CONSERVATISM'S CHANCE
THE second session of the present Parliament opened on Tuesday. It may well prove to be not merely the second but the last. Surprisingly as the Government, with its tenuous and precarious majority, has survived its first nine months, its own supporters appear to prefer another appeal to the electors to an existence perpetually imperilled by bye- elections and other even less predictable factors. Whether an election in February, 1951, or a little later would substantially modify the verdict of the election of February, 1950, may be doubted, but at least it would give the Conservative Party a chance to do what they so nearly achieved last time and establish a Conservative administration on the Treasury Bench. That might or might not be an advantage to the country. Everything would depend on whether the genuinely progressive elements in the party framed the programme and were given the opportunity to carry it out. There are strong reasons for holding that a progressive Conservative Govern- ment would serve the country better at this time than any other. But before Conservatives call on the country to support them they must make it clear that to put the brake on such adventures as nationalisation and impose a salutary check on Government expenditure in no way portends a relapse into stagnation or laisser faire. Almost intractable national and international problems have to be faced. It is for ConserValism to demonstrate that it can face them with vigour and imagination.
That should not be impossible. To speak of the Conser- vative Party today as reactionary is to echo the conventional jargon of its opponents. No one can suggest that in the field of social reform—as important as ever it was, whether in the sphere of legislation or of administration—Mr. Eden, or Mr. Butler, or Mr. Macmillan compares anything but favourably in ability and zeal with any three leaders of the Labour Party. Mr. Eden's broadcast last Saturday, though largely devoted, perhaps inevitably, to answering Mr. Morrison's arguments of the week' before, gave a clear outline of an enlightened Con- servative policy in the domestic sphere. About foreign policy there is fortunately still wide general agreement between the parties, and the exigencies of national defence, within f he limits of the Atlantic Treaty, are so far determined by external events that differences here too must be more of 'degree than of principle. Yet degree may be all-important. The in creases in the British forces in Germany so far announced are so palpably inadequate that alternative Conservative proposals are necessary. They cannot, of course, be based on the detailed knowledge which the Goverrunent of the day has at its disposal, but enough is known of the general situation to enable adequate estimates of the needs of an Atlantic Treaty army, and the proper contribution of this country to its composition, to be framed. That has in fact been done in the Chatham House report, Defence in the Cold War, discussed in these columns last week ; it may be noted that one of the joint authors of that document was Brigadier Antony Head, recognised as the best authority on military affairs among Conservative back-benchers, or indeed among Conservatives at all, in the House of Commons.
There is no lack in the House of Conservatives equally well versed in different branches of foreign and domestic policy. The last election brought to Westminster a number of young Conservatives who did not wait to begin their political think- ing till they got there. The fact that nine of them, none of whom had sat in the House before, should in their first year have produced so suggestive . and practical a statement of policy as that contained in the booklet One Nation is a highly encouraging sign. The policy is, of, course, the writers' own. It is they who give first priority in the social field to housing and education. The proposals for reform and economy in the administration of the shockingly expensive Health Service scheme is their own ; so is the social policy for industry out- lined in the booklet. But there is in fact little or nothing here that might not with advantage be embodied in an official Conservative programme. There is nothing that is not com- pletely consonant with Mr. Eden's endorsement last Saturday of the demand for 300,000 houses a year (which he effectively reinforced by recalling that at the recent Labour Party Conference at Margate, Mr. Coppock, the Secretary of the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives, had mentioned precisely that figure as practicable) or with his advocacy of a return, as alternative to the disastrous expedient of nationalisation, to the Steel Board which the Government itself established for the control of the steel industry and which by general consent worked admirably till the imminence of nationalisation brought it to an end.
But if the Conservative Party is to achieve its ends a little domestic house-cleaning is a necessary preliminary. The dominance of,,Mr. Churchill tends to be not merely oppressive but repressive. That a leader who first sat on the Treasury Bench in 1905, who has rendered incomparable service to his country, and on his ,day is still the most commanding orator in the House, should have that effect on his followers is almost, but not quite, inevitable. It must not be accepted as inevi- table. The Opposition Front Bench is far from constituting the row of extinct volcanoes of a former Conservative leader's parlance. There is plenty of vigour and initiative there. But there is plenty more—more than has by any means secured full recognition—on the benches behind. The formation of a Conservative Government may not be many months distant.
Who are the men who are to constitute it ? A modern Govern- ment consists of something like sixty Ministers, great and small. No one would expect the Conservatives to select their next Cabinet in advance. But the country needs to have confidence in men as well as in measures. Who are the men, apart from the old and tried survivals, who are to steer a .sound course through the difficulties and dangers impending at home and abroad ? Some of the ablest back-benchers must clearly have Cabinet posts in a new Conservative Government. Is none of them to be given recognition of his ability and his services to the party by being invited to take his seat on the Front Bench now ? Are individual back- benchers being given the opportunity to make the contri- bution they might make in the inner counsels of the party ? Are any pains, in short, being taken to advertise to the world, that it is on the progressive elements in the party that respon- sibility will be laid if the Conservatives come to power ? Without that the party will hardly achieve office, and hardly deserve it.
A Conservative policy must be more clearly defined than it has been. This is the Road was an admirable document, which no doubt contributed largely to the party's success last February. But world conditions, and as a consequence national conditions, have changed substantially since last February. We are committeed to heavy expenditure on defence which was not contemplated then. The Conservative conception of how to meet it will no doubt be unfolded during the debate on the Address. But how in view of this abnormal demand on the national resources, are money and material to be found for 300,000 houses ? It is not enough to say that Conservatives are convinced the houses can be built. They must convince the country—particularly the floating voter who is potentially, but only potentially, Conservative—by showing it how. It is the same with Government expenditure. Almost every Opposition speaker demands economies here, but too few of them indicate what the economies should be. Mr. Eden did indeed point to the £36,000,000 which has been virtually thrown away on the groundnut fiasco. Others have suggested Government publicity as a proper field for what could in fact be only minor cuts. And the proposal to cut food subsidies, compensating those sections of the population on which the reduction would press hard by increasinq various allowances and pensions, has something like official party authority. If more, not less, is to be spent on housing, possibly more on education, quite certainly much more on defence, and taxation yet to be reduced and the cost of living lowered, then a party which claims that all that is possible is under obligation to show quite clearly how it would reconcile these conflicting claims.' If the Conservative Party can do that it will deserve to win the next election and in all likelihood will win it.
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