Out Brief Candle

There were changes among Prime Minister Winston Churchill's help last week that fascinated many people but surprised no one. Most fascinating, least surprising: brilliant, leftist, politically inept Sir Stafford Cripps moved out as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal, left the War Cabinet.

Sir Stafford was invited to become Minister of Aircraft Production where results are measured in comparative statistics rather than in moral and intellectual values. Anthony Eden, who firmly regained his place as Britain's No. 2 man as Sir Stafford's light guttered in recent months, added Parliamentary leadership to his present duties as Foreign Secretary. Autocratic little Herbert Morrison, already loaded with administrative duties as Home Secretary (A.R.P., Home Security, German prisoners, etc.), took Sir Stafford's active, argumentative place in the War Cabinet.

Air Production Minister Colonel J. J. Llewellin, announcing that production of heavy British bombers is now "three times that of last year," prepared to become Resident Minister in charge of supply matters in Washington. Secretary for Colonies Viscount Cranborne took Sir Stafford's post as Lord Privy Seal (possibly to await appointment as new Viceroy of India to succeed Lord Linlithgow).

Last February British public opinion, frustrated by bad war news, distrustful of Tory party politics, gathering in a wave of pro-Russian sentiment, made it highly politic for Churchill to take Sir Stafford Cripps into his Cabinet. The time-tested Tory maneuver of swallowing a critic then ingurgitated Cripps, who became the official apologist for Government policies he had previously criticized.

After the failure of Sir Stafford's mission to India and his halfhearted explanations of last summer's military inactivity, his stock dropped rapidly among his heterogeneous political supporters. At the peak of his popularity last spring Sir Stafford was often spoken of as a potential Prime Minister. He did not choose to move for immediate power. Instead he chose the hope of influencing the Churchillian mind and of becoming Britain's post-war reconstruction leader. In effect he seemed to have pointed himself toward the political ash can.

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