AT WESTMINSTER
The Lords, who had arranged rather a quiet week for them- selves, made good one of the omissions that Mr. Crookshank noted. They debated agriculture on Tuesday. and such criticism as there was fell upon the bad farmers. Two former Ministers of Agriculture. Lord Hudson and Lord Halifax, encouraged the agricultural executive committees to be more ready to give certificates of bad farming. "if the bad tenant enjoyed a little less security of tenure it would be good for agriculture," said Lord Halifax. The seconder of the Address, Lord Buckmaster, made the same point last week.
In the Commons the feebleness of the attack upon the Government was largely due to the diffusion of Labour's energy. The party is still policy-making and still in the toils of civil strife. Before the debate opened in the House on Tuesday, the Parliamentary Labour Party met to hear the result of the ballot for the deputy-leadership of the party. Mr. Herbert Morrison was re-elected by 194 votes to Mr. Bevan's 82. In ordinary circumstances the winner would have been content, but Mr. Bevan's vote happens to have been the largest that Labour Members have given in any Bevanite issue. More voting is now going on for the committee of the party. Labour of course must work out its own salvation, but it is a pity that the party cannot go into the wilderness and grapple there with the devil undisturbed. The Parliamentary time-table prevents the journey, and the Opposition perhaps does not realise how much its public fight is handicapped by the loss of energy in the private battle.
This was the background of the scene which Mr. Butler confronted on Tuesday. Labour's main solace was the hope that the demand for much greater economies made earlier in the week from the Tory benches by Mr. Richard Law, Mr. Godfrey Nicholson and Mr. Martin Lindsay would force the capitulation of the Chancellor and compromise the Govern- ment's case in the country. Indeed, Mr. Hugh Gaitskell asserted on Tuesday that the Tory back-benchers would win. His was the only speech from the Opposition Front Bench that really warmed the Labour Members. Mr. Morrison tried to repeat his Morecambe speech, but it gave Labour less satis- faction this time. Mr. Bevan did not take part in the debate.
Mr. Butler presented himself to the House in his opening sentences as a new man, buoyant, proud of his record, scorn- ful of the Opposition, confident in his mastery of the job—and of the party. It was one of those revealing occasions in which a politician, by his tone, suggests that he has passed a stage in his career. But in the course of his speech he used a phrase that does not often fall from the lips of a Tory Chancellor: "We shall not take any steps, I tell the House, which are not to the benefit of our own social democracy." .1. F. B.
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