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Beware of Viscount Halifax! He is the “Holy Fox” to those who combine the inside dope with a taste for puns. He is both religious—and Master of the Foxhounds. True, President Roosevelt accorded him a royal welcome at Annapolis when he landed on these shores. But in the wake of the Presidential welcome the wave of gossip rolled along. Isn’t Lord Halifax an appeaser? And a war-monger into the bargain? He is a British Imperialist, an unrepentant old-school-tie Tory, representing an outworn feudal system. Or he was so, to many Americans, when he disembarked to assume what Winston Churchill termed “the most important post at this time which any British subject can occupy outside the United Kingdom.” Since then a few months have gone by, and the Viscount—a quiet, unassuming man, full of the noblest home-grown inhibitions—is well on the way to becoming the most popular ambassador His Britannic Majesty has ever sent to this country.

Certainly he is the most courageous. He by no means limited his personal contacts to the upper set. Very much to the contrary he criss-crossed this country, singling out some of the allegedly hottest centers of Midwestern Isolationism, to explain the British cause in a series of speeches which sometimes may have sounded unimaginative, but were always utterly convincing in their honesty. Everywhere the applause that bade him farewell sounded some degrees warmer than the welcome he had received.

One of his paramount achievements in the service of truth is to have cut through the muddle and confusion of wartime information from the battle-front. After a few months in his Washington office he established an entirely new and well co-ordinated news service that, now, gives Americans access to uncensored and undiluted facts. He trusts in America’s sound judgment.

Moreover, he trusts in God. This faith in God, he reiterates, does not interfere with his matter-of-fact realism. To him, as to Americans, this faith is both soil and ceiling, out of and into which a practical approach to the problems grows. Those who have watched Halifax’s development in later years are not astonished to observe how he has eased up in the American atmosphere. More freely than any of his predecessors he mingles with the people who speak the same language, if another slang. He is omnipresent at church services and club dinners, at benefits, parades, celebrations, in colleges and at the conference table. Differing slightly in manners and accent, the Yorkshireman fits perfectly into the social picture of Milwaukee and Kansas City.

Milwaukee and Kansas City, for their part, and Lord Halifax, for his, have recognized that, after all, neither is quite as bad as outworn prejudices may have made them seem.

Acme Photo

LORD HALIFAX

This country is in good company, if it takes to him surprisingly quickly. His most embittered opponents have always fallen for Halifax. During his term as Viceroy of India, General Haushofer in his magnum opus World Politics To-day wrote of him: “He is the one white man carrying the burden of the heaviest responsibilities in our days.” The joke is that the author of this sentence is Hitler’s brain-truster number one, the founder of the theory of German world domination, and a vitriolic foe of the British Empire. Another gentleman of the same persuasion, the Nazi-fed Indian revolutionary, Taraknath Das, in his book India in World Politics—which, of course, was first published in Germany—paid Viscount Halifax this compliment: “He always met the Indian leaders in an entirely different way than did the Viceroys before him. He always treated them with respect for their convictions.” Midget-sized great Gandhi went to jail, where the Viceroy, much to his regret, was obliged to send him, with a declaration of brotherly sympathy for his vice-regal jailer. One of Halifax’s latest personal conquests was, of all people, our own Joe Kennedy, who said: “Halifax is the noblest figure in public life I have encountered, almost a saint. Everybody becomes enamoured of him.” Whereupon Mr. Kennedy returned home, where his speeches have served further to confuse English-American relations.

No doubt, Viscount Halifax is a mysterious figure. Mystery permeates his family. His father was a widely known collector of demoniacal masks which startled his visitors. Besides, he kept a large number of human skulls, acquired from London doctors, in his home. Finally, he wrote ghost-stories, which, incidentally, were published in Hearst’s American Weekly, colorfully illustrated, after the old gentleman’s death. Lady Halifax, the ambassador’s wife, it is reported, had her forthcoming marriage to the then Mr. Edward Wood, predicted by a palmist. And the ambassador himself, famous as a religious mystic, reads the Bible every morning and mystery thrillers every night. Small wonder that there appears to be something enigmatic about him.

Perfect purity, alas, is an enigma in our times.

In spite of his high-sounding name and titles, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, third Viscount Halifax of Monk Bretton, first Baron Irwin of Kirby Underdale, Knight of the Garter, Privy Councillor, Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India and Knight Grand Commander of the Indian Empire, is the average Englishman. Indeed, he is the quintessence of the Englishman. To him applies the passage that George Savile, first Marquess of Halifax, wrote with a quill on old parchment: “Our Trimmer is far from idolatry in other things, in one thing alone he cometh near it, his country is in some degree his idol; he doth not worship the sun, because ’tis not peculiar to us, it rambles about the world, and it is less kind to us than to others; but for the earth of England, though perhaps inferior to many places abroad, to him there is divinity in it, and he would rather die than see a spire of English grass trampled down by a foreign trespasser; he thinketh there are a great many things of his mind, for all plants are apt to taste of the soil in which they grow, and we that have grown here have a root that produceth in us a stalk of English juice, which is not to be changed by grafting or foreign infusion.”

There is, of course, no “foreign infusion” among the Woods of Yorkshire. They have settled all over the county, all of them distantly related to each other and to the Halifax branch, which attained a baronetcy in 1784. Sir Charles Wood, the grandfather of the present ambassador, was a famous statesman in the second half of the last century. From 1859 to 1866, he served as Secretary of State for India, thus establishing the family’s “Indian tradition” which his grandson so successfully carried on. It is said that Sir Charles inherited the Indian Empire for the Crown upon the dissolution of the East India Company. In 1866, Queen Victoria created him a Viscount. His son, the second Viscount Halifax, although an important figure in domestic affairs, devoted his long life to Church matters, primarily to an effort to reunite the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church. He interested Pope Leo XIII, the Archbishop of Canterbury, several Roman Cardinals and High Church Bishops in his project, which he zealously regarded as his sacred mission, without, however, realizing his dream. Nevertheless, it is important to note this devotion, since it is the most precious heritage the elder Halifax has passed on to his son, the present Viscount. The entire life of the man who now represents Great Britain in Washington unfolds against the background of his deep religious convictions. As a scholar and a reformer, a statesman, diplomat, member of more cabinets than any other man in England—with the single exception of Winston Churchill—as a politician, officer, Viceroy, he was, and he remains, first and foremost a devout Christian. Religious devotion is his strength and, some critics add, his weakness. Did his unwavering Christian love not lead Halifax down the way of appeasement? Does Christianity soften the believer? Perhaps. But there are numerous examples, from the Christians in the catacombs to Halifax’s determined struggle for victory in the present war, to prove that religious conviction also makes tough fighters.

