Commons. But this majority is not an exact reflection of the way the
electorate voted. The Conservatives and their supporters got 13,311,938
votes and Labor won 12,405,146. The Liberals got 722,395 and the
Communists 33,144.
This almost even division of the British electorate between the two
major parties must be kept in mind when we examine the right and the
left in British politics. Not since 1945, when the Labor Party swept
into office, has there been a difference of a million votes between the
two in general elections.
Labor's sun was sinking in the election of 1950, which the party won
by a narrow margin. The Conservatives took over in 1951 and boosted
their majority in 1955. Has the pendulum's swing to the right ended?
The answer may lie in the policies and personalities of the two great
parties today.
[Illustration]
IV. _The Conservatives_
A PARTY AND A WAY OF LIFE
_The Conservative party have always said that, on the whole, their
policy meant that people had to fill up fewer forms than under the
policies of other parties._
SIR ALAN HERBERT
_The man for whom the law exists--the man of forms, the Conservative,
is a tame man._
HENRY THOREAU
[Illustration]
Although they have little in common otherwise, the Great American
Public and the radical wing of the British Labor Party share a strange
mental image of the British Conservative. They see him as a red-faced
stout old gentleman given to saying "Gad, sir," waving the Union Jack,
and kicking passing Irishmen, Indians, and Egyptians. He is choleric
about labor unions, and he stands for "no damned nonsense" from
foreigners.
The picture was a false one even before World War II. No party could
have existed for a century, holding power for considerable periods,
without a basis of support in the British working class. Such support
would not be granted to the caricature of a Conservative described
above. Certainly the Conservative Party has now, and has had in the
past, its full share of reactionaries opposed to change. The inquiring
reporter will encounter more than a smattering of similar opposition to
change among the leaders of Britain's great unions.
Britain's altered position in the world and the smashing Labor victory
of 1945 combined to whittle away the authority of the reactionaries
in the Conservative Party in the years between 1945 and 1951 when it
was out of office. Since then other influences, including the rise
within the party of young politicians whose education and experience
have little in common with those of the recognized Tory leadership,
has further altered the character of the party. It has come a long way
since 1945.
A young Conservative minister recalls with horror the annual
Conservative conference of that year. The chairwoman, a billowy dowager
wielding a lorgnette, announced with simpering pride that she had a
surprise for the conference. It was, she said, "a real Conservative
trade-unionist." Had the Archbishop of Canterbury appeared on the
platform and danced the can-can, the surprise could not have been
greater. When a Negro student went to the platform a decade later to
discuss colonial affairs, no one turned a hair.
In retrospect, the election of 1945 was one the Tories could not win.
Almost everything was against them: the pre-war Tory government's
appeasement of Germany, the military disasters of 1940, the distrust
of Churchill in time of peace, his own exaggerated campaign attacks on
Labor, the superb organization of the Labor Party machinery by Herbert
Morrison. Ten years later the Conservatives faced an election they
could not lose. Even when all other conditions are taken into account,
this was a singular example of the adaptability and mobility of the
Tories.
The Tories saw that the nation had changed, and they changed with it.
Both the political philosophy of the party and the organization of
the party were altered--the latter change being more drastic, more
complete, and more rapid than the former.
In the organizational change the reports of the Committee on Party
Organization in 1948 and 1949 were of paramount importance. The
committee was headed by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, later Viscount Kilmuir
and Lord Chancellor.
Before the party could win an election on its altered policy, a
reconstruction of its machinery was necessary. To reconstruct along
the lines advised by the experts, the Tories first brought in Lord
Woolton, who had been a successful Minister of Food during the war. It
was a sagacious appointment. As Chairman of the Party Organization,
Woolton created a young, enthusiastic body of workers whose propaganda
on behalf of the party began to impress the electorate--largely, I
suspect, because these workers were so unlike the popular idea of
Tories.
While Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, R.A. Butler
led the parliamentary fight against the Labor government, a group
of young Tories built the party case for the leaders. Techniques of
research and propaganda were developed. Promising young men and women
from all classes were encouraged.
These younger Conservative tacticians included many who are now
ministers. Iain MacLeod, who has been Minister of Health and Minister
of Labor, Reginald Maulding, who has been Minister of Supply and
Paymaster General, Selwyn Lloyd, the present Foreign Secretary, are
representative of the nucleus of talent which was built during those
years. They and a score of junior ministers are young, vigorous, and
ambitious. They know their own party, and, what is equally important,
they know the Labor Party and its leaders.
Talking with the leaders of both the major parties, one is struck
by the breadth of the Tories' knowledge of the Labor leaders'
personalities, views on national issues, and aspirations. "Know your
enemy" is an axiom as wise in politics as in war.
