The Dissidents' Gospel
The much heralded Bevanite document, One Way Only, is a curious production—anonymous, with an introductory and rhetorical blessing from Aneurin Bevan, Harold Wilson and John Freeman, who agree with some but not with all of it. It may be assumed that what they agree with most is the myopic argu- ment, as myopic as Mr. Bevan has shown himself in his speeches on the subject, regarding expenditure on armaments, and the animosity displayed against the United States from the first page to the last. What the armament argument comes to in a nutshell is, " If we were not spending so much on armaments we should have more to spend on social services and colonial development." With that thesis no sane man would disagree. But there follows the conclusion " We must spend less on armaments to have more of other things" with which, in present circumstances, few sane men would be willing to agree. Mr. Bevan and his friends know why we are spending £4,700 million ; "The Government fixed a money figure as a result of what would satisfy American desires." What do they think would happen to the social services if as the result of cutting down armament expenditure we failed to survive as a free nation ? But the Bevanites are not afraid of that : " The policies of the West are based on a gross overestimate of Soviet strength "—a dogmatic statement for which not a shred of evidence is adduced. Not a word is said about the present immense preponderance of •Soviet military strength in Europe. The new pamphlet does-squarely pose the choice between spending freely on social services, with arma- ments getting what can be spared from that, and spending what in present circumstances is essential on armaments, with social services temporarily limited, or., if hard necessity compels, even in some fields curtailed. It will be surprising if the hard-headed trade unionists who form the majority of the delegates at the Labour Party Conference in October are carried off their feet by Mr. Bevan's specious contentions.
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