Like many devout institutionalists, Halifax’s father was a strict disciplinarian at home. Like many strict disciplinarians he was a severely tested man. His three elder sons were afflicted with tuberculosis and died in their early childhood. The father bowed to the Almighty’s will. He buried his sons in the churchyard of Hickleton Hall, near Doncaster, one of the two family seats acquired by the first Viscount in the year 1882. The other one, which the present Viscount regards as his home, is the estate of Garrowby in the East Riding of Yorkshire, a red brick structure around a cobbled courtyard, standing in a green, hilly park in the woods. Amazingly, the old man is said to have decorated the three graves with three skulls from his collection. He devoted his fatherly passion to his last remaining boy, Edward.

Edward was born on April 16, 1881, at his mother’s country home. He was an oversized baby, “quite enormous,” his proud father boasted, but with a withered left arm. Another withered left arm once made history. It gave Wilhelm II the inferiority complex that drove the Emperor into bullying and bossing a world whose contempt he feared. The Woods of Yorkshire, in contrast to the semi-Prussian—really Swabian—Hohenzollerns, are unafraid. Edward, the quite enormous baby, remained true to type. Today the ambassador stands six feet five, and has never noticed his slight handicap. Already, in his early youth, he excelled as a sportsman. He became a formidable tennis champion, he is famous as a huntsman, and he was “born on a horse.” Indeed, he learned horseback riding before he could walk. His father, meticulously careful in this, as in all things, decided every morning whether gigantic little Edward, should practise walking or riding. It was, morning by morning, an important decision. As a much-beloved only remaining son, the child grew up into boyhood.

Next to religion, politics was his heritage. Politics is a duty as well as a privilege to the ruling classes of England. Inescapably, the country squire must devote much of his life to public welfare, either in his own neighborhood or in the Empire. This benevolent feudalism is under strict democratic control. Even organized Socialists speak approvingly of “those who rule us.” Perhaps the war is bringing about a total change in these conditions. But it will take more than an upheaval to separate the Yorkshire people from the Wood family. The local farmers and workers hold Viscount Halifax in high esteem. He responds by feeling closely bound to them. He certainly would prefer the quiet life in his home, Garrowby Hall, to the heavy duties in the newish brick building on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D. C., which houses the British Embassy. But the fulfillment of his duty is beyond personal wishes. He once disclosed his private predilection in a sentence that quickly found wide currency: “I would rather be Master of the Foxhounds than Prime Minister.” To be Master of the Foxhounds means glorified rural life. Lord Halifax does not overemphasize the glorification. The woods, the forests, the fields and moors of Yorkshire, belong to all Yorkshire people. And the squire belongs to them, too. Lord Halifax likes to chat with his neighbors. He takes his private polls of public opinion. In the days of the Abyssinian conflict, a railway porter who carried his bag, felt highly honored when the Viscount, instead of asking him when the train left, inquired what he thought about the sanctions against Italy. Lord Halifax speaks the language of the people. Although a distinguished student at Oxford, he never affected the Oxford accent.

At Christ Church College, Oxford, after the prescribed number of years at Eton, Halifax took his degree with highest honors in modern history. His remarkable work as an undergraduate brought him a fellowship at All Souls College, where he took his M.A. “All Souls” is that unique college in which there are no students, only fellows—prominent men of state, of affairs, religion and education, who ponder what they like to call “the broader lines” of life and events over a glass of wine, looking thoughtfully into the blue smoke of exquisite cigars. Modestly, never outspoken, they pride themselves on their intellectual dominance of the realm. It was here that the intimate friendship that exists between Lord Halifax and Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, began. Here begin many friendships between the more enlightened youths of the British peerage. The gentlemen are not necessarily Tories. There is a distinct group of Oxford Socialists, representing the freedom of thought and teaching in Britain. Although strict and, if you like, old-fashioned in religious matters, Halifax always showed his enlightenment in Imperial affairs. He never belonged to the uncompromising Imperialists of Winston Churchill’s school. He has not, like the latter, molded his mind in the barracks of Aldershot and the garrisons of India—although Churchill, it is well known, did a considerable amount of independent thinking in his “long Indian nights.” Churchill has frequently expressed his regret that, galloping through a turbulent youth, he was deprived of the intellectual stimulus of an Oxford education. Halifax, on the other hand, is deeply affected by this stimulus. He was once heard regretting that Hitler and Mussolini had not studied at his own university. “They might still have turned out Socialists, but not outlaws,” he said. And he sighed, “The world would have been easier to manage.” Among all the honors in the course of his rich and fruitful career, Halifax prizes highest the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford that was bestowed on him in 1933, for both his scholarly and statesmanlike achievements.

In September, 1909, the then Mr. Edward Wood married Lady Dorothy Onslow, daughter of the Earl of Onslow. Half a year earlier, so the story goes, this marriage was predicted when Lady Dorothy was consulting a fortune-teller, who read the name of her prospective husband in the palm of her hand. The seer also predicted a model marriage, and his prophecy came true. Lady Halifax belongs among those great English ladies, like Lady Baldwin, Mrs. Annie Chamberlain, the widow of Neville Chamberlain, and Mrs. Churchill who are their husbands’ active collaborators. She made a tremendous success as a diplomatic hostess and Vicereine. She is said to read her husband’s speeches before their delivery, and to express a very independent and sound judgment on them.

