"Man Who Was Right"

The pleasant London of the right, tight little British ruling class is such a small place that what goes on quickly reaches the ears of everyone who matters without benefit of newspapers. There was no need last week to advertise that No. 18 Cadogan Gardens is for sale. Still less need to explain this little fact's large significance. It meant that esteemed Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who in his lovable way makes from time to time such disastrous bumbles, had decided to call back into the cabinet "The Man Who Was Right."

In upperclass London this tag now designates Lieut. Colonel the Right Honorable Sir Samuel John Gurney Hoare, Bart., of No. 18 Cadogan Gardens; and a very short search at the Foreign Office would discover "The Man Who Was Wrong" in upperclass eyes, Captain the Right Honorable Robert Anthony Eden, today His Majesty's Principal Secretary of

State for Foreign Affairs. Last week, however, Mr. Baldwin did not go so far as to turn Mr. Eden out and restore Sir Samuel to the Foreign Secretaryship. That would have been crass.

Seven months ago, when the Prime Minister needed to win Britain's last General Election, he turned the trick by having Anthony Eden appear dazzlingly in Britain's public eye as the Siegfried of Diplomacy, the handsome young man who was going to save Ethiopia from Italy with that flaming sword, the League of Nations. Having won the election Mr. Baldwin, who had created for "Tony" Eden the hitherto unheard of office of "Minister for League of Nations Affairs," sat back contentedly to let Ethiopia and Italy be dealt with in practical fashion by Sir Samuel Hoare, then Foreign Secretary, and by the bril liant professionals of the Foreign Office whose permanent head is Sir Robert Gilbert Vansittart. In a few short weeks, by cooperating closely with the then French Premier, thick-lipped and unprepossessing Pierre Laval, they had produced "The Deal" (TIME, Dec. 16) ready for signing in Paris.

As signed by Sir Samuel Hoare and M. Pierre Laval, with every prospect that it would be accepted by Benito Mussolini and adorned with the signature of Haile Selassie after a little suasion, "The Deal" provided in essence that II Duce should content himself with roughly half of Ethiopia and agree to the continued rule of its Emperor over the rest. Had "The Deal" gone through, Ethiopians would have been spared the horrors of wide spread poison gas warfare; Haile Selassie would have been reigning in Addis Ababa last week instead of being snubbed in London (see p. 20) ; and Britain, France and Italy might have resumed their "Stresa Front" against the ambitions of Adolf Hitler. Advantages of "The Deal" were so obvious, and it had been so entirely conceived by the best professional brains of Whitehall, that astonishment was the mood of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin when he discovered that British public opinion considered this a "Dirty Deal," betraying not only Ethiopia but also the British voter who had balloted for honest Stanley Baldwin in the belief that his Siegfried Eden, plus the League of Nations, plus the British Navy were going to bluff Benito Mussolini clean out of Ethiopia.

Complicating the situation was Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain's ambition to succeed Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister. Chances for this would be bettered if Sir Samuel Hoare came a cropper, for he was then Mr. Chamberlain's chief rival to be future occupant of No. 10 Downing St. Something had to be decided quickly and Chancellor Chamberlain's respected halfbrother, Sir Austen Chamberlain, Knight of the Garter and Nobel Peace Prizeman, was zealous in telling the befuddled Stanley Baldwin what a dirty, dirty deal the whole thing really was. In an amazing House of Commons scene the Prime Minister, after trying to bluff "The Deal" through with the claim that if only his lips could be unsealed its virtues would be clear (TIME, Dec. 23), finally did a public reverse and spurned "The Deal." Promptly Sir Samuel Hoare insisted on resigning as Foreign Secretary and was succeeded by Mr. Anthony Eden, of whom the Prime Minister later said: "He enjoys my entire confidence and may remain Foreign Secretary for the next 20 years!"

By last week a succession of hard mishaps in Europe had made the most pressing business of His Majesty's Government to rearm Great Britain as speedily as possible. Since the British Navy is still the favorite arm of the King's subjects, and since present British Naval battle planes are notably behind the times, it was both conferring a great honor and making a smart move last week to bring "Flying Sam" Hoare back to full Cabinet rank as First Lord of the British Admiralty--i. e. Secretary for the Navy.

Sir Samuel has the string of friendships in potent "Naval families" necessary to a First Lord, and having once been Secretary of State for Air he can be trusted to put the Admiralty's planes on a par with the world's best. This week No. 18 Cadogan Gardens is for sale partly because Sir Samuel has been intending to build a house better suited to display his treasures, but chiefly because as First Lord he will reside with Lady Maud at Admiralty House, Whitehall in the sumptuous residence which the aristocratic British Navy provides for its chief.

In dispatches last week Sir Samuel's return to the National Government figured as of major import, most correspondents feeling that indirectly it sounded the knell of League Sanctions, some indulging in flat prophesy that, within some such period as two years, "Flying Sam" will have become successively first Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Prime Minister.

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