Carrot Chancellor

"My trouble is a tired heart," said 61-year-old Sir Stafford Cripps last week as he resigned the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. "I suppose," he went on, "that the stress and strain of the past twelve years has had its effect. I suspected that all was not right twelve months ago and now this has been confirmed by my doctors."

The twelve years had been strenuous ones. In 1939 he had given up a top-drawer practice in corporation law for politics. He was tired of law suits, said Cripps, "of taking money from one capitalist to give to another capitalist." As a Socialist he sought a different distribution of wealth. When he gave up his law practice, there were 6,560 Britons (including Cripps) with after-tax incomes above -L-6,000 a year. Last week when he returned to private life there were only 86.

Through Half-Moon Glasses. Cripps was the walking symbol as well as the architect of Britain's postwar austerity program. Prim and trim, he looked like a governess and talked like one. He was always telling Britons what they could not have. It was not Cripps's fault that meat was scarce but many Britons blamed him for that when he looked coldly through his half-moon glasses and announced that he did not consider meat "an edible substance." His very name suggested the sound of a crunching cold raw carrot, which was, in fact, one of Vegetarian Cripps's favorite staples.

Nevertheless, Old Austerity had served his country well according to his lights, in which he had unbounded confidence. Tory Winston Churchill, gazing at Cripps, had once said: "There, but for the grace of God, goes God." Yet Churchill respected Cripps, made him Ambassador to Russia in 1940, special emissary to India in 1942 and later Minister of Aircraft Production. Cripps was, said Churchill in 1947, "the greatest brain in the [Labor] administration."

Last week Britons of all parties praised Cripps's achievement. The Liberal Manchester Guardian said: "In all the limiting circumstances of our time, Sir Stafford Cripps has been a great Chancellor of the Exchequer." Others noted that Britain's gold reserves were twice as high as a year ago. In the first half of 1950, Britain's balance of trade showed a surplus of -L-52 million, biggest since the war.

Toward Hot Water. The man who would replace Sir Stafford Cripps wore the same school tie (Winchester). Hugh Gaitskell, 44, is 17 years younger than Cripps and in many respects different. He is neither vegetarian nor teetotaler. While Cripps appears unyielding, Gaitskell is modest, unassuming and courteous.

Gaitskell is a cautious politician who makes few mistakes. He is best known, however, for an incautious remark made in 1947 when as Fuel Minister he was trying to persuade Britons to burn less coal for heating bath water. Said he: "I have never had a great many baths myself. It does not make a great difference to health." Since then he has been one of the quietest of Laborite leaders and Attlee likes his orderly mind, his well-documented speeches. Gaitskell has made enemies among his fellow Laborites because of his rapid rise in the party hierarchy (he has been an M.P. for only five years). They think that as Chancellor of the Exchequer moderate bather Gaitskell may soon find himself in hot water.

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