THIS PARLIAMENT
By WILSON HARRIS, M.P.
PARLIAMENT, the first in which Labour has ever commanded a majority, is adjourning for some ten weeks on August 2nd. Since it met for the first tine on August I, 1945, it will have behind it when it rises precisely a year's (still more precisely a year and two days') concentrated activity. For concentrated it has unquestionably been. It is doubtful whether in the long histofy of the House of Commons conscientious Members have ever put in a year's harder labour. Time was, and not so long ago, when the Parliamentary week began on Tuesday ; now the House is at.it every day except Saturday, and more Standing Committees are sitting in the mornings, and sitting longer. Parliamentary life is more difficult than ever for the Member with a profession or trade to share the demands that his Commons work makes on him, but it will be a poor day for the House when such Members form only a minority. We are not far from that now ; too many Members are giving up the whole of their time to politics and not bringing in from outside the experience of another, and in some ways more practical, world.
One feature of the present Parliament has determined the whole course of the year's work. Not since 1832 has a single party held so many seats-392—in the House. And never before, I imagine, except possibly in 1906, has more than half the House consisted of new Members. After twelve months they are no longer new. Nothing is more remarkable than the way in which a House so composed has maintained its unique and traditional atmosphere, its historic forms and ceremonial, unimpaired. Nowhere is the authority of the Chair more loyally supported than on the Labour benches. If Mr. Speaker has ever had awkward situations to handle—and,he has occasionally— it is old Members, not new Members, that have caused the trouble.
This Labour majority, naturally, has determined the whole course of Parliamentary business. As long as it stays solid, and there is no sign of any breach in it as yet, it means that Ministers can always get their measures through with no more change than they themselves after reflection may decide to accept. And they have got them through. No twelve months of any other Parliament can have pro- duced a crop of legislation equal in volume or importance to this. Down to -July 27th no fewer than 75 Bills had received the Royal Assent or were about to receive it, and among them were measures so far-reaching or revolutionary as those providing for the national- isation of the Bank of England, of the coal industry, of cable and wireless communications and civil aviation ; for the establishment of a National Health Service and the revision and extension of national insurance ; for the construction of New Towns ; and, most contentious of all, for the repeal of the Trades Disputes Act of 1927.
This is an enormous, output. To achieve it a heavy strain has been laid on Parliament, and a heavy strain on Ministers themselves. Some of the measures have, of course, aroused fierce opposition. Mr. Bevan has antagonised the doctors, Mr. Griffiths the Friendly Societies, Mr. Wilmot, by his threatened Bill, the whole of the iron and steel indus- try. But there is no disguising the fact that in its first year the Labour Government has given the Labour supporters who put it where it is what they wanted. There have been surprisingly few signs of defection. After the sweeping victory of 1945 an early re- action might have been expected. There has been none, either inside or outside the House. Inside, the Labour total has actually increased by one, for Squadron-Leader Millington, elected as a Common Wealth candidate, has joined the party. Outside, what is really striking is not the slight reduction in the Labour majority at one or two elec- tions, but the overwhelming evidence of the continued solidarity of the party majority in the country. The tide no doubt will turn Bexley may be some indication of that, but Pontypool and North Battersea certainly were not. Mr. Attlee is entitled to claim that he has faithfully discharged the mandate he received from the electors and that the electors who gave it approve him still.
I am, of course, trying simply to state objective facts. That is the situation as I see it, not at all the situation as I should like to see it. To begin with, so overwhelming a Government majority is by no means healthy. A Government should be-strong enough to be able to plan a programme with the certainty of being able to carry out its essentials, but not so strong as to be able to override and ignore all opposition. This Government is perfectly well able to do the latters• and sometimes does. Its right and wrong methods are plainly demonstrated in the nationalisation sphere. Three of its measures it got through easily because a large section of public opinion was with it. No one seriously objected to the nationalisation of the Bank, least of all the Governor of the Bank. In the matter of Cables and Wireless the desire of various Dominions for public ownership was obviously a factor to be reckoned with. The coal industry was in so bad a mess that there was something to be said for trying the only specific the miners themselves had consistently demanded (black though the outlook is now that it is being tried) and it is significant that Mr. Shinwell had no difficulty in securing the services of experi- enced coal-owners like Lord Hyndley and Sir Charles Reid on the strong Coal Board he has succeeded in appointing. Equally significant in the other direction is the complete failure of the Government to get anyone of importance in the steel world to co-operate in its indefensible and dangerous plans for the nationalisation of that com- plex and intricate industry. By its persistence in or abandonment of this particular endeavour the Cabinet's statesmanship may properly be judged.
