"Guilty Men." By "Cato". (Gollancz. 2s. 6d.)
" CATO'S " indictment of the politicians, especially Mr. Chamber- lain and Lord Baldwin, whom he would hold responsible for our slowness to rearm on a scale sufficient for the present war, makes lively reading and is fortified by many quotations that the speakers would probably wish us to forget. He is unfair in attributing to his victims the misfortunes of .he B.E.F. in Flanders, and his personal comments on the men whom he attacks are often in poor taste. But there is, of course, all too much truth in " Cato's " main contention that successive Ministries were deceived by Hitler and did not, when awakened to realities, apply themselves with vigour to the task of restoring our defences. Whether he can justly cite Mr. Churchill's remark of 1936, that " the use of recriminating about the past is to enforce effective action at the present," to support his demand for the withdrawal of all the men denounced from office is another question. It is difficult to see how a revival of the controversy about Munich and other disappointing episodes, and a sort of Pride's Purge will help us to get on with the war.
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