I was struck by the number of people of both parties prepared to
accept the Conservatives' contention that their party was, by some
mysterious dispensation, uniquely suited to the business of conducting
the nation's foreign policy. In some areas, notably in the North and
the Midlands, this seemed to spring from Eden's long and, on the whole,
successful record in international affairs. In others I encountered a
feeling that the withdrawals from India and Egypt and such blunders as
the loss of the Abadan oil refinery had lowered the prestige of the
country. Certainly the Tories were not guiltless. Nonetheless, there
was a persistent conviction that the Tories handled foreign affairs
best. Occasionally--this was at the nadir of Socialist fortunes--I met
Labor supporters who subscribed to this view.
The first public reaction to British intervention in Egypt in 1956 was
a triumph for organized public opinion as directed by the Labor Party.
From the resolutions that flooded into London from factory and local
unions, one would have concluded that the whole of the British working
class was violently opposed to governmental policy. Actually, a number
of public-opinion polls showed that the country was pretty evenly
divided. My own experience, traveling around Britain in January and
February of 1957, convinced me that, on the whole, the working-class
support for the Suez adventure was slightly stronger than that of the
professional classes. Of course, as in most situations of this kind,
the supporters did not bother to send telegrams of support.
The Labor Party in the House of Commons made a great offensive against
the Conservative position on Egypt. This played a part, but not the
dominant part, in the cabinet's decision to accept a cease-fire. The
paramount factor was the indication from Washington that unless Britain
agreed to a cease-fire, the administration would not help Britain with
oil supplies and would not act to support the pound sterling, whose
good health is the basis of Britain's position as an international
banker.
The Socialists' attack did result in the emergence of Aneurin Bevan as
the party's principal spokesman, and a most effective one, on foreign
affairs. This is an area where the Labor Party has been weak in recent
years. Death removed Ernest Bevin, a great Foreign Secretary, and
Hector McNeil, the brightest of the party's younger experts on foreign
affairs.
Moderation, a national rather than a class approach, the middle
way--all these sufficed for the Tories in 1955. Two years later
there are abundant signs that a sharper policy will be necessary to
meet international and internal situations vastly more difficult.
Drastic policies invite harsh argument in their formulation. Can the
Conservatives continue to settle their differences in the Carlton Club
or will these spill out onto the front pages of the newspapers?
The primary political problem the Conservative government faced before
Suez was whether it could continue its policies, especially where they
related to defense and taxation, and retain the support of a large
and influential group of Conservative voters. This group is offended
and rebellious because, although the Conservatives have now been in
office for over five years, it still finds its real income shrinking,
its social standards reduced, and its future uncertain. It regards the
moderate Conservatives' economic policy and attitude toward social
changes as akin to those of the Labor Party. By the middle of 1956 its
resentment was being reflected by the reduction of the Conservative
vote in the elections.
The group can be defined as the old middle class. During the last
century it has been one of the most important and often the most
dominant of classes in Britain. Its fight to maintain its position
against the challenge of the new middle class and the inexorable march
of social and economic changes is one of the most interesting and most
pathetic parts of Britain's modern revolution.
The leaders of the old middle class represented a combination of
influence and wealth in the professions, medicine, the church, the
law, education, and the armed forces. The members of these professions
and their immediate lieutenants administered the great institutions
that had established Britain in the Victorian twilight as the world's
greatest power. They were responsible for the great public schools, the
Church of England, the Royal Navy, the banks, the largest industries,
the shipping lines, the universities.
They were not the aristocracy. The decline of the aristocracy, with
its ancient titles, its huge estates, and its huge debts, began over
a century ago. The old middle class began life as the aristocracy's
executors and ended as its heirs.
The pattern of life in the old middle class was shaken by World War
I, but it existed relatively unchanged in 1939. The class was the
butt of the bright young playwrights of the twenties and has received
the acid attentions of Mr. Somerset Maugham. It supported Munich and
Chamberlain, and it sent its sons away to die in 1939.
As a group, the class was well educated. The majority of the men had
been to a public school and a university. Both men and women bought and
read books and responsible newspapers. They traveled abroad, they knew
something about the world. Some had inherited wealth. Others invested
their savings.
Beneath this upper stratum of the old middle class was a lower middle
class that sought to rise into it. This was made up of shopkeepers,
small manufacturers, the more prosperous farmers, the black-coat
workers in business, and the industrial technicians.
The future welfare of these two groups is the political problem that
the Conservative Party must face. Since the decline of the Liberal
Party, the Tories have counted upon the support of this class. There
were many defections in the election of 1945, but it is probable that
a more important reason for the Tory defeat that year was the party's
failure to win the support of a new middle class that was then arising
as a factor in British politics.
