Out of the Cupboard

Britain's election campaign was plodding along, with the eyes of the politicians and voters fixed on medicine shelves and kitchen cupboards. The Labor government's Ministry of Food upped meat rations by 10%; it had already boosted the "sweets" ration from 4 to 4 1/2 ounces of candy a week. Wailed London's Tory Daily Mail: "The glory of Britain has indeed fallen low if the Socialists can buy votes with a rasher [of bacon] and two penn'orth of lollipops."

Then Winston Churchill, the aging battler,*lifted everyone's eyes from domestic affairs to the mushroom-shaped cloud overhanging mankind. "I cannot help coming back," he said in Edinburgh, "to this idea of another talk with Soviet Russia on the highest level. It is not easy to see how things could be worsened by a parley at the summit . . ."

Whether his words were wise or not, Churchill had greatly strengthened the worldwide impulse for a final try, no matter how hopeless the prospect seemed, for an atomic agreement between the U.S. and Russia. The London Times was grateful: "It will no longer be possible for historians to write that the general election of 1950 was concerned with every question except the one that mattered."

Labor's leaders were resentful at the injection of a world question into a campaign that had been comfortably domestic. Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin brushed off Churchill's proposal as a political "stunt." Prime Minister Clement Attlee faced old Winston's challenge: "We are ready and eager to discuss with Russia, the United States, Canada and all other nations ways and means of dealing with this menace."

To many an observer, Conservative chances seemed to have been made brighter by Churchill's Edinburgh speech--though not yet quite so bright as Labor's. Churchill had once more reminded Britons of their lack of leadership in world crisis. Worried one Laborite: "If Joe Stalin were to come out now and say, 'Fine, let's have a talk,' we'd be sunk."

Back to Gooseberry Tart. In Lincoln, hatless, slightly rumpled Attlee pointed aloft to the spires of the city's famed Norman and Gothic cathedral. "There is your heritage," he cried to his audience. "All around is your wealth, and here, in your hands and your brains, is your skill. The country needs it all." Then he added bitterly: "It was not so long ago that skill and brains were forgotten, wasted . . . Profits came first . . . Today you've got work, you've got security, education for your children, and fair shares for all." Later, the Prime Minister and his wife drove off to the White Hart Inn for chicken and gooseberry tart.

In Glasgow, the Conservatives' handsome Anthony Eden alternately beamed and looked embarrassed as 2,800 Scots serenaded: "Will Ye No' Come Back Again?" Back in his own Warwickshire, Eden spoke before 35 rubber-booted farmers, their wives and a white-haired vicar. Eden dawdled with his water glass, pleasantly twitted his women hearers. "Some of you ask for very naughty things," he said, "like extra petrol coupons." Two women giggled. One red-haired farm wife remained uncharmed. "For all his good looks," she whispered to her husband, "I'll still not be for him."

And Then to Pawnshops. In the coal-grimed hills of his native South Wales, Attlee's heir apparent, Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, orated to the tune of fair shares for all. "We've proved you can run the mines without the mine owners," he said, "but you can't run 'em without the miners. I only ask you to look into your lives and decide for yourselves whether you are better off--are you?"

"Yes!" the miners shouted.

"Remember when we were rationing jobs, not butter?" asked Bevan. "There's no need for that now . . . We're putting the pawnshops out of business." Then Bevan asked in a loud stage whisper: "By the way, is that pawnshop still there?"

"No!" the miners shouted.

"Well, there you are," cried Bevan triumphantly.

This week the voters would decide.

-During the week the rumor got flying that Winnie had fallen down the stairs and died. Excited newsmen put through a post-midnight phone call to Churchill's home in Kent. Churchill answered himself: "If I am dead, I am entitled today to a dead man's rest. Good morning!"

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