THE BRITISH LABOR SWEEP
Chamberlin, William Henry
The British Labor Sweep By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN FOR the first time in the history of a large country a single party with a socialist program has won a large parliamentary majority in a free...
...The possibility, suggested by some observers, of an uncertain balance of power in "British politics has been shattered by the decisive character of the vote...
...An orderly, fair, humane demobilization will be another test of the administrative efficiency and quality of the new government...
...Clement Attlee, who took over as Prime Minister as soon as the results were known, has a solid block of 390 Labor members in a Parliament of 640, with i:> seats still unreported...
...But the Labor Party has a clear record of opposing any intervention in Soviet internal affairs, and of course has no prejudice against a socialized economy...
...From a parliamentary standpoint the Labor victory was smashing and complete...
...This government came more swiftly and decisively because the dislocations and sacrifices of war naturally work to the advantage of the Left...
...It may certainly be regarded as a nail in the coffin of Victorian economic laissez-faire which the Labor Party has only to drive in...
...These public boards, which are already directing a good many local transport and electrical power enterprises, are a typically British compromise between "capitalism" and some of the more extreme forms of socialism...
...His intemperate attacks on Labor Ministers who had faithfully cooperated in his coalition war Cabinet fell fiat...
...s One may expect that the mines and the part of the power industry which is still privately owned will be nationalized and placed under the control not of bureaucratic government departments, but of public boards, staffed with non-partisan experts and commissioned to run the industries with full scope for managerial and executive initiative and ability...
...The Communists polled about 100,000 votes, less than half of one per cent of the total, and elected only 2 members...
...IN any event, however, the Conservatives fought the election under the heavy psychological disadvantage of having been predominantly in power for 14 years...
...Of Stalin it may safely be predicted that he will not be eliminated as a result of a democratic election...
...Soviet apologists have always found it a good talking point to recall that Churchill was an active proponent of intervention in Russia in 1918 and 1919, overlooking the more relevant fact that he was a staunch champion of the war to the finish against Hitler which was the best insurance of the present strength of Russia...
...It shows clearly that for a democratic country there is no "indispensable man...
...But previous Labor Governments took no very decisive steps in this direction...
...There was a corresponding disposition to give Labor a chance...
...They are committed to the philosophy that increasing public control is essential to a sound and stable national economy...
...The need in this field is tremendous, because of the suspension of building during the war and because of the devastation by air bombing...
...There was evidently a strong trend of thought in England to the effect that the Conservative Party had failed in 2 main jobs of any government: to provide full employment and to ward off war...
...So did his general attitude of representing a Conservative Government as the sole alternative to chaos on the continent of Europe...
...In the moment of victory Labor Party spokesmen paid generous tribute to Churchill's services as a war leader...
...ANYONE who imagines that the Labor Party leaders will declare India independent with a stroke of the pen or "liquidate" the British Empire will almost certainly be disappointed...
...It is important to bear in mind that many British Conservatives and most British Liberals are prepared to go pretty far in accepting the" principle of state authority and responsibility in control of economic life...
...If the course of Anglo-Soviet relations does not run smoothly with a Labor Government in England the true explanation will almost certainly be found in Moscow, not in London...
...Unless it suffers a serious internal split, there is no reason why the present Labor Government should not remain in power until the end of its legal term of power in 1950...
...It is highly probable that the large number of new Voters, most of whom are in the armed services, felt very strongly that it was time for a ehange...
...But it is safe to predict that nothing of the kind will happen...
...A Labor Government in England was eventually certain to come, because there was no other practical alternative to Conservative rule, and because perpetual one-party government is unthinkable in a country where there is freedom of speech, press, and election...
...One of its tests will certainly be its ability to provide cheap, good housing on a huge scale...
...American and British weight in world affairs is the product of peoples, not of individuals...
...It is interesting to note how often mandatory verbs like "allow," "direct," "control" appear in this White Paper...
...The appointment of a man like H. N. Brailsford, veteran radical publicist, who has studied India and come to strongly anti-imperialist conclusions, would be an indication that a sincere and drastic effort to break the deadlock over the Cripps proposals was in prospect...
