AT WESTMINSTER
ALL Conservative members would agree and, probably, sd! would many Labour members, that of the political leaders on either side of the House the one who has most advanced in authority during the present session is Mr. Eden. On Wednesday he opened the debate on colonial affairs for the Conservatives. That is only one indication of the way in which the interests of the man once narrowly dedicated to foreign affairs have broadened. He has also been playing a foremost part in economic and financial debates. In short, he has become the all-rounder that the leater-.1 designate of a party must be. Still, it is not in virtue of this that his reputation has been growing at Westminster. It has grown because of the statesmanlike quality he has shown in his approach to current problems ; because of the discovery that he is echo to: nobody, not even Mr. Churchill ; and because he has proved that' without abating his Conservatism he can rise superior to the rigours of the party-game. He obviously has the respect of the Labour members. His relation to them resembles Baldwin's. No Conserva-. tive spokesman has met with such cheers from the Labour party as he did at the end of his fine speech in the Korea debate. That was a tribute to the large outlook of the speech.
* * * * Korea is bound to keep breaking in everywhere now. It soon got into the debate on the third reading of the Finance Bill. Mr. Gaitskell had undertaken to vindicate the Chancellor's budget surplus policy. The last of several arguments he used for the purpose was that a surplus is necessary because of the possible demands of the Korean conflict. Herein Mr. Lyttelton spotted the whole lesson of the Finance Bill, as he sees it, which is that we are left without taxable reserves to meet an emergency. Sir Stafford told Mr. Lyttelton that we had far from reached the limits of " taxability." There was the implication that the £650,000,000 relief on taxation of incomes given since 1945 could be reimposed and that more could be got out of indirect taxation and death duties. Only, of course, to meet an emergency. A friend had a quarrel with this reply. It was a terminological not a financial one. He grieved that Sir Stafford had missed the chance of speaking about the " availability of taxability."
* * * *
The inquest on the Strachey " plot " speech was an uncomfortable affair. Mr. Churchill called it a rather painful one. That is inevit- able where a Minister's candour is assailed. Nevertheless, the House was acutely interested, as it always will be, when a Minister's fortunes as well as reputation are at stake, especially the fortunes of one who has been leading such an exciting ministerial life as Mr. Strachey. Accordingly, he had a crowded House to hear him. He has no nerves. This was not the first Parliamentary ordeal he had faced, but he was as cool and assured in this, the most critical of them, as he had been in the earlier and less trying ones. He presented his case in the mildest of tones. The plot passage of the speech referred to the Tory manoeuvres in the House, and as for the criticisms of the Schuman Plan, regrettable though some might be in tone and open to an equally regrettable misunderstanding by M. Schuman and his associates, they nevertheless did not go beyond the position taken up by the Government in the debate. Mr. Strachey's whole demeanour proclaimed that this would be accepted as a true and reasonable explanation by any person not blinded by, prejudice. * *
But the Opposition half of the House did not accept if as a satisfactory explanation. Mr Churchill, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe and Mr. Clement Davies were convinced that the speech wai meaningless save as alleging a capitalist plot against the plan, and that it was, in Sir David Fyfe's word, hypocrisy to pretend that i% could be reconciled with the Government's welcome for 'the Schuman initiative. Still, Mr. Attlee has once again thrown hit, shield over his lieutenant, even though he did think him wrong tar impute motives to the authors of the. plan.
H. B.
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