It might be inserted here that Lord Halifax’s speeches do not kindle the flames of eloquence. Perhaps this explains why the people of England, while always respecting him, took a long time to warm up to him. His unimaginative style is partly due to paternal influences. Although the second Viscount Halifax was extremely formal in his manner, and has bestowed a rich heritage of Victorian politeness on his son, he distrusted words. “If a thing is right, it is simply done!” was his creed. Verbosity seemed undistinguished to him. This paternal influence has tended to increase Lord Halifax’s natural shyness. He is too shy to admit this shyness. Although not the popular type of after-dinner speaker, he is not above beginning his speeches with an anecdote and interspersing them with jokes. His humor is typically English. It expresses wisdom in terms of everyday trifles. Among Halifax’s favorite appeals to unity is the story of the inquisitive old lady, about to board a steamer, asking a sailor if he could tell her which end of the boat would start first. “If all goes well, Madame,” the sailor replied, “both ends start together.” And the Viscount rarely forgets to add: “The example of this boat is one we may all follow with advantage.” This philosophical remark invariably invites a salvo of applause.

Yet one is aware that he is not always perfectly at ease when standing in the limelight—that is, until his conscience or simply his stubbornness is aroused. Hecklers don’t have it all their own way with him, particularly when he feels that there is bad will in their questioning. Then his elaborate sentences suddenly become terse; he no longer minces words, and even his face shows the strain of the self-imposed discipline that alone prevents an explosion. For the rest his speaking is unexciting. His temperate habits govern his tongue. But his voice resounds with a genuine ring that is more convincing than dramatic accents would be. His speech is not loaded with burning passion, but there is in it a determination indicative of unbreakable strength and uncompromising courage. It is the strength and the courage an otherwise conciliatory personality derives from his deep attachment to the Christian way of life.

In 1910, at the age of twenty-nine, and a few months after his marriage, he was elected Member of Parliament for Ripon in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He kept his seat for fifteen years until he was shifted to the House of Lords. (Twenty-seven years after his first election to the Commons, his son, the Honorable Charles Wood, then twenty-five, was elected to the constituency of York.) He was a modest back-bencher in these years of political grooming, conspicuous only on account of his uncommon height, which he obviously sought to conceal by a slight stoop. This droop of the shoulders, even in front of the camera, is still characteristic of Lord Halifax. It looks almost as if he wanted to descend to the average height of his fellow men.

At the outbreak of the first World War he formed a troop of Yeomanry of the country people. His Yorkshire Dragoons were among the advance guard of the B.E.F. in France. Their commander was promoted to the rank of Major. He left the front-line only once, in 1916, to fulfill an important parliamentary duty. He sided with the Conservative malcontents who expressed their dissatisfaction with Mr. Asquith’s fatigued conduct of the war. It was the first time but not the last that an emergency turned the quiet friend of compromise into a determined fighter. Edward Wood pleaded for a smaller, but stronger, war cabinet, and advocated immediate conscription. Some members of the government were reluctant to introduce this measure, and Sir John—now Viscount—Simon resigned on account of it. Already, as a young back-bencher, Halifax, then Mr. Wood, stood high above party strife. Although a true-blue Tory, he announced his readiness to support any party government, even one that included Labour, if it was prepared to carry on the war with more vigor. Considering the distrust with which Labour was still regarded in high circles, this was a courageous statement.

A year later, in 1917, Major Wood took part in the work of the National Service Department, whose first director was a provincial politician, of local rather than national reputation, the Mayor of Birmingham, Mr. Neville Chamberlain. “Appeasement” had not yet been invented. Halifax was one of the two hundred signers of the famous Conservative resolution demanding harsher terms for Germany, when the first World War was over. He urged Lloyd George, at the Peace Conference, to “eschew” clemency toward the vanquished.

Lloyd George was not particularly impressed by this appeal. Yet it brought the young back-bencher to his attention. Here was a newcomer, remarkable for his assiduous behavior and for the sincerity of his attitude. Lloyd George, always a fisher of souls, gave him, in 1921, the minor job of Under Secretary for Colonies. In the same job Winston Churchill, many years earlier, had embarked upon his governmental career. Coincidentally, he was at the head of his old department when Edward Wood moved in as number two man. But Churchill soon switched over to the War Ministry so that no intimate collaboration had time to develop.

The newcomer made a remarkably good job of his first assignment in government. He quickly familiarized himself with the extremely complicated material, and won unanimous applause when he formally moved the Vote of Supply of his department, in July. With Mr. Ormsby-Gore, afterwards Lord Harlech, he spent two months in the West Indies and British Guiana. This was both his first visit to the Western Hemisphere and the first time that members of a British government had visited these colonies. He wrote a report of his survey, which rapidly became a best-seller in the West Indies. The constitutional changes in the statute of these colonial dependencies which followed in 1922, were based on this report. Even the Labour spokesman called them “winged words of wisdom.”

The only man in England to express his displeasure with the promising young statesman was his discoverer, Mr. Lloyd George. The Tory revolution that upset the coalition government and led to the establishment of the short-lived Bonar Law cabinet, in October, 1922, promoted some of the Conservative Under Secretaries of the defunct coalition to full-fledged cabinet members. Edward Wood was among them. He was advanced to the Presidency of the Board of Education. All England welcomed the choice of this scholarly man for the position. But Lloyd George could never forgive those who decided to join the new masters, even though this course was prescribed to them by party affiliation.

Many years later even, the old Celtic wizard had not learned to conceal his grudge. Walking through an orchard, he remarked bitterly to a friend, pointing out a particular tree: “Observe its rich foliage. See how magnificently it casts its shadow. But it bears no fruit. I call this tree—Halifax.”