Yet I doubt that all the political intelligence and administrative
ability in the Tory ranks would have sufficed without Woolton.
Frederick William Marquis, the first Viscount Woolton, is not, as one
might suppose from his imposing name and title, the son of a hundred
earls. He is very much a self-made man who fought his way to success in
commerce and finance. He is a Jim Farley, rather than a Mark Hanna.
When Woolton took over the chairmanship of the Party Organization, the
party was defeated and discredited. He left it after the triumph of
May 1955 with Conservative fortunes at their post-war zenith. I have
mentioned Woolton's reorganization of the Central and Area offices,
but his influence on the party went beyond this. In the years when
the Socialists ruled in Whitehall, Woolton transferred to the beaten
Conservatives some of his own warmth and vigor. He is an urbane,
friendly man; the young Conservatives then emerging from the middle
class felt that they were directed not by an aristocratic genius but
by a fatherly, knowledgeable elder. Indeed, his nickname was "Uncle
Fred." The revived party began to talk like a democratic party and
even, occasionally, to act like one. Under Woolton the Central Office
in London changed from a remote, austere group controlling the party
into a Universal Aunt or Uncle, ready to help constituency parties
solve their problems. Yet the leader of the party and the chairman of
the Party Organization continued to direct and control.
Conservative Party policy, as it has evolved in the past decade, has
moved to the left. This is not solely because, as the Labor Party often
charges, it wanted to steal or adopt parts of the Socialist platform.
A great many of the young men in the Tory party in 1945 sympathized
with many of the Socialists' policies. "I'd have voted Labor myself if
I hadn't been a Tory candidate," one of them reflected a decade later.
What offended the Tories' self-esteem was that great, revolutionary
changes were being made in British life by the Labor government and
they, who had always assumed a special right to rule Britain, were not
making the changes.
A large part of Conservative political tactics in the late forties
consisted of negative criticism. The parlous state of the British
economy, the withdrawals from India and Burma, the decline of British
influence and power in the world offered great opportunities to a party
that traditionally combines business interests and experience with an
assumption of omniscience in the direction of international affairs. At
the same time, the work of the back-room boys in the Central Office on
the solution of Britain's economic difficulties, expressed in speeches
of party leaders, gave the impression that the Conservatives, whatever
their past faults, were moving to the left in their approach to the
economic problem.
The present leadership of the Conservative Party--Harold Macmillan,
Lord Salisbury, R.A. Butler, and a number of the younger ministers--is
well to the left of the economic position assumed by the party in the
1945 election. Indeed, the complaint of the party's middle-class rank
and file that the Conservatives are carrying out a pseudo-socialist
program rather than a truly Tory one is an important factor in
estimating the party's ability to retain power.
A word is needed here about "left" and "right" as applied to British
parties. Although the Conservative Party is frequently compared with
the Republican Party in the United States and has many similarities of
outlook, the Conservatives are, on the whole, well to the left of the
Republicans. Thinking in the Labor Party, moreover, is well to the left
of both Democratic and Republican parties in the United States.
After the Conservative victory in the election of 1955 it was generally
expected that the party would move toward the right. Critics will seize
upon British intervention in Egypt as evidence of such a movement. But
it can be asked whether a policy designed to bring down a dictator--in
this case President Nasser of Egypt--when it was evident that the
United Nations was unable or unwilling to do so can be classified
as a right-wing, reactionary policy. Similarly, the movement of the
British government under the leadership of Sir Anthony Eden and Harold
Macmillan toward entry into the European common market can scarcely
be considered an example of right-wing extremism. The attacks on this
policy by the newspapers controlled by Lord Beaverbrook, the most
imperialist of the press lords, testify to the anger aroused by the
progressive internationalism of the Conservatives.
No one can gainsay the existence of a strong nationalistic element
within the Conservative Party in the House of Commons and in the
country. This element rebelled against the Anglo-Egyptian treaty by
which Britain agreed to quit Egypt. It supported the decision to
intervene in Egypt. Parenthetically it should be noted that the moving
spirits in this decision were Sir Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan,
men who, by conviction, belonged to the progressive wing of the party.
Finally, when the government agreed first to a cease-fire and then to a
withdrawal from Egypt, this group censured both the United Nations and
the United States for their part in bringing this about.
Given the character of the Conservative Party's support in the country,
the presence of such a group within the party in Parliament is natural.
But do not discount the adaptability of the party. When Harold
Macmillan formed his government in January 1957 he found it possible,
with the approval of the party, to include in it both Sir Edward Boyle,
who had resigned from the government over the Egyptian invasion, and
Julian Amery, who had rebelled against the government because it
listened to the United States and the United Nations and halted the
invasion.
