attitude toward the Socialist government and what it was doing. The
Conservatives and the dwindling band of Liberals just could not believe
that the Socialists were equipped to carry out such vast changes in
British life. They noted with sardonic humor the failures in Socialist
policy. They found the Labor ministers ineffectual and diffident
compared to their own leaders. "We had X and his wife to dinner last
week," the wife of an industrialist told me in 1948. "What a pathetic
little man! And in such an important post, too. Really, I looked at him
sitting there and thought of Winston and Anthony, and Duff, and I felt
like crying."
It was during this period that the Labor Party lost the support,
temporarily at least, of many of the Conservatives and Liberals who
had voted for it in 1945. The reasons for the shift are difficult to
ascertain. Certainly many people were affronted by nationalization,
especially when it directly affected their interests (though many of
them had voted for Labor expecting such changes). The continuation of
high taxation, which seemed permanent after the start of rearmament
in 1950, alienated others. The ineffectual way in which the Labor
government seemed to be handling many of its problems, particularly the
coal shortage, affected the political opinions of many. "Damn it, we
live on an island made of coal," said one civil servant who had voted
for Labor in 1945. "It's monstrous to have a coal crisis. What are they
playing at?"
In one field the Labor government won the grudging respect of the
Tories: its approach to the problem presented to the West by the
aggression of Soviet Russia. Mr. Attlee's dry, precise refutations of
Soviet policy might be a weak substitute for Churchill's thundering
oratory, but the nation found a paladin in the squat, rolling figure of
Ernest Bevin.
Bevin had spent much of his life fighting British communists for
the control of the unions. Entering the rarefied atmosphere of
international affairs at the top as Foreign Secretary, he brought to
his new task the blunt tongue and quick insight he had employed so
successfully in the old. Between 1945 and 1950, when the British Labor
Party was at the top of its power, Russian Communism was on the march
in Europe. It had no tougher opponent than this Englishman.
The Russians recognized him as a prime enemy. In Moscow in 1946 and
1947 the Soviet press denounced and assailed Bevin as hotly as they
did any other Western figure. Indeed, the whole Labor government
was vilified almost daily. The reason for this savage onslaught on
the earnest and industrious Marxists of the British government was
obvious. Stalin and his lieutenants had been talking about socialism
for decades. Here was a regime that might make it work without throwing
hundreds of thousands into labor camps and allowing millions to starve.
The anxiety of the rulers of Russia can be compared to that of the
proprietors of a black market who learn that an honest shop is going
into business across the street.
So this sturdy proletarian, Ernest Bevin, became one of the champions
of the West in the cold war and was praised by Conservatives and
Liberals. The left wing of his own Labor Party provided most of the
criticism. Still cherishing the illusion that the Russians could be
induced to drop their hostility to the West through "frank and open
exchanges," Bevin's comrades led by Aneurin Bevan attacked his policies
and especially his desire to maintain the Anglo-American alliance.
Those who cheered loudest, the people of the upper middle class who
detested Russia, were the ones who, in the end, suffered most from
the cold war. Britain's rearmament, under the impact of the Communist
seizure of power in Czechoslovakia, the Berlin Blockade, and, finally,
the attack on South Korea, was a costly business. It began soon after
the great expansion of social services had created the Welfare State.
Taxes, already high, rose further.
In thousands of middle-class homes the decline from the old pre-war
standards continued. The maidservant gave way to the "daily" who came
in once or twice a week to help with the cleaning. The savings for old
age were diverted to the rising costs of keeping the boys at school.
In a hundred pathetic ways, the middle class strove to maintain its
standards under the burden of taxation in a Britain it neither liked
nor understood.
But to balance this gradual depression of one class there was the
expansion of another. The victory of the Labor Party in 1945 encouraged
the working class of the nation to seek a richer, fuller life. It
opened vistas of a new existence and greater opportunities. It created
confidence.
Traveling to Cardiff in September 1945, I talked with a miner's wife,
a huge woman who spoke in the singsong accents of the mining valleys
of South Wales. She dandled a plump baby on her knee and talked of
what life would be like now. "My Dai's not going down the mine like
his dad," she told me. "Now that _we_ have _our_ government, he can be
anything he wants, do anything."
British society, despite its fixed barriers between class and class,
has always enjoyed considerable mobility. In the past the country
gentry and the aristocracy had surrendered power to the merchants and
the industrialists. Now the urban working class that had served the
merchants and the industrialists believed it had wrested control from
its masters. Labor's election victory seemed to prove it.