Lloyd George, who won the first war, was a bad loser where his personal vanity was involved. Stanley Baldwin, now Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, who helped England to lose the peace, has, on the other hand, a winning personality. He soon established close contact with Edward Wood, whose virtues, and still more, whose high birth irresistibly appealed to the businessman from Sheffield. Forming his own government, Mr. Baldwin re-appointed him to the office he had held under Bonar Law.

Although the Board of Education was not concerned with foreign affairs, Halifax soon had an opportunity to make his debut in international politics. In 1923, Mr. Baldwin chose him to represent Great Britain at the League of Nations meeting which was to settle the complicated problem of the Saar. It was a difficult job. The first wave of the strong pro-German feeling that blinded England throughout the following years was just then mounting. Versailles had only deprived the Reich of French and Polish settled districts. The small Saarland, however, whose fate Geneva was to decide, was overwhelmingly German. Halifax felt convinced that it belonged “home to the Reich.” On the other hand, French feelings were to be considered. The French began to distrust the reliability of their English partner. Furthermore, German strong-arm gangs, predecessors of the Nazis, terrorized the Saar electorate, which did not help the German cause in the atmosphere of Geneva. Halifax threw his weight on the side of moderation. He made an excellent impression on his diplomatic audience. But when he returned to London, everybody knew that the Saar would return to the Reich.

Baldwin was elated with his choice. In his second cabinet, in October, 1924, he made Edward Wood Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The offices of President of the Board of Education and Minister of Agriculture were traditional gentlemen’s jobs; the one, held by an outstanding scholar, the other by a big landowner. Halifax was both. But he was more. Already, he was a man of rare and refined qualities who stood, as it were, on a lonely peak. Critics retreated before his impregnable character. They could not measure him with their customary yardsticks. To them he was more convincing than compelling. Yet no one could escape the impression of his absolute unselfishness, of his devotion and candor. He was a serious-minded man who could occasionally be a witty conversationalist. He lived for his task, his country, his ideas. Still, one sometimes felt that to him politics were something external. His conception of mankind was brotherly, but his innermost self was impenetrable. He was a junior cabinet member, obviously destined for a great future, when the first whisper of his “enigma” arose. It is the enigma of the English character.

Harold Begbie, who wrote under the pen name “A Gentleman with a Duster,” a shrewd judge of men, pierced this enigma in describing Viscount Halifax, who at the time—1924—aged forty-three, was still Mr. Edward Wood. “Men of all parties recognize in his personality something that is admirable,” he said. “I call Edward Wood the highest kind of Englishman now in politics, for the following reason: He is a man whose life and doctrine are in complete harmony with a very lofty moral principle, but who has no harsh judgments for men who err and go astray.... He believes without a shadow of doubt that Conservatism is the truest and most enduring form of politics, but he can see the good that is in Labour, and in the sorrows and sufferings of the depressed classes he can perceive at least some excuse for the wild words of the extremists.”

A harmonious mixture of stubbornness and tolerance—that is how Halifax, the typical Englishman, appears in this description. And this mixture explains why the English are putting up such a glorious show in this war.

Promising English politicians with the right background, the right connections and affiliations are for half their lives the object of untiring guesswork. Will he become Prime Minister? is the inevitable question that disturbs their sleep and spoils their appetite. There are at least three coming men in every government, and some of them have been “coming,” from their Eton days to their seventieth birthday—the day when the successful British statesman retires into the peerage.

The Honorable Edward Wood was a much-favored speculation for Prime Minister. But in his forty-fifth year it seemed as if the door leading to the highest office in the Kingdom would suddenly be slammed in his face. Baldwin was looking for a new Viceroy of India. Someone was needed who would impress the Indians with English sincerity. A man with knowledge, culture, gentleness of manner was badly wanted; one who knew that all God’s children have invisible wings. Baldwin’s choice fell on “the noblest Christian in politics.” He never regretted his choice. Even then, Halifax was deeply marked by his creed of human brotherhood. He never thought of racial differences or of class distinctions. There was no forced descent from lonely eminence to men of low estate. If any man could bring peace to India as Viceroy—here was the man. But the Viceroy must be a peer. And a peerage means the House of Lords for the rest of one’s life. A Prime Minister must have a majority in, and be answerable to, the Commons. So the vicious circle closes, choking from then on, whatever ambitions Mr. Baldwin’s lucky-unlucky choice might nourish for ultimate Premiership.

Fortunately, the man who is now Viscount Halifax did not nourish personal ambitions. His admission that he would rather be Master of the Hounds than Prime Minister is probably the deepest expression of his innermost urge. However, it was a difficult decision that Mr. Baldwin forced on him. It meant the end of a promising political career, and, worse still, five years’ separation from his aging father. A Viceroy is not supposed to leave India during his term of office. Moreover, the confused situation in India demanded a special type of guidance. There was not much choice as to the successor of Lord Reading, “the greatest Jew in Christianity,” who was then retiring.

Halifax consulted his father. Matters of transcendent importance, both for the Empire and for the men involved, were at stake. “Let us pray,” the old Viscount suggested. Father and son went to church. Afterwards the old gentleman said quietly: “I think you’d better go!” “I think so, too!” his son answered. He extracted a promise from his father to live another five years that the two might meet again. The Viscount, already in his eighties, gave the promise which was faithfully kept.

The formality of creating Mr. Wood, Lord Irwin of Kirby Underdale, after a little hamlet on his Yorkshire estate, was negotiated. And off he went with his courageously smiling lady at his side, to India.

India was always, and still remains, a stumbling block in American understanding of the problems of the British Empire. In establishing new order in India, giving the vast sub-continent an interim constitution, and breaking the ice that had separated Gandhi from the British, Lord Irwin contributed enormously to Anglo-Indian co-operation. Immediately upon assuming his high office he tackled the problems courageously. He made a strong first impression on the Indians when he, a rigid Sabbatarian, refused to disembark when he happened to arrive on a Sunday. This gesture appealed to the deep religious feeling that the Indians share with “the tall, thin Christian,” as they soon called the new Viceroy. Unfortunately, simultaneously with him, arrived a group of young men from England—British Communists, delegated by the Comintern to disturb, and if possible wreck, the great work of reconciliation on which Halifax was bent. During his entire term in India, the Communists proved their nuisance value. At that time Gandhi was still patient with those of his followers who were Communists. The Mahatma’s patience has since then been exhausted, admittedly a little late.

