more pleased because, as I judged, he had never heard the quotation before. I hoped he thought I had made it up myself on purpose.

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I have not burdened this account with the lengthy correspondence with the United States and Portugal which led to our agreement about the use by British and American flotillas and air forces of the extremely important key islands of the Azores. Everything was settled in a satisfactory manner, so that on October 12 I could report our conclusions to Parliament. “I have an announcement,” I said, “to make to the House arising out of the treaty signed between this country and Portugal in the year 1373 between His Majesty King Edward III and King Ferdinand and Queen Eleanor of Portugal.” I spoke in a level voice, and made a pause to allow the House to take in the date, 1373. As this soaked in, there was something like a gasp. I do not suppose any such continuity of relations between two Powers has ever been, or will ever be, set forth in the ordinary day-to-day work of British diplomacy.

  This treaty [I went on] was reinforced in various forms by treaties of 1386, 1643, 1654, 1660, 1661, 1703, and 1815, and in a secret declaration of 1899. In more modern times the validity of the Old Treaties was recognised in the Treaties of Arbration concluded with Portugal in 1904 and 1914. Article I of the Treaty of 1373 runs as follows:

“In the first place we settle and covenant that there shall be from this day forward … true, faithful, constant, mual, and perpetual friendships, unions, alliances, and needs of scere affection, and that as true and faithful friends we shall henceforth, reciprocally, be friends to friends and enemies to enemies, and shall assist, maintain, and uphold each other mutually, by sea and by land, against all men that may live or die.”

This engagement has lasted now for nearly six hundred years, and is without parallel in world history. I have now to announce its latest application. At the outset of the war, the Portuguese Government, in full agreement with His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, adopted a policy of neutrality with a view to
preventing the war spreading into the Iberian Peninsula. The Portuguese Government have repeatedly stated, most recently in Dr. Salazar’s speech of April 27, that the above policy is in no way inconsistent with the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, which was reaffirmed by the Portuguese Government in the early days of the war.

His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, basing themselves upon this ancient alliance, have now requested the Portuguese Government to accord them certain facilities in the Azores which will enable better protection to be provided for merchant shipping in the Atlantic. The Portuguese Government have agreed to grant this request, and arrangements, which enter into force immediately, have been concluded between the two Governments regarding (1) the conditions governing the use of the above facilities by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom and (2) British assistance in furnishing essential material and supplies to the Portuguese armed forces and the maintenance of the Portuguese national economy. The agreement concerning the use of facilities in the Azores is of a temporary nature only, and in no way prejudices the maintenance of Portuguese sovereignty over Portuguese territory.

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The next day I had to make a long speech to the House on the coal-mining situation, which was affected by the vital need of coal and the claims of the fighting forces for man-power, and also by the underlying threat of the nationalisation of the coal-mines, which was a suspended issue between the parties. There had been a lot of rumblings on this point, and I was concerned only with the maintenance of national unity.

  I thought it might help if I reminded the House at the outset of this discussion of the general foundations upon which we stand at the present time. We have a National Coalition Government, which came together to try to pull the nation out of the forlorn and sombre plight into which the action, or inaction, of all political parties over a long period of years had landed it. I stand very well placed in that matter, having been out for eleven years. What holds us together is the prosecution of the war. No Socialist or Liberal or Labour man has been in any way asked to give up his convictions. That would be indecent and improper. We are held together by something outside, which rivets all our attention. The principle that we work on is, “Everything for the war, whether controversial or not, and nothing controversial that is not
bona fide
needed for the war.” That is our position.

We must also be careful that a pretext is not made of war needs to introduce far-reaching social or political changes by a side-wind. Take the question of nationalising the coal-mines. Those words do not terrify me at all. I advocated nationalisation of the railways after the last war, but I am bound to say that I was a bit affected by the experience of the national control of the railways after the war, which led to the public getting a very bad service, to the shareholders having very unsatisfactory returns, and to one of the most vicious and hazardous strikes with which I have ever been concerned. However, as I say, the principle of nationalisation is accepted by all, provided proper compensation is paid. The argument proceeds not on moral grounds, but on whether in fact we could make a more fertile business for the nation as a whole by nationalisation than by relying on private enterprise and competition. It would raise a lot of difference of opinion and be a tremendous business to nationalise the coal-mines, and unless it could be proved to the conviction of the House and of the country and to the satisfaction of the responsible Ministers that that was the only way in which we could win the war, we should not be justified in embarking upon it without a General Election. It would be very difficult to have a General Election at the present time. …

I am told and can well realise that anxiety exists among the miners about what is to happen to them and their industry after the war. They had a very grim experience after the last war, which went on biting away at them for a long period, and greatly affected the whole conception that they had of mining as a means of getting their living. I know that there is anxiety. We can all lie awake thinking of the nightmares that we are going to suffer after the war is over, and everyone has his perplexities and anxieties about that time. But I for one, being an optimist, do not think peace is going to be so bad as war, and I hope we shall not try to make it as bad. After the last war, which I lived through in a responsible position nearly everyone behaved as badly as he could, and the country was at times almost uncontrollable. We have profited a great deal in this war by the experience of the last. We make war
much better than we did, owing to previous experience. We are also going to try to profit to the full by the hard experience of what happened in the last peace. I am casting no reflection on the Government of that day when I say that, armed with their dear-bought experience, we shall make the transition from war to peace in a more orderly and disciplined fashion than we did last time.