This breaking down of the old relationship between the classes was a
matter of deep concern to many, and their concern went deeper than
partisan political feeling. Repeatedly one was told that the worst
thing Labor had done was to create class feeling, to encourage class
antagonisms in a country that until then had never been affected by
them. This was only a half-truth. The class antagonism had been there,
all right, but the middle class now was belatedly the victim of the
bitterness that a hundred years of slum housing, poor food, and lack of
opportunity had created among some but not all of the working class. I
write "not all" because there were members of that class who were as
disturbed by the growth of class antagonism as any retired colonel
in his club. They felt instinctively that the unity of Britain was
being sapped by the emergence of a powerful and militant socialist
group whose object was change. Most of them had voted for change. But
the British are a conservative people. They accept change within the
framework of familiar institutions. Extensive reconstruction may go on
behind the façade, but the façade must remain untouched.
The hope and confidence born of Labor's victory, however, had a
long-term effect upon British society. It encouraged those who had
dreamed, like the miner's wife, of a better life for their children.
Ambitious mothers aimed higher than a few years of school and a factory
job for their sons. Young men who had won commissions during the war
decided to remain in the Army or the Navy or the Air Force now that the
old barriers were falling and the right accent and the right private
income did not matter so much as it once had.
By 1950 the economic and social forces that were to create the Britain
of today were in full motion. Paradoxically, the British electorate was
moving slightly to the right.
[Illustration]
VII. _A Society in Motion_
NEW CLASSES AND NEW HORIZONS
_There are but two families in the world--have-much and have-little._
CERVANTES
_Society is constantly advancing in knowledge. The tail is now where
the head was some generations ago. But the head and the tail still
keep their distance._
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
[Illustration]
Marie Lloyd, the darling of the music halls, sang a song that contained
the deathless line: "A little of what you fancy does you good."
In addition to their evangelism, their occasional ruthlessness, the
British have a streak of self-indulgence. This trait was encouraged
by the peculiar circumstances of the country after the Conservative
victory in the general election of 1951.
It was not a smashing victory. The Conservatives came back to power
with 326 seats in the House of Commons as opposed to 295 for Labor and
6 for the Liberals. Yet it is doubtful that even with double their
majority the Tories would have wished to undo all the work in the
fields of nationalization and social welfare accomplished by the Labor
administrations of 1945 and 1950. This was not politically feasible
and, with Britain still in the toils of economic difficulties, it would
have been unwise to convulse the industrial structure. There was no
restoration after the revolution. The Socialists obviously had not
attained the goals outlined by Professor Laski, but they had started
the nation in that direction.
If economic conditions had deteriorated, the new administration of
Winston Churchill might have been short-lived. But the world demand
for British products, especially such raw materials as rubber and tin
from Malaya, strengthened the economy. So did the gradual rise in
British production and the economic improvement in Europe which created
a larger market for British exports. After some uneasy months the
indices of economic health began to move upward. After twelve years of
military, political, and economic strain and anxiety the British were
ready for a little of what they fancied. Life around them looked good,
and they wanted to take advantage of it. There was a steady return of
confidence.
British exports were rising. You could actually go down to the
butcher's and buy all the meat you wanted. The Tories really were
building all those houses they had promised to build. It was easier now
to buy a new car and say good-by to Old Faithful that had served since
1938 or earlier. Taxes were as high as ever, but the government said
they would be reduced. And if you had a little money, there was plenty
in the shops to spend it on.
During the struggle with austerity after the war the British had been
surprisingly sensitive to foreign criticism of their apparent inability
to fight their way back to prosperity. Now here was prosperity or a
reasonably accurate facsimile of it. Those foreigners had been wrong.
Presiding over their recrudescence of national confidence was the
familiar figure of Mr. Churchill. The Prime Minister might lack the
acute economic penetration of Sir Stafford Cripps and Clement Attlee's
social consciousness, but he was a world figure in a way that neither
Socialist could claim to be. When in May 1953 the best-known voice in
the English-speaking world proposed a conference at the summit with the
new masters of the Soviet Union, the British felt that their leader had
enforced their country's claim to a share in the leadership of the West.
Neither the economic nor the political developments of 1951-3 altered
the raw facts of Britain's existence: the importance of denial at home
to expand sales abroad, the rising competition of Germany and Japan in
international markets. But these facts, which had been presented to
the people with monotonous regularity under the pedagogical leadership
of the Socialists, slipped out of sight. There was money to spend
and there were things to buy. And reading about the Queen and the
preparations for her Coronation was much more interesting than worrying
about the dollar balance.
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was one of the most impressive
and romantic spectacles of modern times. It is quite possible that
this combination of national pride, religious symbolism, and perfectly
performed ceremony will never be duplicated. It is also possible that
from the standpoint of national psychology the Coronation did the
British a good deal of harm by leading some of them into romantic
daydreams at a time when it was essential that they should keep their
heads and face the ugly realities of their position.