...Many prominent figures in the Labor movement who have grown up in the school of British trade-unionism are rather parochial in outlook and know little about India except what they may have read in the newspapers...
...Great Britain has no written constitution...
...THE most influential leaders of the Labor Party, Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Herbert Morrison, are temperamentally gradualist reformers rather than evangelistic emotional revolutionaries...
...Ernest Bevin, who has been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, has been quoted as saying that there would be no change in British foreign policy...
...This is probably an exaggeration, especially if one takes a long-term view...
...This is the historical significance of the stunning and surprising Labor sweep in the British election...
...But they are not the kind of men who, in a period of great national emergency, would favor measures of wholesale confiscation that would make for bitterness and class war...
...The 2 previous Labor Governments, headed by Ramsey MacDonald, were minority governments, dependent on the goodwill of the Liberals...
...Yet the consequences of the removal of Roosevelt and Churchill will probably not be as portentous as some hero-worshippers might predict...
...A Labor Government will almost certainly look with less favor than a Churchill Government on outright monarchist and conservative forces, with more favor on democratic socialist movements...
...At the same time it has firmly opposed communism in British politics and in the trade-union movement...
...Communist...
...How will it be felt in domestic affairs, in questions of empire, in British foreign relations ? It has been said that the British Parliament can do anything except make a woman into a man...
...Britain's new government is not likely to forget that the majority of the people who put it into power voted not for a doctrinaire blueprint, but for the hope of better living conditions in the near future...
...Of some 25 million voters about 12 million voted Labor, about 9 million Conservative, some 3 million for the 2 wings of the Liberal Party, while almost a million votes were scattered among independent candidates and among minor parties, such as the Common Wealth, Independent Labor, and...
...It is conceivable that if he had put the stress on a forward-looking program of insuring employment for all, building houses, re-planning shattered cities, the result would have been less onesided...
...There is an element of personal drama in the crushing defeat which Winston Churchill sustained so soon after he had led England from the dark days of 1940 to the complete victory over Nazi Germany...
...Bevin probably meant that the new government would accept Churchill's commitments in regard to the war against Japan and the endorsement of the world security organization...
...In contrast to the jituation in Europe, where the Communists represent »n important political force, with the support of per-laps 20 or 25 per cent of the population, in countries ike France and Italy, British Communism is still negligible in terms of mass support...
...The Labor Party has a clear popular mandate to carry out the far-reaching measures it advocated during its election campaign...
...What will be the consequences of this dramatic overturn...
...There has not been an election in England for 10 years...
...Any party accumulates unpopularity after such a long tenure of office...
...IT is interesting to note that two members of the original "Big 3," Roosevelt and Churchill, have passed from the political scene...
...The selection of a man with little first-hand knowledge of India would probably mean that the permanent civil service would wield more influence and perhaps act as a brake on any outright grant of Indian independence...
...The personality of the Labor Secretary of State for India will be interesting and may be important...
...The British Labor Sweep By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN FOR the first time in the history of a large country a single party with a socialist program has won a large parliamentary majority in a free election...
...Churchill, experienced politician though he is, evidently struck several false notes in his election campaign...
...If, as is quite probable, the Labor Government retains price controls and experiments with direction of investment funds, it can invoke not only its election mandate, but a White Paper which the predominantly Conservative Government of Churchill published in 1944...
...The vote for the Labor Party is not a vote for riolent revolution and class war...
...The elimination of Churchill and his die-hard Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery, will create a better atmosphere for an agreed settlement of the Indian question...
...THE issues involved in creating solid Anglo-Soviet understanding will at least become clearer with the coming into office of a Labor Government...
...It would be legally feasible for a Parliament with a Labor majority to vote 1 scheme of doctrinaire socialism into immediate operation...
...While there may be a shift of orientation in such countries as Spain, Italy, and Greece, there is no reason to expect that a Labor Government will throw away the keys to the British Em-.pire, or depart from the instinctive British policy of opposing the domination of the European continent by a single power, or connive at the establishment of puppet totalitarian regimes which are transparent camouflage for Soviet imperialism...
...But the British electorate gave its unmistakable verdict that this romantic Tory was not the man it desired to entrust with the challenging tasks of the reconstruction period...
...But the Labor Party leader, Maj...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 32
