31 MARCH 1944, Page 3

PRIME MINISTER AND PEOPLE

A BROADCAST address by the Prime Minister in these days ti is a matter not of national but of international importance, and the significance of last Sunday's talk was enhanced by the fact that it was over a year since Mr. Churchill had given in this country a similar review of the world situation. His speech has been hailed with particular satisfaction in the United States both for what it included and for what it did not include,—for its renewed assurance that whether the war with Japan were long or short British and Dominion troops would go through with it to the end at the side of their American- Allies, together with the in- formation that a powerful battle-fleet was now in Indian waters, as the fruit, no doubt, of the removal of anxieties in the Mediter- ranean; and equally for its absence of all but the most terse and transient reference to the impending Second Front, an omission inevitably disappointing to the German High Command. To all the Allies alike the survey was heartening. The Prime Minister, balancing the good and the bad with stern objectility, showed convincingly how vast the preponderance of the good was. At a time when the astonishing Russian victor:es are rightly filling the whole horizon it is well to be reminded that an achievement less spectacular, but hardly less far-reaching, if at all, in its bear- ing on the final issue of the war is the victory over the U-boat menace which grew to proportions so disturbing in the second and third years of the war. The menace is not disposed of finally. Admiral Doenitz will no doubt launch another spring campaign, and it will inevitably meet with a certain measure of success. But the balance between offensive and defensive has been struck. The destroyers, the corvettes, the long-range air- craft, the location-devices, the depth-charges have proved their capacity to deal with the U-boats' changing tactics, and we can be confident that new devices, which will certainly be forthcom- ing, will rapidly provoke an adequate reply.

There have, of course, been disappointments—in Italy and the Aegean islands—and the Prime Minister did not seek to conceal them. Neither did he seek to explain them ; it was neither the time nor the occasion for that. But unserviceable though an inquest into the details of military operations may be at this moment it is idle to disguise the concern generally felt at the fiasco of. the Aegean islands and the standstill of the offensive in Italy. Some of the reasons why the islands occupied in the Aegean could not 'be held are realised, but in view of the immense effect their possession would have had on the situation both in Turkey and in the Balkans it was clearly a case for the exertion of the maximum effort possible. It may be that the maximum effort possible in the circumstances was exerted, and it may be :hat no more than that can be safely said today. But at the right moment a full explanation must be given to the country. The iame applies to Italy. Here again it is obvious that inquiries nto mistakes and miscalculations are not appropriate while opera- ions are in full progress, but that mistakes and miscalculations lave been made is clear—the weather may be answerable for much, but not for everything—and neither the British nor the kmerican commanders concerned with that area are likely to let andue consideration for an Ally's susceptibilities preclude a roper allocation of responsibility when the time comes. Mean- while temporary disappointment cannot shake faith in the ulti- nate issue in Italy. There are no wars without disappointments, rid few if any in which no mistakes are made. Such as the Allies' Trors are in this -war, they must be set off both against the Allies' ar greater successes and against the immeasurably greater blunders ly which Hitler has made the victory of the Allies inevitable. No ine can doubt that the encouragement the Prime Minister derived tom his survey of the military situation was solidly based. But fully half of Mr. Churchill's speech was devoted, as a largo part of his broadcast speech a year ago had been, to the situa- tion at home. He was entitled to recall that he had then sketched out an ambitious programme of post-war reform in many fieds, and entitled equally to claim credit -for the fact that certain important measures foreshadowed in 1943 are in fact being carried, or are about to be carried, into law when the end of the war lies still in an unseen future. The enactment of Mr.

Fisher's Education Bill while the last Great War was still raging was an evidence of national enlightenment and national fixity of purpose which evoked deserved admiration in America and elsewhere beyond these islands. The enactment of Mr.

Butler's Bill will be a more notable achievement still, inas- much as the new Bill is more ambitious and comprehensive in its scope. The National Health Scrvice outlined in the White Paper recently published is equally ambitious and equally com- prehensive, while at the same time strictly practical and strictly equitable to all concerned. The doctors underestimate seriously the universality and genuineness of the welcome the public has given to the idea of the provision of adequate medical and surgical treatment for the whole population on some such basis as the Government's scheme provides. Mr. Churchill is abun- dantly justified in pointing to the production of the White Paper as one of his administration's outstanding achievements.

In regard to the extension of National Insurance he is on weaker ground, though the definite statement that the Govern- ment's proposals in this field are to be made available during the present session is extremely welcome. It is fully time the proposals were forthcoming. In the case of the National Health Service the Government had no material to work on ; it framed its own scheme, and is to be congratulated both on the adequacy of the scheme and the promptitude with which it has been pro- duced. In the case of National Insurance the basis is the Beveridge Report, and that was placed in the hands of the Government and published in December, 1942. There is a.

fashion in some quarters to treat this historic document as though it were the work of some visionary individualist ranging at large.

The fact is, of course, that Sir William Beveridge was appointed by the member of the War Cabinet responsible for reconstruction to do the work he has done so admirably well, and the Prime Minister has no ground for chiding commentators who point out that sixteen months is an abnormal period to devote to the framing of official proposals in a field already so amply covered.

The same applies to the Uthwatt Report. The Government, recognising that planning must precede detailed reconstruction proposals, appointed the Uthwatt Committee in January, 1941, to advise on means for preventing speculation in land and secur- ing public control of land for purposes of reconstruction. The Committee presented an interim report in July, 5941, and a final report in September, 1942. One at least of the interim recommen- dations, that land needed for public purposes shall be taken against compensation based on March, 1939, prices, has been adopted by the Government. That is so much to the good, but the Uthwatt Report goes far beyond that. It recommends that a Minister for National Development be appointed and that, to avoid speculation in land and random and ill-advised develop- ment, the right of development of all land lying outside built-up areas shall be vested in the Government against reasonable compensation, and in the case of built-up areas that the plan- ning authority, in order to enable it to plan comprehensively, shall be given compulsory powers of purchase over the whole area. Does the Government need eighteen months to decide for or against the adoption of these principles? Such planning depends equally on a decision on the Barlow Report on the Location of Industry. Sir Montagu Barlow's Committee reported in January, 1940. Obviously a decision on the principles it was asked to examine must govern plans for building and development generally. To stress this point is the plain duty of anyone who discusses the matter seriously. When the Prime Minister talks of people who "would rather postpone building the homes for the returning troops until they had planned out every acre in the country to make sure the landscape is not spoiled " he is resOrting to the picturesque oratory of which he is a recognised master, but using language divorced from all reality. Nothing unreasonable is being asked of the Government. Its preoccupa- tions are fully recognised. But plans must be made, however the name of planners may be derided, and to accumulate Minister, of Reconstruction, of Works, of Town and Country Planning, With a Minister without Portfolio concerned with reconstruction, is not a substitute for a Government decision on questions that must be decided before ordered development can go forward. The demand for that still stands.