The Conservatives' approach to Britain's economic and financial
problems is well to the left of the policies followed by their pre-war
predecessors. Britain's is a managed economy to an extent that would
shake the late Stanley Baldwin and the present Secretary of the
Treasury in Washington. Mr. Macmillan and his ministers are not secret
readers of _Pravda_. They are political realists who understand the
changes in power which have taken place in Britain, who understand that
the Council of the Trades Union Congress is as important today as the
Federation of British Industries.
The Labor Party, it often seems, suffers from an inability to
understand the changes that have taken place in their opponents. It
may be, as Socialists contend, that the changes are only a façade
hiding the greedy, imperious capitalists beneath. But to an outsider
it seems that the Labor Party pays too much attention to the surviving
extremists of the Tory party and not enough to the venturesome,
progressive younger men who will inherit the party. Surely the appeal
of the Conservative Party to the electorate is based more upon the
personalities and policies of these rising stars than upon the
reactionaries of the right wing.
The Conservative Party arouses and holds some strange allegiances. I
remember Michael Foot, the editor of the left-wing weekly _Tribune_,
saying that in his old constituency of Devonport there were solid
blocks of Conservative votes in the poorest areas. Foot could not
understand it. The rather contemptuous explanation offered by a
Conservative Party organizer was: "Why not? People who are poor aren't
necessarily foolish enough to buy this socialist clap-trap."
The Conservatives have been making inroads into the new middle class
created by the boom of 1953-5. This group emerging from the industrial
working class was formerly strongly pro-Labor. There are indications
that the more prosperous are changing their political attitudes as
their incomes and social standing improve.
The Conservatives concentrate on a national appeal. Labor by its
origins is a class party. In a country as homogeneous as Britain, the
Conservative boast that they stand for all the people rather than for
merely one class or one geographical area is effective. To this the
Tories add the claim that they are the party most suited by training
and experience to deal with the international problems faced by the
nation.
This assumption of the right to rule is not so offensive to Britons
as it might be to Americans. There is little historical basis for it.
If an aristocrat, Winston Churchill, led Britain to victory in World
War II, a small-town Welsh lawyer, David Lloyd George, was the leader
in World War I. Nevertheless, there is a tendency--perhaps a survival
of feudalism--among some Britons to believe that their affairs are
better handled by a party with upper-class education and accents. And
of course the Conservatives look the part. Mr. Macmillan, the Prime
Minister, is a far more impressive figure than Hugh Gaitskell, who
probably would be Prime Minister in a Labor government. The accents,
the clothes, the backgrounds of the Tory leaders give the impression
of men born to conduct government. Brilliant journalists have argued
that the class they represent is unrepresentative, and that the Suez
crisis proved its inability to understand the modern world. Surely the
present Conservative leaders and their predecessors have been guilty
of quite as many errors as the Socialists and Liberals of the past.
However, they give the impression of competence. As any politician
knows, even in the most enlightened of democracies such impressions are
as important as the most brilliant intellects or the wisest programs.
The Conservatives enjoy another important political advantage. Until
the present the leaders of the party generally have been drawn from
one class, the old upper middle class. They went to the same schools,
served in the same regiments. Families like the Cecils, the Churchills,
the Edens, the Macmillans intermarry. The closeness of the relationship
breeds coherence. Basically there is an instinctive co-operation when
a crisis arises. The manner in which the Tories closed ranks after Sir
Anthony Eden's resignation was an example.
The upper ranks of the civil service, of the Church of England, and of
the armed services are drawn largely from the same class. Usually this
facilitates the work of government when the Tories are in power. But
recently there has been a change. In their drive to broaden the base of
the party, the Conservatives have introduced to the House of Commons
a number of young politicians who do not share the Eton-Oxford-Guards
background of their leaders.
The environment and education of this group and their supporters in
the constituencies is much different. For Eton or Harrow, substitute
state schools or small, obscure public schools. Some did go to Oxford
and Cambridge, but they moved in less exalted circles than the Edens
or Cecils. They are usually businessmen who have made their way in the
world without the advantages of the traditional Tory background, and
they are highly critical of the tendency to reserve the party plums for
representatives of its more aristocratic wing.
They seem to be further to the right in politics than such
"aristocrats" as Macmillan, Butler, Eden, or Lord Salisbury. They
have risen the hard way, and they are more interested in promoting
the interests of the business groups for which they speak than in
the traditional Tory concept of speaking for the whole nation. This
national responsibility on the part of the "aristocrats" was in many
ways a liberal attitude. Macmillan and Butler, for instance, appear
much more responsive and tolerant on the subject of trade unions than
most members of the new group.