At the time of his arrival, Halifax was entirely untried in the difficult and complicated art of Anglo-Indian administration. But with his deep piety, he was likely to succeed where spiritual values enter into every phase of life and politics. His object stood clearly before his eyes. “From the day I landed in India I knew that my main task would be concerned with the investigation which was to be the first step in the building of a new constitution for India and the subsequent stages through which these grave matters would have to pass,” he recalled, in reviewing his vice-regal term. Again there sound no trumpet calls in his recollection, but one can hear an honest man’s decision to do an honest job of work.

After a few days in office he sent for Gandhi. The Mahatma was then the prophet and leader of the Hindu Civil Disobedience. He was reluctant to accept the Viceroy’s invitation. But he came. The first meeting between the two men passed without ceremony and drama, without mutual recriminations and polemics. However, it left a strong mark on both. Halifax’s bold humanity did not go unnoticed with Gandhi. He inspired the Indian leader with confidence in his spiritual earnestness and good faith. The talk about a compromise constitution and the attainment of Dominion status for India could begin. The first result was the approach to the conference table and an immediate decline in anarchy.

From the outset Halifax recognized that only full equality could keep India within the framework of the Empire. “Partnership, not subordination!” he proclaimed as the aim, and on November 1, 1929, he issued an official statement: “His Majesty’s government authorizes me to declare that in their view the attainment of Dominion status is the natural completion of India’s constitutional growth.”

Of course there were two prerequisites to be fulfilled before the goal of full self-government could be attained. First, India, disrupted by internal struggle, must achieve domestic unity. Second, the Indian people must acquire a certain measure of political education.

The Indian Princes in conference in London agreed to become part of the Dominion-in-the-making. Halifax, proud of this success, called it a turning point in India’s constitutional history. But no one could end the traditional feuds between Hindu and Moslem. The unity of India, it must be remembered, is only geographical. For the rest, the sole factor that holds many of the parts of India together is their common allegiance to Great Britain, officially termed their “loyalty to the Person and the Throne of the King-Emperor.” The English language is the only means of understanding between various Indian peoples. Paradoxically, even the very rebirth of Indian national spirit is due to the English language.

“An educated electorate is the only sure basis of democracy,” Lord Halifax said. The Communists tried to educate the Hindu electorate in their own way. Into the furthest valleys and mountain villages, forgotten by history, they carried their war-cry that the individual counted for nought, and the “class” for all.

Determinedly the Viceroy resisted Communist infiltration, which offended his fundamental humanitarian feeling. “We shall very certainly fail if we permit ourselves to forget that individual personality is the strongest and the most securely rooted element in all human nature,” he declared. The bills which he introduced in the Indian Parliament in 1929 provided for energetic measures against men and money from Moscow.

But these prohibitory measures were only part of the reforms he introduced. He believed in fighting communism by fighting poverty. As an agrarian expert, he was shocked by the primitive methods of farming that still prevailed in India. He established the Central Council for Agricultural Research, which subsequently did a great deal for the improvement of farming conditions. But soil cultivation was not enough. India should not remain forever a mere producer of raw materials. Lord Halifax did a great job in promoting the industrialization of India.

He ruled with firmness and energy, yet he considered himself primarily as a trustee for both sides: the Empire, and the Indian people. He developed his English genius for compromise to new heights. But he never tried to dodge difficult problems. “It is better to be blamed for saying unpleasant things, if they happen to be true, in time than to be condemned for saying them too late,” he put it.

Sure enough, he did say unpleasant things. When he first addressed the Indian Princes, in 1926, shortly after his arrival, he frankly criticized their opium policy, which had led to disastrous consequences. Moreover, he candidly blamed some of the princes for their exaggerated lavishness and their squandering of money which, of course, aroused the underfed masses. It was a breach of sacred Indian tradition to disagree with this provocative luxury, and it might have been politically unwise to antagonize the princes, who are the pillars of the British system in India. It was politically still more dangerous to antagonize the diehards at home, as Halifax did when he, in 1928, openly discussed the claim of Indian nationalists for complete separation from the Commonwealth of British Nations. Of course he refuted the claim with good reasons, but even its serious discussion by the Viceroy aroused horror in polite society.

“The general note of British criticism,” Halifax answered in 1930, “was that anyone who even talked of Dominion status in connection with India must be mentally affected, and that the idea was almost too fantastic to merit serious discussion. What wonder that Indian national feeling was offended and a real chance thrown away!”

It was largely owing to Halifax’s untiring work that the chance was not thrown away. Today all England is resolved to accord to India full equality as a self-governing Dominion, as soon after the war as circumstances permit.

But Halifax did not forget to educate also his India listeners. He reminded them: “Throughout all her own history Great Britain has been the pioneer as regards the application of representative institutions to the science of politics. It is a commonplace to say that this, indeed, is the principal fact that she has contributed to the thought and practice of the world.”

To a large degree Halifax’s ultimate success in India depended on his relation with Gandhi. They recognized and esteemed each other’s spiritual values. They spent many hours praying together. They both liked to tackle their problems from the moral point of view, discreetly drawing political conclusions. Once they spent a whole night in Gandhi’s “mud hut” in a distant village, examining the question of whether there are conditions under which a man may righteously be permitted to break his word. Incidentally, the Viceroy had come by car to Gandhi’s village and had walked on foot through the muddy streets. This was not quite without danger in a time of teeming unrest in India. But it was a grand proof of humility. When Gandhi’s advisers showed their dissatisfaction with the outcome of the philosophical night, slightly tinged with politics, the Mahatma asked them: “Could you argue with Jesus Christ?”

