13 DECEMBER 1946, Page 5

The stalwarts of the Willesden Borough Council, in dropping incontinently

their " closed-shop-for-all-employees," claim, I see, that they are retreating in good order. There is no doubt about the retreat, and none about the wisdom of it. If obstinacy had prevailed the Borough Hospital would have found itself without doctors and nurses. The opinions of two councillors are instructive. According to one of them, the Labour majority had not made a mistake in principle, but only in the application of the principle, which was a very different thing ; according to another the name of Willesden had been made to stink throughout the country. Meanwhile the spectacle of Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Bevan, both of whom ardently supported the clause in last year's Trade Disputes Act which permits local authorities to declare closed shop, rebuking Willesden sternly for exercising the newly-acquired power is as welcome as it is edifying. • * * *