Bewildered

With 38.7% of its articulate readership on record as "bewildered" about the war and 46% "determined"' (TIME, April 1), last week Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express suggested that the public be "given a clear indication as to the manner in which the Government believe victory can be won." As M. P.s packed up to return to London for the reconvening of Parliament this week, Great Britain's bewilderment had given birth to deep-seated public dissatisfaction with the way its Government was running the "strangest of wars." While the Allied Supreme War Council talked tough, while France's new Premier Paul Reynaud promised action of some sort, Great Britain contented herself with recalling all her Balkan envoys for a talkfest.

> End-the-war moves appeared on the Left of British politics. Representatives of 4,573,000 working people in the Cooperative Party voted only 3-to-1 against a resolution condemning the war as imperialistic and demanding an immediate armistice. Independent Labor Party leaders at a meeting in Nottingham came out flatly for peace.

> Since the death of Rudyard Kipling, the British Empire has found no louder rooter than little Max Aitken, the pulse-taking Express's Canadian-born publisher. The onetime bottle-washer came out with a long personal editorial upholding among other things the aristocratic principle ("an aristocracy of political heritage under the influence of a democratic vote"). But even Publisher Max had "no interest in rescuing Poland and Czecho-Slovakia from the gutter," was for the war only because the Empire was now in it.

> Between the pacifism of the Left and the pat-standing of the Right, most Britons were as exasperated as the Sunday Pictorial, which snarled: "The British Empire was not built by the dozy fools who think we can 'muddle through.' And the muddlers will not save it for our sons. . . . Let us remember that in the last resort it is the 'under fifties' who will win this war--and not the over seventies."

Dead Generation. Common denominator of this discontent was general discouragement with doziness and lacklustre leadership. For the fact remained that precious few able "under fifties'' were in view. The leaders of Germany. Italy and even France have for better or worse been pushed up from the masses. The generation of Britain's show-running aristocracy which should now be in the saddle is pushing up poppies in Flanders fields. Not even sandy Winston Churchill's latest whistling in the dark ("we are certainly by no means inclined to shrink") could alter the big fact that Britain's owning classes were resigned to the prospect of financial ruin as a result of their second world war in 25 years, that its press was on the whole supinely uncritical (Premier Molotov's speech was even interpreted as "Russia Joins Neutrals"), and that a great mass of its people sensed the ideological palsy of a government which was not so much out to win in World War II as to preserve itself in power.

Party Whip. The Parliamentary situa tion in Great Britain last week was almost the historic parallel of World War I's oust-Asquith agitation, but with two important differences: 1) the Opposition has no alternative program to offer and no leader even vaguely comparable to the Lloyd George of 1916; 2) in Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's own party a vigorous, if unhealthy, discipline is wielded by the Conservative Whip, Captain Rt. Hon. David Margesson.

This Party martinet is a tall, dark-skinned onetime adjutant of the11th Hussars. He won the Military Cross in World War I. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge, he has been a thoroughgoing Tory since he was elected to the House of Commons in 1922. He became Chief Party Whip in 1931 and immediately began to distinguish himself for his energy and political realism. When a new Tory member reaches Westminster, Captain Margesson takes him aside and gives him a stiff lecture on Party regularity. He is supposed to keep a black book of members who have deviated from the Party line. Ambitious, he has been mentioned for Cabinet posts, including that of First Lord of the Admiralty. He is no friend of Winston Churchill.

Since Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister he has made Captain Margesson his closest confidant, has given him control of all junior appointments. These are so widely spread that about half the Tories in Parliament hold Government jobs. Joining the Manchester Guardian's campaign for Margesson's scalp, the London Evening Standard last week gave reasons for its stand:

"Arguments are cut short by the crack of the whip. Like Disraeli, Captain Margesson believes that a majority is always the best repartee. . . . It is intolerable that members should spend long hours debating the merits of, say, the appointment of an Economics Minister, only to discover at the end that the issue has been settled before the debate even began."

Noting that in wartime Chief Whip Margesson cannot create voting constituency trouble, as he once did for Churchill, the Standard concludes: "That weapon is now broken in Captain Margesson's hand. He is a Himmler without his castor oil. This is the moment for revenge."

No Singer. In spite of all the hue & cry, Neville Chamberlain and his old school ties were expected to keep on muddling. There was little else he could do. considering the material with which he had surrounded himself. William Shepherd ("Shakespeare") Morrison, 46, having flopped as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, kept on flopping as Food Minister, as witnessed by last week's mutton glut. Geoffrey William Lloyd, 38, Stanley Baldwin's onetime white-haired boy, was a Secretary for Mines who knew nothing about mines. The Ministry of Economic Warfare had gone to Ronald Hibbert Cross, former Whip, at least in part as a reward for faithful service. So it went.

Saddest aspect is that the Conservative Party has so far been unable to produce replacements. Anthony Eden muffed his chance and up-&-coming Malcolm MacDonald is only a baby of 39. Such men as Harold MacMillan, Richard Kidston Law and Alfred Duff Cooper are unavailable because they once opposed Chamberlain, who, like the elephant and Captain Margesson. never forgets. Labor, which has one star performer, Herbert Stanley Morrison, the able slum-clearing boss of the London County Council, has so far abstained from coalition with the Government. Britain's pitiful dearth of leadership material was best illustrated by the frequency with which David Lloyd George's name was mentioned for heading up a "Ginger Group." The old war horse is 77, but still has gumption.

As Parliament reconvened it was expected that Chamberlain would shuffle his nine-man War Cabinet, possibly reduce it to five men unhampered by other ministerial duties. But any real jarring of Britain's Tories would have to come from outside, such as a big military defeat or fait accompli in the Balkans. Until then the abstaining Opposition could bide its time. The British people had to.

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