As the power of this group increases--and it will increase as the
Conservative Party continues to change--sharper disputes on policy,
especially economic policy, can be expected. This encourages some
Socialists, naturally sensitive on the point, to believe that their
opponents are headed for a period of fierce feuding within the party.
Their optimism may be misplaced.
The Tories are adept at meeting rebellion and absorbing rebels. The
indignant "red brick" rebel of today may be the junior minister of
tomorrow whose boy is headed for Eton. Despite the advent of these
newcomers, the party does not appear so vulnerable to schism as does
the Labor Party with its assortment of extreme-left-wing intellectuals,
honest hearts and willing hands from the unions, and conscientious and
intelligent mavericks from the middle class.
Finally, the power of what has been called the "Establishment" is
primarily a conservative power that wishes to conserve the governmental
and social structure of Britain against the majority of reformers.
On great national issues this usually places it upon the side of the
Conservative Party. If it can be defined, the Establishment represents
the upper levels of the Church of England, of Oxford and Cambridge,
_The Times_ of London, the chiefs of the civil service. The direct
power of this group may be less than has been described, but few would
deny its influence.
The common background has served the Conservatives well in the past.
Open political quarrels within the party are rare. (The conflict over
the Suez policy was an exception.) "The Tories settle their differences
in the Carlton Club," Earl Attlee once said. "We fight ours out in
public. We're a democratic party that thrives on contention." Perhaps,
but the contention nearly wrecked the Labor Party between 1953 and 1955
and had much to do with its defeat in 1955.
Much of the comparative tranquillity of the Conservative Party is
due to the power of the party leader. Nominally, he is elected by
the Conservative Members of the House of Commons and the House of
Lords, all prospective Tory candidates for Commons, and the executive
Committee of the National Union. But, as Robert T. McKenzie has pointed
out in his _British Political Parties_, the leader is often selected
by the preceding leader of the party when it is in power. Thus, Sir
Winston Churchill made it clear that Sir Anthony Eden was his heir as
leader, and Sir Anthony was duly elected.
A different situation arose when Sir Anthony resigned as Prime Minister
because of illness. In that instance the Prime Minister was selected
before he became leader of the party. It was widely believed outside
the inner circles of the party that there was a choice between Harold
Macmillan and R.A. Butler. Actually the leaders of the party, including
Sir Anthony, Sir Winston, and Lord Salisbury, and a substantial number
of ministers, junior ministers, and back-bench Members had made it
clear that their preference lay with Macmillan.
The structure of the British government and of the Conservative
Party give the leader a good deal more authority over his party than
is enjoyed by a President of the United States as the head of the
Republican or Democratic Party. In power or in opposition the leader
has the sole ultimate responsibility for the formulation of policy and
the election program of his party.
The annual party conference proposes, the leader disposes. Resolutions
passed at the conference do not bind him. The party secretariat (the
Central Office) is in many ways the personal machine of the leader. He
appoints its principal officers and controls its main organizations for
propaganda, finance, and research. Consequently, it is unlikely that a
Conservative politician would challenge the authority of the leader
as sharply and directly as Senator McCarthy challenged the authority
of President Eisenhower in the latter's first administration. The
conclusion is that, although Tory democracy is an attractive political
slogan, it has little connection with the almost autocratic authority
of the party leader.
In the field of political tactics moderation is the guiding principle
of the new Conservatism. This became evident in the election of 1955,
which the Tories fought soberly and efficiently. Pointing to Britain's
evident prosperity--the stormclouds were already piling on the horizon,
but campaign orators seldom see that far--the Conservatives asked the
people if this combination of good times at home and easier relations
abroad (the summit conference at Geneva was in the offing) was not
better for the nation than revolutionary policies and hysterical
oratory.
The party's appeal for votes seemed to reflect a surer grasp of popular
attitudes than the Labor Party's. In retrospect the Conservative
message was a consoling one. Everyone had work. Almost everyone had
more money than he had had three or four years before, although the
established middle class already was feeling the effect of rising
prices and continued heavy taxation on real income. The roads were
filling up with cars that should have been sold for export, running on
gasoline that was imported with an adverse effect on the balance of
trade.
During six years of Socialist control the Labor politicians had
informed the British that a return to Conservative rule would mean a
revival of the bad old days of unemployment, dole and hunger marches,
strikes and lockouts. Yet here were Sir Anthony Eden patting the unions
on the head and Harold Macmillan talking warmly of the chances of a
successful conference with the Russians at Geneva. It was all a little
confusing and, from the Conservative standpoint, very successful.