The chief reason why the old middle class is defecting from the Tory
standard is that it believes that the Conservative governments since
1945 have not done enough to halt the drain on its incomes. Prices
have risen sharply in the years since Chamberlain went to Munich. One
estimate is that the 1938 income of £1,000 a year for a married man
with two children would have to be raised to £4,000 to provide the same
net income today. But in this class the number of men whose incomes
have quadrupled or even doubled since 1938 is small.
What do the figures mean in terms of a family's life? They mean that
to send the children to a public school, which the majority of this
class regards as indispensable from a social and even occasionally
from an educational standpoint, the father and mother must do without
new clothes, books, the occasional visit to the theater. Instead of
two regular servants, the family must "make do" with a daily cleaning
woman. The family vacations in some quiet French or Italian seaside
resort must be abandoned. The father and mother are unable to save and
are increasingly worried about their future. They see a future decline
in the family's social standards and economic health.
All this is aggravated in their minds by the appearance of a new middle
class arising from a different background and doing new and different
jobs. Its income, its expense accounts, its occasional lack of taste
stir the envy and anger of the old middle class.
What the old middle class asks from the government--and, through the
government, from the big trade unions and the big industrialists--is an
end to the rise in the cost of living which it, subsisting chiefly on
incomes that have not risen sharply, cannot meet. Directly it asks the
government for an end to punishing taxation and to "coddling" of both
the unions and the manufacturers.
The dilemma of the Conservative Party and its government is a serious
one. To lose the support of the old middle class will be dangerous,
even disastrous. For although the Tories have attracted thousands
of former Socialist votes in the last two elections, these do not
represent the solid electoral support that the old middle class has
offered.
Perhaps in time the government may be able to reduce taxation.
Before this can be done, it must halt inflation, expand constructive
investment in industry, and increase the gold and dollar reserves. Each
of these depends to a great degree on economic factors with world-wide
ramifications. The old middle class understands this and is justifiably
suspicious of "pie in the sky" promises.
Such suspicion is increased by the understanding of the other serious
long-term problems that British society faces. We need mention only
one in this context: how is Britain to maintain its present standards
of life and the present levels of government expenditure when it is
faced with the coming change in the age distribution of the population?
The steady fall in death rates and the low birth rates of the years
between the two world wars are beginning to increase the proportion
of elderly people, and thus to reduce the proportion of the working
population to the total population. The size of the age groups reaching
retirement age increases yearly. It is predicted, on the basis of
present population trends, that over the next fifteen years the
population of the working-age group will remain about the same but that
the number of old people, persons over sixty-five, will rise over the
next thirty years by about three million. At the same time the number
of children of school age is expected to increase.
Britain thus is faced with a steady increase in the number of the aged
who need pensions and medical care and the young who need medical care
and education. This charge will be added to the burdens already borne
by the working-age group.
The country needs more hospitals and more schools. It needs new
highways. It has to continue slum-clearance and the building of homes.
Yet Britain has been spending $7,000,000,000 a year on social services
and $4,200,000,000 on defense. Under existing circumstances, and in
view of present Conservative policies, can the old middle class look
forward to an important reduction in taxation under any government?
Reduction of taxation was one of the goals sought by Conservative
government when it planned a revision of Britain's defense program.
This revision, first planned by the ministry of Sir Anthony Eden and
given new impetus by the Macmillan government, has other objectives,
including the diversion of young men, capital, and productive capacity
from defense to industrial production for export. But an easing of
the defense burden would create conditions for tax relief in the
Conservative circles that need it most.
The reduction of defense expenditures places any Conservative
government in a dilemma. The party expects the government to maintain
Britain's position as a nuclear power--that is, as a major power.
The political repercussions of the Suez crisis showed the depth of
nationalism within the party, and, indeed, within the country. Yet
it seems plainly impossible for the Tories to reduce taxation of the
middle class drastically without cutting the defense expenditure that
has maintained Britain, somewhat precariously, in the front rank of
world powers.
Of course, tax relief will not fully answer the difficulties of the old
middle class. Its incomes, ranging from the pensions of ex-officers
to the profits of small businessmen, have lagged behind prices.
Stabilization of prices is essential if this class is to maintain its
standards.
The rebellion of the old middle class against Tory policy and
leadership, if carried to the limit, might result in the creation of an
extreme right-wing party. Such a party would be brought into being more
easily if the sort of inflation which helped wreck the German democracy
after World War I were to appear in Britain. Would the political good
sense of the British enable them to reject the vendors of extreme
political panaceas who would appear at such a juncture?
The old middle class contains today, as it has since 1945, persons
and organizations fanatically opposed to the unions and to labor in
general. Extremist organizations, some of them modeled on the Poujadist
movement in France, have appeared. In many cases the opposition to
labor policies and personalities has been expanded in these groups to
include the "traitors" at the head of the present Tory government, who
are considered betrayers of their party and their class.