But government, even in the first year of a new Parliament, consists less of legislation than of administration, and here judge- ment must be less certain and sweeping, for it is much less easy to decide whether failures are due primarily to incompetence or to difficulties that would handicap any Minister. The obvious targets for criticism are the Ministries which touch the public most closely— in such matters as labour, food and houses. Mr. Isaacs has had
• batteries of questions levelled at him on demobilisation, deferment, essential work orders and the like, and there is no doubt that in all these fields injustices, inevitable or not, have occurred and are occur- ring still. But to have got 3,500,000 men out of the services and into industry within a year after the end of hostilities is no small achievement. As Minister of Labour Mr. Isaacs is entitled to credit for that, however widely it should be shared among colleagues and officials ; he knows his subject and answers questions well. As Food Minister Mr. Strachey is still on trial. He began admirably, and it was hard on him to have to take the bread-rationing decision and put it into force. But he is completely different stuff from his pre- decessor, who never looked like being equal to the job, and higher things seem still in store for him. As for Aneurin Bevan and his houses, I am inclined to think judgement had better be suspended for a little. He has little enough to show in the way of permanent structures yet, and there is no prospect of Mr. Tomlinson's rash „prediction of roo,000 before the end of the year being realised. But progress from planning to actual construction is gathering pace, and 1947 may produce figures that will give the Minister a solid answer to the abundant and not unjustified criticism he has had to face. The Aneurin in office is someone 'wholly different from the polemic and irresponsible Aneurin in opposition.
To revert to the by-elections, a fellow-Independent arguing with me last week contended that if he were a Minister he would feel considerable uneasiness about the general situation. I differed, and still do. I have no objection at all to Ministers feeling uneasy ; it would no doubt be a salutary experience for most of them ; but I see no reason whatever, at the end of their first year of office, why they should. The bulk of the Press may be against them ; the Opposition may be vociferous and trenchant ; but there is no sign of a split in the party in the House—Mr. Bevin has his coterie of critics and a score or so of Labour men voted against the Government in the Bretton Woods debate, but all this amounts to little—and the by- elections show that the pendulum has hardly started swinging in the country. Many individual Ministers, moreover, have added considerably to their stature since they received their seals of office. The Prime Minister's speeches may be undistinguished, but they are always competent, and he seems to hold his team together well. Mr. Morrison's frequent brushes with Mr. Churchill are not usually his fault, and though there was something to be said for the Opposition Member who referred to " the Master of the House " (and was called to order therefor), he handles the House well and reasonably as leader. If he had Mr. Eden as vis-à-vis instead of Mr. Churchill proceedings would be much more harmonious and not less efficient.
Among other Ministers Mr. Bevin is, of course, unassailable. He has gone far towards keeping foreign affairs out of party controversy, and his greatest handicap is the irritation caused to his own sup- porters by the applause he evokes from the Tory benches. Mr. Dalton, as the reception of his two budgets has shown, is an acknow- ledged success ; he may yet be acclaimed a notable Chancellor. The Home Secretary is universally and increasingly popular and respected ; he will no doubt make mistakes, but he has not made one of any consequence yet. James' Griffiths, the Minister of National Insurance, who combines the best features of the old,miners' leaders with the best of the new, is equally respected, for both his competence and his personality. There are, of course, men on the Treasury bench who are plainly not equal to their work ; that goes for Under- Secretaries as well as Ministers, but only for a minority of them. Most of them are doing well, and therp is good material behind to draw on when the need arises.
But if that is true, and it is, it is equally true that man for man the Opposition Front Bench is by far the stronger. Apart from Mr. Churchill, for whom no possible role exists in the present House comparable to his brilliant and dominating past; there are Mr. Eden and Mr. Lyttelton, Sir John Anderson, Sir Andrew Duncan, Mr. Harold Macmillan, Mr. R. A. Butler, Mr. Oliver Stanley and several others equal to almost anyone opposite them. It is not necessary to characterise them in detail, but the all-round competence of Mr. Macmillan and Mr. Butler, Mr. Stanley's combination of wit and knowledge, and the unquestioned talent which Mr. Eden shows for genial and effective leadership when opportunity is given him, make a combination of qualities which would give the Opposition a powerful influence over events if only the leaders had an army of respectable size behind them. They have indeed many. able followers, men of the calibre of Mr. Hogg or Captain Thomeycroft, but to know that defeat by anything up to 200 votes is in prospect every time -takes exhilaration out of the most gallant of crusades. But nothing is static. The tide may turn. To some extent it is bound to. It would, for reasons I have suggested, be a good thing if it did. But I cannot see how anyone can contend that it has turned much yet.
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