The Beginning of the End?

"The Right Honorable Aneurin Bevan, M.P., Minister of Labor and National Service, having tendered his resignation, the King has been pleased to accept it." With this traditional formula, the biggest internal crisis in the six-year-old Labor regime was made official this week.

"Nye" Bevan, leader of Labor's left wing, which Prime Minister Clement Attlee has tried long and hard to appease, walked out after charging in effect that Attlee was betraying Labor party principles, that the government would split and collapse as Ramsay MacDonald's did in

Attlee in his reply tried to reduce Bevan's charges to the kind of issue on which Attlee's kind of Laborite feels most at home. From his bed at London's St. Mary's Hospital, where he is undergoing treatment for a duodenal ulcer, Attlee wrote: "I note you have extended the area of disagreement with your colleagues a long way beyond the specific matter to which, as I understood, you had taken objection. I had certainly gathered that if the proposal for imposing charges on dentures and spectacles were dropped, you would have been satisfied."

"It Is Wrong." In his note of resignation, Bevan had disagreed with the Prime Minister on much broader issues than false teeth and eyeglasses. Wrote Bevan: "In previous conversations ... I have explained my objections to many features of the budget ... It fails to apportion fairly the burdens of expenditure as between different social classes. It is wrong because it is based upon a base of military expenditure in the coming year which is physically unobtainable without grave extravagance . . . wrong because it is the beginning of the destruction of those social services in which Labor has taken a special pride . . ."

Bevan acted after a week of soul-searching and intense pressure from many of his left-wing followers. His lifelong friend and political mentor, Archie Lush (until recently Bevan's political agent in Ebbw Vale), visited London and insisted that it was Bevan's duty to save and purify the government's Socialist principles. More pressure came from Bevan's wife Jennie Lee, M.P., his fellow rebel Michael Foot, M.P., and cabinet colleague and co-agitator Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade. Day after Bevan resigned, Wilson handed Attlee his own resignation.

Precipitating the crisis was a shattering attack on the government's budget in the leftist fortnightly Tribune, edited by Jennie Lee and Foot. Into this article was packed every objection Bevan had raised in the party since 1949.

Protests against dentures and spectacles charges were as mere grains of grit compared to the big rocks the Tribune hurled at Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Gaitskell--the issues of price rises, the extent of rearmament, and its encroachment on the welfare state. In short Gait-skell's budget said that Britain had to make some sacrifices of living standards and social services in order to rearm. Bevan & Co. insisted that social services must all take precedence over defense. To avoid this very clash, Attlee on Jan. 18 had moved Bevan from Minister of Health to Minister of Labor.

"Better Outside." When he read the Tribune article, Attlee from his sickbed called Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison, sent him to Bevan to discuss the Tribune challenge. What, asked Morrison was the motive behind the piece? Did

Bevan deny or uphold it? Bevan stood by the Tribune.

Another effort to smoke Bevan out into the open was made by Defense Minister Emanuel Shinwell, once a Labor left-winger himself. At Newcastle last week, Shinwell denounced Bevan in a speech, urged him to quit the government. Shin-well did not use Bevan's name, but everyone knew whom he meant. Said Shinwell: "Those who say 'I am the person who counts, never mind the others' are better outside the party."

Early this week Bevan defended his act in the House of Commons, speaking from a back bench traditionally reserved for ministers who have resigned.

Britain has been "dragged too far behind the wheels of American diplomacy," he said. Arms production in the U.S. will gobble up raw materials at such a rate that "the civilian economy of the Western world outside America will be undermined." Said Bevan: "It may be that on such an occasion as this, the very dramatic nature of the resignation might cause even some of our American friends to think before it is too late."

Urging complete preservation of the National Health Service, Bevan cried: "What answer will you have when the vandals"--he waved across at the Tory benches--"come and sit here?" One Labor M.P. commented bitterly: "Bevan's committed political suicide. But why should he murder us all at the same time?"

Tory M.P. Sir Waldron Smithers rose immediately after the speech, to ask: "Would it not be the duty of the government now to announce the date of the general election?" Mr. Speaker ruled the question out of order.

The Backbenchers. What support has Bevan? From a parliamentary count made last week by his wife, there are some 20 backbenchers who will vote with him. In addition, War Minister John Strachey, Supply Minister George Strauss and some junior ministers are more sympathetic to Bevan than to Attlee.

Bevan's resignation comes at the worst possible time for the Laborites. If Bevan votes against the government Attlee can win only if he has Tory support. Churchill, anxious to force an election, is likely to seize the first opportunity to bring Labor down.

Thus, Labor might be forced to fight an election with many of last year's stalwarts absent:.Bevin dead, Bevan in opposition, Cripps very ill, and Attlee himself in sickbed. It might be the beginning of the end.

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