NEWS OF THE WEEK
SPEAKING at the Labour Party Conference on Wednesday, Mr. Bevin said that what he saw around him convinced him that there was there the material for a strong alternative Govern- ment. There is some substance in the claim. Labour leaders like Mr. Bevin himself, Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Alexander have both proved their capacity and gained new and valuable experience RS members of the strong and successful Coalition administration which the Prime Minister has so brilliantly led. Mr. Bevin, indeed, is probably the best Minister of Labour any party could provide, and he has grown materially in stature as he has added political and Parliamentary experience to his extensive trade union experience. But after the first half-dczen leading figures Labour begins to tail off badly, and the prospect of substituting Mr. Attlee for Mr. Churchill as Great Britain's chief negotiator in the series of critical discussions in prospect in the next twelvemonths is calculated to cause not merely anxiety but alarm. As far as foreign policy generally goes, Mr. Bevin's speech on Wednesday, and the general enthusiasm with which it was received, showed how little divergence exists between parties in a field in which national unity is of funda- mental importance ; it is to be hoped that some of the references to the Polish question will be duly marked in Moscow. But the formulation of a foreign policy is only half the battle. The other half consists in applying it, and nothing could be more disastrous, particularly at a moment when the commanding figure of President Roosevelt has been withdrawn from the stage, than that a change— which could not be a change for the better—in the British repre- sentation in international discussions should leave Marshal Stalin the single survivor of the tripartite talks which did so much to pave the way to victory and should do so muck towards laying the foundations of- enduring peace.