A few months later, unfortunately, Gandhi could. The Simon Commission had found a rough reception in India. The first Round Table Conference ended in failure. So Gandhi revived his crusade for civil disobedience. He and his followers marched to the sea and there manufactured salt, thus infringing the State’s salt monopoly. He was arrested and jailed. He entered his cell, blessing his followers and greeting his “noble, Christian friend.”

In London the opposition grew restless. Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail denounced Halifax as the man who opened the gates of India to revolution. He was called a “second Kerensky.” Nor did Winston Churchill like what he then believed to be Halifax’s hesitations. And Winston has a way of expressing his dislikes in Parliament. However, the Labour government, then in office, backed up the Viceroy. MacDonald felt deep affinity with what appeared to be Halifax’s indecision. Apparently, he failed to understand that Halifax was not undecided at all. The Viceroy had, on the contrary, made up his mind to steer a middle-of-the-road course. No less than 46,000 Indian lawbreakers, most of them Communists, were locked up for political crimes. But Halifax’s contact with Gandhi was never interrupted. On March 5, 1931, both men had the deep satisfaction of signing the agreement that led to the second Round Table Conference. Gandhi attended it, and the foundation was laid for India’s self-government, subsequently embodied in India’s Charter of August 2, 1935.

A towering white marble statue in New Delhi commemorates the tenure of office of the man who was Britain’s greatest viceroy. No single man could solve the vast complexities of the Indian problem, but probably Halifax has saved the sub-continent for the Empire. Certainly it was his personal influence which determined Gandhi’s attitude in this war. The Mahatma keeps his restive followers under control. England, he explains to them untiringly, is a much better bet than Hitler or Stalin.

Indeed, Halifax has well deserved the resounding praise of Baldwin, then the spokesman of the National government, who declared in March, 1931: “Such a conclusion as has been reached could not have been reached by any other Englishman. It is a great tribute to his character—a character that has given him a prestige in India that nothing else could have afforded him. The great work of Lord Irwin is that he has, after many years of suspicion, closed the gap between Great Britain and India.”

On his return from India he was a tired man. The droop of his shoulders had visibly increased. His plain, open face had grown thinner. In consequence his nose, his ears, his mouth—all a little beyond classical proportions—appeared still larger than they were. The hair receded and the forehead expanded formidably. His bright, wide eyes, however, retained their friendly, benevolent smile. Kindness and wisdom marked his appearance.

Here stood a man at the summit of his life. He was created a Knight of the Garter. The highest decoration of the realm had been bestowed on him. There was nothing more left to wish for.

Nothing? In 1932 his old dream came true. He was appointed Master of the Foxhounds. “A gentleman, a fox-hunter, a friend!” congratulated Winston Churchill. The position, to which a singular distinction attaches in England, was supposed to be his last one, and it was supposed to last for his lifetime. Little did Viscount Halifax know that this innocent office would bring him into the most difficult situation in his career, and that six years later pressure of more profane business would force him to resign it.

All he now wanted was a little rest. But the National government wanted his help and the support of his prestige. Patiently, he consented. He again accepted his old office of President of the Board of Education, a great proof of his modesty. He shifted to the War Office, when Baldwin followed MacDonald as Prime Minister. After the Conservative triumph in the 1935 elections, he was relieved of departmental duties. He became, first, Lord Privy Seal, then Lord President of the Council and Leader in the House of Lords. His utterances in the Upper House were unexciting. “He’d make a good bishop!” was the unanimous opinion. The old story was recalled of the noble Lord, who dreamed he was speaking in the House of Lords—and when he woke up, he was.

Never has Halifax been as enigmatic as in these years when he was regarded as a governmental figurehead. In truth, he was one of the most influential, if certainly the most unassuming, members of Baldwin’s last cabinet. His influence increased under Neville Chamberlain. Only outsiders could seriously believe that a man of Halifax’s caliber would be half asleep when fate closed in upon England.

Was he aware of the menace of Nazism? Only history can answer this question, the most puzzling in his rich and eventful life. Contemporary chroniclers have tarred him with the brush of appeasement. Was he an appeaser? Undoubtedly he took his courage in both hands when he plunged into the desperate battle for peace.

In 1937, Neville Chamberlain dispatched Viscount Halifax to Germany. Halifax’s position as a Master of Hounds was used as a reason for the journey. He was to meet Goering, Master of the Hunt in Germany. The protocol afforded an excuse.

Certainly Halifax did not feel at ease in undertaking a mission which looked like an infringement of Eden’s rights. He had always backed up his younger colleague in cabinet councils and had helped him with the full measure of his experience. However, it might be supposed that he felt himself the better man to deal with the Nazis.

In Karinshall, Schorfheide, Goering’s hunting lodge near Berlin, the Marshal played host to Halifax in the grand manner. Unfortunately, according to a widely circulated story, there was a slight hitch during the gala dinner. Lobster was served ... a strange-smelling lobster. Viscount Halifax lifted a bit of it—not to his mouth, but to his nose. It is inconceivable that his Lordship in all his life has ever used the expression: “It stinks!” He just made a polite gesture of apology. Whereupon Goering pushed his broad nostrils right into the lobster plate. Indeed, it stank. This was not Albion’s perfidy. This was the fault of his own kitchen staff. Goering is a just judge and he executes his sentences rapidly. He had the entire kitchen staff, numbering some twenty men, brought to the dining hall. He roared at them in front of the English visitor. He had them arrested, stripped of their liveries. The chef, he yelled, would be sent immediately to the concentration camp. Then he turned smilingly to his guest. Wasn’t he a fast worker?

It is not recorded whether Lord Halifax continued his meal with unspoiled appetite. Both slightly disgusted and a little amused he returned to London.

He misjudged Goering, as did, incidentally, almost the whole world. Confused by his own goodness, he did not see the megalomaniac, the blood-crazed founder of the Luftwaffe. What Halifax did see was a fat, oversized, naughty boy who wanted to be humored and to have his sense of ostentation, his gross witticisms, admired. In Halifax’s opinion Goering had a soft spot in his heart. Why, he called the deer in his forests by names and spoke to them. “The least objectionable member of a government of criminals,” Halifax said. This judgment reveals more about the judge than about the culprit. It is an English understatement.

