British Politics in the wake of the Munich Agreement

The British are still celebrating their escape from war, in their different ways. The King has thanked his people for their steadfastness and his prime minister for his peacemaking. The churches were packed with thanksgivers yesterday, ‘Peace Sunday’.

Chamberlain is still "The Man of the Hour". The new Westminster Hospital has been endowed with £1,000 for a bed, to be named ‘The Neville Chamberlain Bed’, ‘in perpetual remembrance of great efforts made by the Prime Minister in the cause of European peace’. Lucio, in the Manchester Guardian quotes some of the more fulsome paeans of praise from the press, for example this one from James Douglas in Saturday’s Daily Express:

God has raised up in Neville Chamberlain a deliverer. Are we going to waste him? Are we as great as he is? Are we as noble? Are we as pure in heart? Beware of the old evil that is lurking within us, thirsting to destroy us.

More prosaically, there is speculation that if the House of Commons is hostile to Chamberlain’s report on Munich today, then he may take the country to a general election to capitalise on his popularity among the people. (An election isn’t due until 1940.) Chamberlain has already lost one minister over Munich, Duff Cooper, the First Lord of the Admiralty. His resignation speech, if fiery enough, could spark a revolt among those backbenchers who think too high a price has been paid for peace. Certainly Labour will be critical: one prominent Labour MP, Harold Nicolson, spoke in Manchester on Saturday and said

We have betrayed a valiant little country and a great democratic idea. There are many people who feel that in so doing we have achieved peace for a generation. They are wholly mistaken. We have not achieved peace for a generation: we have achieved it only for eight months.

And the ‘Peace Pact’ which Chamberlain signed with Hitler was "not worth the paper it is written on".

The preparations for war are winding down. But there are still political activities after the Agreement. Sydney King-Farlow, in a letter to the editor of The Times, describes the disaster which has been averted:

Had war come upon us, and it was hanging on a hair, it would have begun with repeated attacks by fleets of aircraft which speedily would have converted the capital cities of Europe into heaps of smoking rubble. The noblest works of man which belong not only to particular countries but to the whole world would have disappeared for ever and the destruction of human life would have been appalling.

He asks if this is not an opportune moment to try to reach an international agreement to prohibit the bombing of architectural and historical treasures in the great cities?

"It is Peace for our Time"

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain landed at the Heston Aerodrome earlier today to scores of citizens hoping for a word on the historic events of this morning in Munich. In addition to the agreement of the cession of the Sudetenland to Germany, he also procured an Anglo-German peace agreement between Germany and Great Britain to supplement AGNA. After disembarking, he said

...the settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine (waves paper to the crowd). Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you. "We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

Later, he also had to speak to people outside his residence at No. 10 Downing Street.

My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.

Many of the Prime Minister's colleagues have registered their pleasure at the resolution reached earlier today. Cabinet members whooped and hollered when the Prime Minister was accorded an honor never given to a Prime Minister in British History. He was asked to Buckingham Palace and appeared at the balcony usually occupied by the monarchy.

Before arriving at Buckingham Palace, King George VI sent the Prime Minister a letter telling the statesman of the Empire's gratitude for the deals brokered by the Prime Minister. The King also told the British People

After the magnificent efforts of the Prime Minister in the cause of peace, it is my fervent hope that a new era of friendship and prosperity may be dawning among the peoples of the world.

Reaction has already started to pour in throughout the country and the world and it is largely positive.