LABOUR AT SCARBOROUGH
SIR,—Your article Labour at Scarborough was particularly naïve and did not appear to reach the standard which one expects of The Spectator. There is much that can be criticised in the article, but may I mention the following:—Mr. Crawley said that if there had not been a Labour Government after the war relations in industry would have been so bad that the country would have been ruined. He goes on to say that the fault would have been with the private owners. How can he possibly know how private owners would have acted ? What he means is that the trade unions would not have accepted the majority verdict, but would have tried to impose their will on the nation by undemocratic means. If this is correct and the trade unions are only prepared to co-operate When their own party is in power, democracy may not survive in this country, but personally I do not think that the trade unions would behave so unpatriotically. Mr. Crawley also referred to the increase in production under Socialism. His statement contrasted strangely with the statement on the front page of the same issue as to the fall in the production of coal since 1938.
Mr. Crawley later spoke of Mr. Bevan's speech. I understand from his article that this speech could "be torn to pieces in analysis" and that after Mr. Bevan had made it the odds in favour of his becoming the next Prime Minister had shortened. This hardly reflects credit on the Labour Party, but in this case Mr. Crawley should be congratulated on his honesty. I should not enjoy The Spectator if it did not give expression to different political views, but I do think that your readers were entitled to something a little more mature than Mr. Crawley's rather simple propaganda. Had he by any chance intended it for one of his party papers and posted it to The Spectator by mistake ?—Yours faithfully, W. G. ROADKNIGHT.
21 Hayes Court, Camberwell New Road, S.E.5.
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