There is a reasonable expectation that Britain will continue to
encounter economic problems whose solution will involve economic
sacrifices by all classes in the future. The old middle class feels
that it has sacrificed more than any other group. There is thus a
potential of serious trouble within the Conservative party. The most
probable development, it seems to me, is an attempt by the right
wing of the party to win and hold power. But a rapid deterioration of
the economic situation under a moderate Tory government followed by
the return to power of a Labor government might well encourage the
transformation of the Tories into a radical right-wing party.
At the moment the right wing of the Conservative Party wants too much.
It asks for an uncontrolled economy and is restless under the measures
imposed to defeat inflation. But it also wants a stabilization of
prices. It wants a "tough" foreign policy, but it opposes the taxation
necessary to make the arms on which such a policy must rest. It has an
almost reckless desire to curb the trade unions without reckoning the
effect on industrial relations.
The moderates who fashioned the present Conservative Party and who now
lead its government appear to understand their country and its position
better than their critics on the right wing. In addition, their
programs have attracted the attention and support of young people to a
degree unknown on the right wing.
In the late thirties, when I first was indoctrinated in British
politics, it was smart to be on the left. The young people before the
war were very certain of the stupidity of the Conservative government
policies, at home as well as abroad, and their political convictions
ranged from communism to the socialism of the Labor Party. "All the
young people are Bolshies," a manufacturer told me in 1939. "If we do
have a war, this country will go communist."
A good proportion of young people still are on the left. But they do
not seem to hold their convictions as strongly as those I knew in the
pre-war years. On the other side of the fence there has been a movement
toward an intellectual adoption of conservative principles. In some
cases this verges on radicalism, in a few almost to nihilism: the
"nothing's any good in either party, let's get rid of them both" idea.
There is always a danger to democracy in such attitudes. They are
encouraged in Britain by a tendency in some circles to adopt an
arrogant, patrician distaste for all democratic politics. This is
understandable. The revolution that began with the war has weakened
the economic and political power of a once dominant class. But that
does not excuse those who seek to destroy faith in democratic processes.
The position of the Conservative Party is both stronger and weaker than
it appears. There are reasons for believing that by the next general
election, probably in 1959 or 1960, the policies of the government
will have relieved the more immediate problems such as inflation
and the need for increased exports. This success will not change
Britain's position as a comparatively small power competing militarily,
politically, and economically with the larger established powers, such
as the Soviet Union and the United States, and the reviving powers,
Germany and Japan.
The dominant group in the Conservative Party and government has,
however, a considerable degree of competence and experience in
government. It has an effective parliamentary majority during the
present administration. Against these positive factors we must place
the probability that some of its policies will continue to alienate an
important group of its supporters; the result may be a rebellion within
the party or worse.
The Tories are not politically dogmatic. Like the people, the whole
people, they claim to represent, they are flexible in their approach
to policies and programs. They change to suit economic conditions and
political attitudes. In Britain's present position, the appeal of a
party that contends it is working for the nation rather than a class or
a section should not be minimized.
But it is precisely Britain's position in the modern world that
forces upon the Conservatives today, and would force upon Labor if it
came to power tomorrow, certain policies that are at odds with the
principles of each faction. The Tories, for instance, must manipulate
the economy. The idea of "getting government out of business" may be
attractive to some industrialists, but in the nation's situation it
is impractical and dangerous. Similarly, the Labor Party, despite its
anti-colonialism, must follow policies that will enable Britain to
keep her investments in Malaya's tin and rubber and in the oil of the
Middle East.
We see the two great parties meeting on such common ground. Perhaps
because they are less restricted by dogma and can boast greater talents
at the moment, the Tories appear slightly more confident of their
ability to meet the challenges of Britain's position.
[Illustration]
V. _The Labor Party_
POLITICAL MACHINE OR MORAL CRUSADE?
_The idea of Socialism is grand and noble; and it is, I am convinced,
possible of realization; but such a state of society cannot be
manufactured--it must grow. Society is an organism, not a machine._
HENRY GEORGE
_We are all Socialists nowadays._
EDWARD VII WHEN PRINCE OF WALES
[Illustration]
"The Tories won the election because they understood the changes that
had taken place since 1945," said a Labor politician in 1955. "We
misunderstood them and we lost. Yet we call ourselves 'the party of the
people.'"
This assessment, made on the morning of defeat, explains to some degree
the Labor Party's defeat in the general election of 1955. It raises
the question of whether the party, as now constituted, is in fact a
working-class party. The growth of the Labor Party, the emergence of
its saints and sinners, the triumph of 1945, the disaster of 1955 make
up one of the truly significant political stories of the century.
