Review of Reviews, S0!$'06. 



THE BOOK OF THE MONTH. 



WINSTON CHURCHILL'S LIFE OF HIS FATHER. 



Mr. Winston Churchill, M.P. 



The Biographer of his Father, and 

 Under Secretary for the Colonies. 



The story goes that 

 when the battle was 

 raging on Spion Kop 

 the General and his 

 staff lunched down 

 below. Among the 

 party was Mr. Win- 

 ston Churchill, then 

 war correspondent of 

 the Morning Post. 

 After lunch, to which 

 the war correspon- 

 dent had contributed 

 liberally from his pri- 

 vate store, one of the 

 officers bantered the 

 young man upon his 

 assurance and suc- 

 cess. " No doubt you 

 have got on. surprisingly well, but you owe it all to 

 the fact that you are Randy's son.'' "Sir," replied 

 Winston, with characteristically superb audacity, 

 "the time is coming when Lord Randolph 

 Churchill will be chiefl\ remembered as the fathei 

 of one Winston Churchill." 



The story may be true or it may only be well 

 invented : but the prophecy has come true. The 

 publication of this book — the reception of this book, 

 proves it. Why did Messrs. Macmillan pay the 

 author ^8000, or ^4000 per volume, for it, 

 when the) on'y paid Mr. Morley ,£3333 per volume 

 for the "Life of Mr. Gladstone"? Why does every 

 journalist ami politician turn eagerly to its pages? 

 Because of its subject, or of its author? There is no 

 need for an answer. It is the Winston rather than 

 the Randolph which makes the success of the book. 

 We read what the new Under-Secretary for the Colo- 

 nies says about his father in order to form some 

 idea as to the views of Winston rather than to form 

 a correct appreciation of the character of his lather. 

 Of course, it may be retorted that a living dog is 

 better than a dead one, and that even a second-rate 

 politician whose career is before him is more interest- 

 ing to contemporaries than a first-class statesman 

 whose career is finished. But even when full allow- 

 ance is made for this consideration, the reader can- 

 not help being more attracted by the evidence to be 

 found in the book as to the views of the son than 

 as to the character of the father. In fact it is Win- 



" Lord Randoinli Cbutchill." 

 M.P. With portraits 2 vols. 

 liPt.) 



bv Winston S. Churchill, 



(Macmillan and Co. 36s 



ston s estimate of Randolph which interests us more 

 than the character of Randolph himself. 



The book, let me say at once, is extremely interest- 

 ing, admirably well written, full of acute and shrewd 

 observation upon men and things. The style is 

 (dear and occasionally brilliant. It is always a very 

 difficult task for the son to write about his father, 

 but Mr. Winston Churchill has succeeded in preserv- 

 ing the filial attitude of an affectionate son and the 

 impartiality of a biographer. That he has presented 

 us with a more or less idealised Randolph Churchill 

 is inevitable. Even Cromwell did not address his 

 famous command to an artist son when he declared 

 that he must be painted "warts and all." In the 

 picture of Lord Randolph, the warts are softened 

 down— they are there, perhaps, but they are not very 

 warty warts. The result is that we have a glorified, 

 almost heroic, picture of the Randy of other days, 

 and we wonder as we close the book that no monu- 

 ment has been erected to the; memory of the states- 

 man who achieved such great things for his countrv 

 and his party. Mr. Winston has, in these two 

 volumes, erected a monument more lasting than 

 brass to the memory of his father, and there are few 

 who will read his vivacious and vigorous narrative 

 without feeling that, until now. the world has never 

 had any adequate material for forming a just esti- 

 mate of Lord Randolph Churchill. Even if we dis- 

 count this estimate by a liberal allowance for the par- 

 tiality of the son and the hero worship of a disciple, 

 sufficient remains behind to necessitate a recon- 

 sideration of the position which Randolph Churchill 

 occupies in English history. 



Lord Randolph Churchill, according to the popu- 

 lar opinion of both parties, before this book was 

 published, was a very brilliant, very erratic, very 

 reckless voting aristocrat, who rose with astonishing 

 rapidity to a first position in the State by the reck- 

 lessness with which he abused his betters, and the 

 magnificent barnum like capacity with which he con- 

 trived continually to keep himself in the full glare 

 of the limelight of the political stage. Possessed of 

 admitted ability and industry, neither his ability nor 

 his industry would have made him leader of the 

 House of Commons, had he not possessed the 

 tongue of a Thersites and a forehead bold as triple 

 brass. After having, bv astonishing good fortune, 

 attained a leading position in the Tory Party, he 

 flung it away in a fit of petulance, because his de- 

 mand f^r an immediate and impossible reduction of 

 the expenditure on armaments was not conceded by 

 his colleagues. His resignation wrecked his career. 

 From that moment he sank almost as rapidly as he 



