PEDANT'S POISON PEN'
Williams, David C.
'Pedant's Poison Pen' THE SOCIALIST TRAGEDY, by Ivor Thomas. Macmillan. 254 pp. $2.75. Reviewed by David C. Williams WHEN the British Labor Party took office in 1945, Ivor Thomas was recognized...
...He was a scholar, a winning and eloquent speaker, a witty companion—the world seemed to lie at his feet...
...For five years he was executive secretary of the Chicago Council Against Racial and Religious Discrimination...
...THE REVIEWERS BENJAMIN SCHWARTZ is an assistant professor of Far Eastern history at Harvard and a member of the staff of the Russian Research Center...
...DAVID C. WILLIAMS is the British representative of Americans for Democratic Action...
...KATHERINE RODELL reviews fiction regularly for The Progressive...
...Labor has not stifled the competitive spirit of British businessmen...
...An occupational risk of pedants is that of losing touch with reality...
...Then he decided to write a book, and share his re-discovery of himself with the general public...
...Indeed, it gave him the air of sobriety and moderation which Mr...
...At a time when all democrats, whether Liberals or socialists, need to work together, Thomas does freedom's cause only a disservice with his pedant's poison pen...
...and it is too tediously written to win a place beside the lively John T. Flynn in the Reader's Digest shelf of recommended books...
...HOMER A. JACK is minister of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, HI...
...Indeed, the fiery Welshman is not even indexed...
...Attlee is paving the way for Communism...
...But this was at first no handicap to him, any more than it was to several other promising Labor M.P.'s...
...Thomas does not take the easy line of attack upon Labor, by way of its alleged "wild men" like Aneurin Bevan...
...in much larger measure he is an old-fashioned European Liberal of the most pedantic sort...
...In recent years, the leaders of the Government have come to accept much of The Economist's case...
...But he is only in small part a Tory gourmet...
...Unlike others who were similarly honored, Thomas did not stick the pace...
...Instead it has sought, by combining public ownership in some spheres with the stimulation of private initiative in others, to instil new life into Britain's stagnant economy...
...The Thomas picture of free enterprise in Britain before 1945 is as unreal as his nightmare of socialist tyranny during the past six years...
...His zeal outdoes that of Professors Hayek and Von Mises...
...Instead, Thomas actually seeks to persuade his readers that mild Mr...
...ROBERT C STAUFFER is chairman of the Department of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin...
...Curiously enough, Thomas supped at Labor's table and enjoyed the privileges of office in the Labor Government in its most socialist period, in the years just after the war...
...Thomas will certainly not find his Liberal paradise with the Tories any more than Philip Snowden, another Liberal pedant and labor renegade, did a generation ago...
...It is doubly impudent, first because socialism is a form of democracy, and second, because the devotion of British Labor's leaders to democracy has never wavered...
...First he "crossed the floor" of Parliament and joined the Conservatives...
...British businessmen do not, in general, willingly compete or gladly submit themselves to the verdict of the market...
...Reviewed by David C. Williams WHEN the British Labor Party took office in 1945, Ivor Thomas was recognized as one of its coming young men...
...The crowning impudence of The Socialist Tragedy comes in its dedication: "To all Social Democrats in the hope that when confronted with the choice between socialism and democracy they will choose democracy...
...When he is flailing Labor Philistinism, Thomas amuses...
...During all this time, the fight for economic liberalism was carried on with vigor and persistence, by such journals as The Economist...
...That it has done so with considerable success is shown by the steady expansion of output during its six years of office...
...that spirit expired^ many years ago...
...Cripps picked up the very word "disinflation" from its pages, and the present Chancellor of the Exchequor, Hugh Gaitskell, has rediscovered the merits of the price mechanism...
...Ernest Bevin was the first Western statesman to recognize the danger of Soviet totalitarianism, and Britain is today the keystone of the democratic front in Europe...
...The Socialist Tragedy is too absurd to gain any credence in Britain, where all the evidence contradicts it...
...perhaps the taste he shares with Thomas for the good things of life is responsible for his immunity from assault...
...Moreover, a thorough-going Liberal like Thomas should at least recognize the fact that the Labor Government has been the first in Britain's history to make even a start at "trust-busting," American style...
...From the days of Adam Smith onward, they have preferred cartels and price rings to the hazards of the price mechanism...
...After a little reflection, he rediscovered the fact that he wasn't a socialist and acted upon it...
...There was only one thing which might have been held against him—he didn't happen to be a socialist...
...The second half of the nineteenth century, when the principles of free enterprise were universally accepted," is, to him, "one of the golden ages of the world...
...He was shifted about from job to job, found wanting, finally dropped...
...Attlee values so much, and helped him to a post as a junior Minister...
Vol. 15 • August 1951 • No. 8