The young Queen pledging herself to serve her people, the evocation
of a glorious past, the survivals of ancient custom, the splendid
ceremony in London, and the other smaller ceremonies around the country
all exalted values that, although real and important in their place,
are only a part, and not the most important part, of a society that
must fight to retain economic and political power. People should be
reminded occasionally of their place in the historical procession and
of the existence of values other than those of the market place. But
such reminders are useful only when the people return to their normal
jobs with a new vigor and enthusiasm. In Britain the festivities of the
Coronation year seemed to drag on interminably.
In the case of the Coronation the monarchy might be said to have
overfulfilled its function of arousing national patriotism. Whipped on
by the national newspapers and the BBC, patriotic fervor went beyond
the bounds of reason and led to an overoptimistic estimate of Britain's
position in the world. _We can make this the new Elizabethan age!_
chanted the newspapers.
The idea that the subjects of Elizabeth II would emulate their
restless, adventurous, enterprising forebears of the reign of Elizabeth
I was a pleasing one. But it sounded odd in a nation of whose citizens
millions were devoted to security. In 1953, Coronation year, the age of
adventure and chivalry bowed resplendent and beautiful before a nation
in which the forces that had been working since 1940 were evoking
new classes and new ways of life. Neither had physical or mental
connections with the heroic past of aristocratic rural England or with
the old middle class.
In preceding chapters we have encountered some of the forces that
changed British life: the leveling effect of the war, the Socialist
victory of 1945, the extension of nationalization of industry and of
the social services, the decline in the economic well-being of the old
middle class. Now in the mid-fifties, as a result of these forces and
two others--full employment and rising wages--a class new to modern
British history has emerged.
Over the years between 1940 and 1955 there was very little unemployment
in Britain. The percentage of unemployment in 1940 was 6.4. Thereafter,
under the special circumstances of the war, the percentage fell until
in 1944 it was only 0.6. In the post-war years it rose slightly, but
the highest figure was 3 per cent in 1947.
Simultaneously, wages rose. Using October 1938 for the base figure of
100, weekly average earnings in the principal industries rose to 176 in
1943, 229 in 1949, and 323 in 1954.
The new class resulting from these changes and the earlier political
ones is composed mainly of the manual workers of British industry,
better housed, better paid, and more secure than ever before in their
history.
Definition of the new class from either a geographic or an economic
point of view is difficult. In the 1930's there was an extensive
redistribution of the British working population. Industries, heavy and
light, began to spring up in places like Oxford and in the heart of
hitherto largely rural counties like Berkshire and Northamptonshire.
Tens of thousands of workers left their homes in slum areas or drab
working-class neighborhoods and moved to new jobs in new industries. In
the six years before the start of World War II more than 2,000,000 new
houses were built in Britain. This was important in the resettlement
of the industrial population. Equally important was the fact that over
500,000 of them were built and let by local government authorities who
in turn were helped by the central government.
Subsidized housing had come to stay. In the decade since the war more
than 2,000,000 new houses have been built. Of these about 1,600,000 are
owned by local governments, which let them at low rents made possible
by government subsidies.
Another development that benefited the new class was the advent of
the New Towns. These are self-contained communities outside the great
centers of population, complete with industries, schools, churches,
hospitals, and public services. They are intended to draw people from
the cities and conurbations, already too large, and establish them in
the countryside.
The idea is old. Ebenezer Howard proposed it in 1898 and the proposal
was promptly attacked as the spawn of the devil and his socialist
friends. It was not until 1903 that Letchworth, the first of the New
Towns, was established. But World War II impressed on both Socialist
and Tory the wisdom of dispersing the industrial population, and in
1946 the House of Commons approved the New Towns Act. Today there are
fourteen New Towns in Britain, eleven of them in England. None is
complete, although workers are moving into them by the thousand.
Harlow, which occupies ten square miles of Essex, is the most advanced
of the New Towns. Its present population is about 30,000. The target
is around 80,000. The cost of this vast resettlement scheme is high.
Thus far it has been about £112,000,000, approximately $313,600,000.
Estimates indicate that more than double that sum will be needed to
complete the New Towns.
The New Towns are by all odds one of the most interesting and
imaginative developments in modern Britain. Their social and political
consequences are almost incalculable. For the New Towns will continue
to grow and to house a new class whose political and economic power
will be a dominant factor in British society.
They will not be completed overnight. In most cases the rate of growth
depends on the willingness of industry to build in the New Towns.
Exceptions are towns like Newton Aycliffe and Peterlee in the North of
England which have been built to house miners and their families. On
the whole, however, industrial support has been encouraging. With the
establishment of a new industry in a New Town more houses are built and
schools, churches, shops, and parks constructed.
In the process hundreds of thousands of people are leaving the
working-class sections of the Clyde or South Wales or London, trading
tiny, old-fashioned flats or houses for well-designed houses. The
children are going to schools that are new and not over-crowded. They
are playing in fields rather than city streets.
