Comments on: Churchill’s Magnanimity: Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947) http://localhost:8080/baldwin-memorial Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian Sun, 27 Oct 2024 14:26:36 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Gregory Koster http://localhost:8080/baldwin-memorial#comment-58601 Sat, 30 Jul 2022 16:19:16 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=13107#comment-58601 The coal strike, which sparked the General Strike, carried on until the end of 1926, ending in defeat for the miners, a lot of bitterness and seriously damaged Churchill’s reputation on the Left. That the General Strike happened at all doesn’t say much for the case that the standard of living was improving. The magnanimity Churchill showed both Baldwin and Chamberlain was far more evident in public than in private. It is also less fair to blame Baldwin for the state of British preparedness, since WSC was his Chancellor of in 1924-29, slashing war budgets, blithely asserting that there was no chance of war with Japan in his lifetime. Whereas Chamberlain actually did loosen the pursestrings toward the end of his tenure, though nowhere near what was needed. Many thanks for this second go round. I also want to thank you for the advice you gave me some years ago on assembling a set of The World Crisis.
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Indeed true about the strike damaging his reputation on the left. But prosperity is relative, and was better under Baldwin than in the early 1920s. So is rearmament. Times change, perspectives change. In the 1920s Japan was a WW1 ally and the Ten Year Rule prevailed. WSC did acknowledge Chamberlain’s rearmament, without which he couldn’t have won the Battle of Britain. Thanks for the kind words. —RML

]]> By: Gregory Koster http://localhost:8080/baldwin-memorial#comment-58591 Sat, 30 Jul 2022 12:15:10 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=13107#comment-58591 “The second was a five years’ steady improvement, judged by every test, in the standards of life, labour and employment of the British people….”

Wonder what that General Strike in 1926, was about, then?

Also fitting to remember that Baldwin, after picking Churchill out of the political wilderness in 1924, by making Churchill Chancellor of the Exchequer, never gave Churchill any preferment in the next fifteen years. Neville Chamberlain didn’t promote Churchill either—until the war forced his hand in 1939. Easier to be magnanimous to someone who finally does promote you after fighting to keep you out, compared to someone who promoted you once, then successfully fought to keep you out for years.
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Gregory, those are very valid points, though the General Strike was an anomaly in the five yeats 1925-29, and didn’t last a fortnight. And surely the point is that Churchill was magnanimous toward them both, though he did hold Baldwin more responsible for the state of defenses in 1939. -RML

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