Bathos at Westminster

Britons steeled themselves to hear news grimmer than any since Winston Churchill had offered them "blood, sweat and tears" after Dunkirk. At last Clement Attlee was to tell Britons what they had to do to save themselves from bankruptcy.

There was a great-event atmosphere around the neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster. Londoners and provincial visitors gathered with tense faces around Parliament Square. Britons, to whom queueing has become second nature, waited in a long line for the few public seats available in the House of Commons' gallery.

Inside, members and lucky strangers sat through a dull "Question Time." It was just ending when Clement Attlee slipped in, scarcely noticed. Ernest Bevin, for one, did not see him. Bevin was on his feet answering a foreign policy question. Attlee slid down the bench just in time to avoid his Foreign Secretary's 240-lb. bulk as Bevin took a pace back, prepared to sit down.

At 4:15 Attlee rose to speak on the state of the nation.

"Chance of a Lifetime." It was not with a bang, but with a wheedle, that Britain's Prime Minister asked his nation to face her crisis. In a high, flat, singsong voice, he recited cliche after cliche. Now & then he wrung his hands gently. Some M.P.s fell asleep, others drifted out of the Chamber (making polite bows to the Speaker) for a chat or cigaret or cup of tea.

Attlee still talked of "limited emergency." To get more coal (agreed by all to be the No. 1 need for the revival of Britain), he proposed to miners that "there should be, as an emergency measure, for a limited period, an extra half-hour's work per day." To place and keep workers (including "spivs and other drones") in essential industries, "it will be necessary to resume to a limited extent the use of powers of direction." To reduce Britain's projected 1948 overseas military establishment of 1,087,000 men, Attlee proposed a cut of only 80,000 in the armed forces. Food purchases in dollars, he said, must be cut 40%, but he still spoke hopefully of avoiding cuts in rations.

Toward the end, he apologized: "No doubt this Government, like other Governments, has made mistakes. I am quite sure a Conservative Government would have made others."

When the singsong voice stopped, after one hour and 15 minutes, Attlee (whom Churchill once called "a sheep in sheep's clothing") had convinced few Britons that his Socialist Government was ready resolutely to make up for past mistakes. Attlee "touches nothing," said the Economist acidly, "that he does not dehydrate."

The man in the street felt let down. The fight fizzed out of him like the air from a punctured balloon. "Attlee missed the chance of a lifetime," said a furniture maker. "We know we are in a tough spot, so it's up to. him to take tough action. We would back him all right." Said a salesman: "Attlee's a good man, mind you, but we want more than that--someone with go in him." Many a Briton still agreed with the junior minister who said recently: "The sands are running out and our heads are still buried in them."

"This Little Bill." Next day the Socialist Government introduced a bill, innocuously titled "Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Bill," which was supposed to empower Attlee to take what ever steps he thought were necessary. Churchill quickly denounced it as "a blank check for totalitarian government." One catch-all clause would practically transfer Parliament's powers to the Cabinet: the bill "provides for ... assuring generally that the whole resources of the community are available for use and are used in the manner best calculated to serve the interests of the community."

Tory and Liberal charges that this gave the Socialists blanket power to speed up Socialism stung Herbert Morrison into a remarkable admission that he and his planning colleagues had been caught with their plans down. "We have no preconceived notions as to precisely how we propose to utilize it when we are given this power." Morrison referred to "this little bill" (it had less than 200 words) as if to ask what all the fuss was about.

"The First Step." But critics were not reassured when Richard Grossman, leader of the "Keep Left" Laborite rebels, said: "This bill symbolizes today the end of all those delusions that have been growing up on the other [Tory] side that finally the time would come when this Government would turn back from their Socialist path."

After Attlee's speech, Grossman had rallied Labor M.P.s to sign a pledge to nationalize the steel industry this year. He feared that Attlee's omission of any mention of steel was significant. The Cabinet was already split on the issue. Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton, opposed to nationalization this year, was locked in combat with dogged Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, leader of Labor's left wing. Bevan and Grossman regarded steel nationalization as the heart of the Socialist program. Three hundred M.P.s (from a total membership of 640, including 393 Laborites) signed the Bevan-Crossman pledge. But at a quiet meeting of Labor M.P.s, where Bevan gave no hint of attempting a revolt, Attlee won reluctant acceptance of his decision not to disturb the vital steel industry for the time being.

Laborites and Tories alike were more sympathetic with another favorite Crossman peeve, against Britain's dependence on the U.S. Even ministers who clearly saw that Britain was irrevocably tied to the U.S. declared the nation's defiant hope for independence. The surprise 75% tax on U.S. movie earnings (see BUSINESS) was one symptom of a common complaint. Said Hugh Dalton, of the Government's plan for stepping up production and cutting dollar spending: "This will be ... the first step towards our keeping control of our own national destiny and becoming the pawns of no man, our national destiny as an independent people, friendly to all but dependent upon none."

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