29 AUGUST 1952, Page 2

Storms Spreading to the North

The agenda for the Labour Party's annual conference at Morecambe at the end of September foreshadows a certain liveliness at the conference itself. The long list of motions covers a wide variety of subjects, but there are two which arrest attention at sight. The National Union of Mineworkers, an extremely powerful body, has tabled a resolution which reads : " This conference places on record its appreciation of the work of the Labour Government under the leadership of the Rt. Hon. C. R. Attlee, 0.M., C.H., M.P.," to which the South Worcestershire Labour Party, a relatively unimportant body, proposes to add : and also of the foresight of the Rt. Hon. Aneurin Bevan, M.P., in the attitude that he adopted towards disarmament," —a singular distribution of gratitude, seeing that it was on dis- agreement with his leaders about disarmament that Mr. Bevan resigned from Mr. Attlee's Government. The incompatibility between resolution and addendum is patent. The con- ference will have its choice. It can either make itself ridiculous by eulogising both the party leader—a very natural and. proper thing to do—and his principal opponent within the party, or it can reject the South Worcestershire resolution against the votes of all the Bevanites. The complacent harmony which the official Facing the Facts purported to exhibit to the world looks like being a little marred.