The Legislators

For Labor's Ministers and their staffs the parliamentary recess had been no holiday. Now the Attlee Government was ready for the new session this week with a staggering array of bills, the first of many on Britain's course toward limited socialism. Items:

P:Bills to extend some of Britain's most vital (and most onerous) wartime controls. For weary Britons, the end of weariness was not yet.

P: The Nationalization of the Bank of England Bill. The "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" was certain to be taken over by the state; the only question was how much to pay for her.

P: The National Insurance (industrial injuries) Bill. This is the Government's version of the Beveridge Plan for workmen's compensation. Opposition will come from Labor members who consider the suggested rates too low.

P: The Coal Mines Nationalization Bill, which transfers the privately held mines to a public utility corporation. Owners and miners have accepted the plan in principle, but the owners want more than the -L-250--L-300 million ($1,000-$1,200 million) offered.

P: The State Medical Service Plan, a bulky, cumbersome scheme evolved by iconoclastic Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan to win the cooperation of Britain's reluctant doctors.

P: The Tripartite Plan for Industry devised by the Board of Trade's Sir Stafford Cripps. It would place all industries under the joint management of employers, employes, Government representatives. Employers will fight Cripps control tooth & nail.

The Government will have some explaining to do, notably on its failure to ease the housing shortage. Demobilization probably would not be the critical issue that it recently seemed certain to be. Belabored by public criticism, Minister of Labor George Isaacs had jumped his demobilization rate from 45,000 a week to 80,000 a week. There might still be grumbling, but the heat was off.

Still unsolved was the Government's problem of strengthening Labor's meager representation (25 peers) in the overwhelmingly Tory (519 out of 803) House of Lords. In theory the Tory peers can hold up all Labor's nonfinancial legislation for two years; in practice, however, they are unlikely to buck Labor's powerful public mandate.

But in the House of Commons, the Tories were full of fight. The "Young Tory" reformers, none too effective in their Party's heyday, would be alert for any chance to prove that rightist reason could match leftist ardor. But Prime Minister Clement Attlee, confronting his first Parliament, would keep a closer eye on the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

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