But the New Towns are not the only factor in the emergence of the
new class. In addition, there has been a steady increase in the
construction of low-rent housing estates by local authorities.
Incidentally, the people of the New Towns are sharply critical of
ignoramuses who confuse them with the people of the housing estates.
The housing estates are most often built on the fringes of big cities;
the tall--for Britain--apartment houses rising in Wimbledon, outside
London, are an example.
Each housing estate, when completed, siphons off some hundreds or
thousands of Britain's slum population. In some cases, notably in east
London south of the Thames, new housing estates have been built in the
wastes left by German bombing.
As a consequence of these efforts by both Labor and Conservative
governments to resettle the working class, Britain's slums are slowly
disappearing. Of course many square miles of them remain, and any
newspaper can publish photographs showing conditions of appalling filth
and squalor. Yet a great deal has been done to destroy the slums. There
remain, of course, the miles and miles of old working-class districts,
shabby and dull, but these are part of the landscape of any industrial
nation and it is probably impossible for any government, British or
American or German, to eliminate them entirely.
The people of the New Towns, of the housing estates, and of the working
class generally enjoy full employment and higher wages than they have
ever dreamed of in their lives. Admittedly, prices have risen steadily
since the war. But rents have not. In Norwich, for instance, there were
in 1956 eight thousand council houses that rented at seven shillings,
or ninety-eight cents, a week. The manual worker in British industry
often pays only a nominal rent. The Welfare State has relieved him of
the burden of saving for the education of his children or for medical
care.
A skilled worker in industry may have a basic wage of £12 ($33.60) or
£13 ($36.40) a week. Overtime work may raise the total to an average of
£15 ($42.00) for a week's work. A worker at a similar job in a similar
industry before the war was extremely fortunate if he made £4 a week.
Under these circumstances the buying spree on which the British people
embarked in 1953 was inevitable. The new class had no need to save.
The state took care of its welfare, and taxes were taken at the source
under PAYE (Pay As You Earn). Workers had been fully employed for more
than a decade. Now at last the shops were full, and the hucksters of
installment buying, known in Britain as "buying on the Never-Never,"
were at every door.
One investigation of life in the New Towns revealed a typical weekly
budget for necessities. The family spent £5 10 _s._, or about $15.40,
for food and household necessities. Rent and local taxes cost £2, or
$5.60. Lighting and heating cost 10 _s._, or $1.40, while the same
amount went to clothes and repairs. Cigarettes took a pound, or $2.80,
and the weekly installment on the television set was 15 _s._, or $2.10.
Few things demonstrate more strikingly the change in the status of
the British manual worker than his insistence on a television set as
a "necessity." Cars, radios, and, earlier, gramophones were available
only to the middle class or wealthy in pre-war Britain. For the first
time they are within the range of the manual worker.
Few families budget the considerable sum spent each week on beer,
the obligatory trips to the local movie theater, or gambling either
through football pools or bets on horse races. But it is not unusual in
these new circumstances to find men who spend £2 or £3 a week for such
purposes. "Why the bloody hell not?" a worker in Liverpool asked. "I've
got me job and I don't 'ave to worry." The permanence of his job and
of high wages had become an accepted part of his life. He was one of
those who had not been moved by the Labor Party's dire forebodings of
unemployment and the dole under Conservative rule. To him these were as
shadowy and distant as the Corn Laws and Peterloo.
The new class has money, security, and leisure: this is the promised
land. According to theories of some reformers, the worker, freed from
the oppression of poverty, should be expanding intellectually, worrying
about the future of Nigeria rather than the football fortunes of
Arsenal. My opinion is that the opposite is true, that with the coming
of the good life the worker has gradually shed his responsibilities
(some of these, in fact, have been stripped from him) and has lost the
old desperate desire to improve his lot and make himself and his class
the paramount political power in the land.
There is no need to save, for the state provides for all eventualities
the worker can foresee. There is no compulsion to ensure that the
children get an education that will enable them to rise above the
circumstances of their parents. For the circumstances are so good, so
unimaginably higher than those into which the fathers and mothers of
this class were born, that there seems to be nothing further to be
sought. Why should a boy be given a good education--"stuffing 'is head
with a lot of nonsense 'e'll never use" was the way one father put
it--when he can make £10 a week after a few years in a factory? The
schools are there, they are free, but when the time comes the boy can
leave the school and take up a man's work in the factory.
There seems to be a conviction among working-class mothers that a girl
needs a little more schooling to fit her for an office job. But the
men of the class, proud of the money they are earning and the "rights"
their unions have won, see no virtue in an office job or the higher
education that fits one for it.
For the manual worker has found security, and that is what he is
interested in, that is what he has sought through the long, bitter
history of industrial disputes in Britain. He is not interested in and
he does not share the standards of the old middle class or even of the
artisan class that preceded him.