Early in 1938, he again visited Germany. This time his mission took him to Berchtesgaden.

Hitler shouted for hours. When Halifax left Berchtesgaden, a gentleman of his entourage said: “The Reichskanzler and the Viscount spent two hours together. Herr Hitler took two hours and a half to explain his point of view.” Halifax was most uncourteously received and was tucked away in a special train to Berlin one hour before Hitler boarded his own special train in the same direction. The distinguished British visitor was still in Germany when Hitler delivered a rambling speech in Augsburg. “These English don’t want to give us back the colonies they have stolen,” he yelled within, so to speak, Halifax’s hearing. “Well, I am building such a strong army that they will have to listen in three years. And in another three years I don’t care whether they listen. We will simply take what rightly belongs to us!”

It was a calculated insult. This was no longer Goering’s crude hospitality. Certainly Nazis number one and two played hand in glove. Hitler’s role was the holy terror, Goering’s the white hope. The Nazis dared the British Empire with the same methods they later used to disrupt Belgium or Bulgaria—offering a choice between horsewhip and bribe. It was so incredible that Viscount Halifax has probably never understood it.

At that time Halifax could probably not recognize the slime which produces a Hitler. His own lifework had been an unbroken search for the good in every creature. He had concluded his Indian travail with the words: “I should permit myself to hope, if difference there must be, it shall be such difference as will not make us unwilling to admit the sincerity of those whose views differ from our own.”

True, Hitler was a difficult case. But so had Gandhi been. A devout believer in God never loses his hope of man. Not overoptimistic, but in a hopeful state of mind, Halifax succeeded Eden, in March, 1938, when Neville Chamberlain dropped his Foreign Secretary the very day that Hitler attacked Eden in one of his customary boorish execrations.

The earth had begun to tremble. The first eruption of the earthquake was Hitler’s rape of Austria. Halifax had seen it coming for a long time. But since his visit to Hitler he knew that war was inevitable should the Western powers try to stop the assault on Vienna. He did not yet know that war with Hitler was inevitable however far the democratic world was ready to bend back. But even had he known it, he could, as early as 1937, have convinced neither his country nor the world.

Hitler had discussed Austria with his English visitor at Berchtesgaden. It is not known whether Halifax’s deep insight where human feelings are involved warned him that here was a maniac obsessed by an idée fixe, nursed since boyhood. But it was well known that no one in England wanted war for Austria. Nazi influences, particularly successful in society, had sold to insular England the idea of Austria as a “German” country. Furthermore, the English sense of fair-play was abused, in that many in England were made to feel that Germany, after all, had not received anything as long as she was politely asking. Little wonder, Englishmen concluded, that criminals had come to power in frustrated Germany. These criminals, after all, stood for a good cause. So perverted was English thinking during the first years of Hitler. World democracy, for its part, did not think at all. True, democracy had lost one little country after the other. But that was not worse than having a few teeth pulled. It was painless; Nazi propaganda served as a perfect local anesthetic. It was nothing to get excited about—unless blood-poisoning followed.

Nobody lifted a finger in London, when the second World War began with Hitler’s assault on Austria. Democracy was paralyzed. Leaders and followers underbid one another. Neville Chamberlain decided to pull England out by her bootstraps. Unfortunately, he mistook Hitler’s famous rhinoceros-skin whip for the English bootstraps as his hands frantically searched for a hold. The Prime Minister brushed aside his Foreign Office. Trusted and experienced advisers like Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under Secretary and Britain’s diplomatic expert number one, were superseded by yes-men. Mysterious, shy, publicity-shunning Sir Horace Wilson, soon to become the co-author of Munich, was suddenly the power behind the umbrella. Halifax had just assumed the Foreign Secretary’s responsibilities. Why did he fall in line as England marched down the road to near-suicide?

Again he puzzled those who believed they knew him best. Harold Laski, brain-truster of the Labour Party, quickly found an explanation for the enigma that was Halifax. After paying due tribute to the Viscount’s outstanding human qualities, he analyzed the gentleman-appeaser. “At bottom he is a mystic. He likes that twilight world of intuition in which fine sentiments are uttered which all men can approve. He is all for ‘atmosphere’ and ‘understanding the impalpables’ which leave you a way out in either direction. Hitler, he believes, can be taught the language of the gentleman. Hitler and Mussolini can build their empires without touching Britain’s vital interests. Halifax will carry us over into what is effectively the Fascist camp in the simple faith that he is fighting the battle of democracy.”

Of course this explanation is tinged with a radical intellectual’s distrust of the old-fashioned cavalier. Its conclusions are utterly wrong, as the development proved. Today Halifax belongs among the outstanding fighters in the democratic camp. But Laski’s analysis rightly points out the cardinal weakness of appeasement—the delusion that Hitler’s and Mussolini’s empires could possibly exist without touching the vital interests of democracy. This delusion for a long time blinded America as well. In England it had been nourished by the Chamberlain government with Halifax’s active assistance.

But Halifax was deluded by Hitler for honorable reasons. He was deluded, because in the purity of his own soul and mind he could simply not grasp from the outset the perversion of Hitler and his gang. When it dawned on him what beasts he was up against, he sided with his Prime Minister, partly in order to stiffen him, and partly because he would have considered it desertion to retire in the moment of England’s gravest plight. He certainly did not possess Churchill’s scent for the Nazi virus, but he had no less courage.

Although he carried out the policy of appeasement unequivocally, all London knew that he remained the center of whatever resistance was left within the cabinet councils. Almost immediately after the fall of Austria Hitler looked for the first time longingly on Czechoslovakia. The Czechs answered with mobilization—on Halifax’s confidential advice, Prague whispered. Indeed, on one of those critical days, the Foreign Secretary sent his ambassador five times to the Wilhelmstrasse, to indicate London’s interest in the Central-European development. Since Hitler was not yet quite ready, the development was interrupted for a few months. Goering vouched with his word of honor as a German officer that the Nazis would never attack Czechoslovakia.

