LABOUR AND TORY
SIR,—In your leader today you say " There is no probability that Labour will be able to form a more efficient administration than the one it has displaced, or as efficient," and " Man for man, a Labour administration, unless much unsuspected talent is unearthed, will in most departments be weaker than the outgoing Government. That is a fact that must be accepted—if it is a fact." Well, is it? I submit that it is nothing of the kind, and that it is time that this shibboleth of so-called efficiency and ability in the Tory administration was destroyed. It seems to me that your comments are based on a wrong sense of values ; the per- spective is as wrong as that of those who are so wedded to the idea of a ruling class that they cannot visualise the value to be placed on experience and understanding of the lives of the common people. We judge a tree by its fruits, and we have no reason to expect that the late administration would have shown better results for the masses here and throughout the world than previous Tory administrations. The bad mcord of these administrations is writ large all over the face of the globe. Were they efficient? There were so-called able men amongst them, but what do we want from our administrators? We certainly want more than mere efficiency and ability to administer a department.
We want first and foremost a high purpose, a forward outlook and an emphasis at all times on things that are vital to the lives and happiness of the common people, that is the vast majority of mankind. This is much more important than professional ability. We have had enough of so-called able men who are lacking in what in Lancashire is called " gumption." Many Tory administrators have shown themselves very able in doing the things which it were better for the world had never been done. Lord Simon was, and :s,. an able man in his profession, but many think he was the worst Foreign Secretary that we have had in our lifetime. Why? Mr. Churchill is a genius in certain things, but he showed neither gumption nor a knowledge of the mind of his people when he " smarmed " Fraoco and when he made his deplorable broadcasts. These kind of people fall down because at critical times they either lack commonsense or else are more interested in bolstering up frayed and decayed systems than in helping men to get social justice.
I suggest that in comparing Mr. Attlee's team with those dismissed by the people we should get out of the jungle of the past and false values and see the horizon. Mr. Attlee's team are not condemned by their past like our past Tory administrations, and their mental processes are more in line with a changing world. They are not going to be lulled into contentment by swallowing the assiduous propaganda that we have the highest standard of living in the world and should be very pleased with ourselves, a grossly untrue statement which must be well known to members of the late administration like Lord Woolton who broadcast this statement during the election. Neither are we going to accept the idea that Mr. Attlee's team cannot compare with Ministers like Mr. Amery, Major Lloyd George, Mr. W. S Morrison and suchlike, who by the longest stretch of imagination cannot be regarded as successful Ministers. Remember that in the past the same sort of comparisons have been made, and we have been exhorted to think no end of people like Joynson Hicks, Sir John Gilmour and even Mr. Baldwin. No, it won't do. Let us have an end of this sort of nonsense about Tory ability ; the country has decided that it won't wash.—Yours faithfully, Bexhurst, Hurst Green, Etchingham, Sussex.
LEN HARDING.
Previous page