For Americans it is especially important. The British Labor Party
is the strongest non-communist left-wing party in any of the great
democracies of the West. Granted the normal shifts in political
support, it will be back in power sometime within the next ten years.
The government and people of the United States must regard it as
a permanent part of British political life, and they will have to
understand it better than they have in the past if the alliance between
the United States and the United Kingdom is to prosper.
The British Labor Party is the political arm of what the old-timers
like to call "the movement." And it is as well to remember that not
so very long ago--Winston Churchill was a young politician then and
Anthony Eden was at Eton--it was a "movement" with all the emotional
fervor the word implies. The men who made the Labor Party a power in
the land were not cool, reasoning intellectuals (although, inevitably,
these assisted) but hot-eyed radicals who combined a fierce intolerance
with a willingness to suffer for their beliefs.
The movement includes the Labor Party itself; the Trades Union
Congress, known universally in Britain as the TUC; the Co-Operative
Societies; and some minor socialist groups.
The Trades Union Congress is one of the centers of power in modern
Britain. We will encounter it often in this book. Here we are concerned
with its old position as the starting-point for British working-class
power. The first Labor Party representatives who went to the House of
Commons in 1906 were supported almost entirely by members of unions.
The Parliamentary Labor Party came into being as an association of the
Labor members of the House of Commons. Today it includes members of
the House of Lords. There was originally a much closer co-ordination
between the unions and the Labor MP's than exists now.
Today the TUC, although it exerts great political power both directly
and indirectly, is important principally as the national focus of the
trade-union movement. All the unions of any size or importance except
the National Union of Teachers, the National Association of Local
Government Officers, and some civil-service staff associations, are
affiliated with it.
Its membership is impressive. The unions have a total membership of
9,461,000, of which 8,088,000 are affiliated with the TUC--this in
a population of just over 50,000,000. The TUC's power is equally
impressive. It is recognized by the government as the principal channel
for consultation between the ministries and organized labor on matters
affecting the interests of employees generally.
This power is not unchallenged. One of the disruptive situations in the
Labor movement today is the restlessness of a number of constituency
labor parties under the authority of the TUC. The constituency labor
parties are the local organizations in the parliamentary constituencies
or divisions. A number of them are and have been well to the left of
the official leadership of the party. In them Aneurin Bevan finds his
chief support for the rebellion he has waged intermittently against the
leadership during the last five years.
Another source of anxiety to the TUC is the unwillingness of some
unions--mostly those infiltrated by the Communists--to follow its
instructions in industrial disputes. The TUC leaders with whom I have
talked regard the strike weapon as the hydrogen bomb in labor's armory.
They oppose its indiscriminate use. But in a large number of cases they
have been unable to prevent its use.
The labor movement represents generally the industrial urban working
class in Britain. But it is no longer an industrial urban working-class
party. The modern movement relies on other sections of the population
for both leaders and votes. Just as there are working-class districts
that vote Tory in election after election, so are there middle-class
groups who vote Labor.
Horny-handed sons of toil still rank among the party's leading
politicians, but the post-war years have seen a steady increase in
two other types. One is the union officer, whose acquaintance with
physical labor is often somewhat limited. The other is the product of
a middle-class home, a public-school education, and an important job
in the wartime civil service. Hugh Gaitskell, the present leader of the
Parliamentary Labor Party, is a notable example of this second group.
The party still includes intellectuals treading circumspectly in
the footprints left by the sainted Sydney and Beatrice Webb. The
intellectuals, perhaps in search of protective coloring, often assume
a manner more rough-hewn than the latest recruit from the coal face.
Incidentally, it was my impression that the defeat of 1955 shook the
intellectuals a good deal more than the practical politicians. They
departed, as is their custom, into long, gloomy analyses of the reasons
for the defeat. They, too, may have been out of touch with the people.
Of course the defeat of 1955 did not finish the Labor movement in
Britain any more than its victory in 1945 doomed the Conservative
Party. True, the Labor vote dropped from 13,949,000 in 1951 to
13,405,000 in 1955 and the party's strength in the House of Commons
fell from 295 to 277 seats. But the prophets of gloom overlooked the
movement's immense vitality, which comes in part from its connection
with certain emotions and ideals well established in modern Britain.
Within the movement the accepted reason for the defeat was the
interparty feud among the Bevanites on the left and the moderate
and right-wing groups. The moderates, representing the TUC and the
moderate elements of the Parliamentary Labor Party, provided most of
the party leaders in the election campaign. But in the year before the
election the squabbling within the party in the House of Commons and
on the hustings created a poor impression. One leader went into the
campaign certain that the party had not convinced the electorate that,
if elected, it could provide a competent, united government. These
bickerings thus were a serious factor in the Socialist catastrophe.