Hitler played for time. So did, in a certain sense, the government in London. Unfortunately, it was not in a military sense. In spite of Winston Churchill’s historic warnings, the days after Munich were blindly squandered. But this was not Halifax’s fault. As Foreign Secretary his job was to use whatever power and influence Great Britain possessed; not to build up power for defense. Devout believer as ever, he was confident that moral powers would ultimately decide. He used the last pre-war year to demonstrate to the people of the world, and particularly to the American people, that no effort should be spared and no sacrifices compatible with national honor and human obligation refused, to ensure peace in our time. Perhaps this sacrificial policy corresponded to his innermost tolerance, his Christian love for the enemy, his humility. But it must have aroused his English pride. It became increasingly difficult for a responsible British statesman to walk with head erect.

Munich was the ultimate sacrifice. Halifax did agree with the settlement, because he regarded it as the lesser of two evils. However, he soon called it “humiliating.” He did not accompany his chief to Munich; undoubtedly his appearance would have disturbed the atmosphere. When Hitler broke the pact and sent his hordes into Prague, appeasement was smashed into fragments. Munich had cost the allies the co-operation of Russia, for what it was worth. Stalin would probably not have needed the fate of Czechoslovakia as an excuse to double-cross England. Munich and its aftermath gave Hitler tremendous military and economic advantages. But to the plain people of the world, and to the Americas above all, it was clearly demonstrated that the now inevitable war was indeed a struggle between day and night. The clean moral bill of health England could now present outweighed for Halifax forty-odd Czech divisions that everybody knew were lost—and perhaps also the terrific indirect losses that followed Munich.

Hastily Halifax dispatched to Rumania and Poland guarantees against aggression. He was determined to stop Hitler now. Five days after the German occupation of Prague he spoke in the House of Lords, which was still the stronghold of pro-Nazi sympathies—with the Labour Lords, in their pacifism, closely allied with Fascist-minded peers. He explained: “No member of His Majesty’s Government has failed at any moment to be actually conscious of the difference between belief and hope. It was surely legitimate and right to have hopes.” But now the hopes were gone. On June 29, 1939, he addressed the ninth annual dinner of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. “In the past we have always stood out against the attempt of any single power to dominate Europe at the expense of the liberties of other nations. British policy is therefore only following the inevitable line of its own history, if such an attempt were to be made again. Our first resolve is to stop aggression. If Lebensraum means action by one nation in suppression of the independent existence of her smaller and weaker neighbors, we reject it and must resist its application ... Today the threat of military force is holding the world to ransom and our immediate task is to resist aggression. Let us therefore be very sure that whether or not we are to preserve for ourselves and for others the things we hold dear, depends in the last resort on ourselves, upon the strength of the personal faith of each one of us, and on our resolution to maintain it.”

With a confession of a moral creed Halifax shelved all that tattered appeasement. He no longer had to be enigmatic. The skies were clear. The fight was good.

But it was not until the second year of the war, in the spring of 1941, that Viscount Halifax found what he considers the crowning task of his life. An unprecedented assignment brought him to the United States. He is the first Foreign Secretary to relinquish the Foreign Office for an ambassadorship, although he remains a member of the Inner War Cabinet. He is the first ambassador whom his Prime Minister accompanied to the ship at his departure, wishing him Godspeed, the first to cross the sea in a battleship, and the first foreign diplomat to be welcomed by the President of the United States at the American shore.

Lord Halifax’s task is to harmonize the English and American efforts to assure victory in common. The outcome of this war depends largely on the success of this synchronization. And this success, in turn, depends largely on the spirit in, and the skill with which Halifax approaches his job. No other man’s personal responsibility is greater. He has to live down ever-ready prejudices. Americans saw a gentleman in correct black with the inevitable bowler hat but almost untidy in his appearance, as if he lived chiefly among books and were entirely careless in practical matters. They expected a feudal Tory, representing the ruling classes. In fact, Halifax welcomed labor into politics and government, long before the New Deal was thought of. In England his statement is not forgotten: “Many of the newcomers are disorderly, many seem essentially violent minded. Yet our debates are richer for their presence. Not all of us are as near to the sufferings of the working classes as they are. They bring, however misguided some may be in their opinions, and however violent they may be in publicly expressing them, home to the House of Commons the gravity of our social problems and the importance of getting fundamental things right.”

Americans made the acquaintance of a serious man who in private conversation has a touch of heart-warming gaiety. Under a strong forehead his eyes are deeply set, looking upon life very quietly, kind and thoughtful. His large and flexible, sometimes critical mouth shows good humor. His expression is sometimes grave and scholarly, but the wisdom that marks him is always gentle.

Those who expected a severe High Church dignitary were agreeably surprised when the new ambassador, on his first Sunday in Washington, went into a poor quarter to attend a service for children. His deep religiousness is entirely unpolitical and is permeated with a social conscience. “Christianity,” Halifax said, “can never be made the touchstone of some detailed policy. Christianity is essential to right action toward the problems of the world. The virtue of the Christian attitude consists in gentleness and compassion.”

Most surprised were those Americans who expected to meet an appeaser. Halifax speaks with utter contempt of Britain’s and civilization’s enemies. To him the Nazi system is bondage, bodily and spiritual, political and economic. According to Nazi philosophy, he explains, the State both may and must claim the whole allegiance of man’s body and soul. Truth, conscience, mercy, honor, justice, love; where these clash with what is held to be the over-riding interest of the State, they are regarded by Hitler as offenses.

Lord Halifax, the appeaser, is no longer afraid to offend Hitler since he understands that Hitler has offended God’s commandments. All Britain, he asserts, laughs off Hitler’s threats of invasion. American help, the ambassador says confidently and unhesitatingly, will not come too late. True, the English laughter is not always far away from tears. But it explains why England will never go down.