A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE Cabinet changes are important on both administrative and personal grounds. The separation of housing and health has long been widely advocated, and the Prime Minister's decision to entrust the former to Mr. Dalton rather than to Mr. Stokes will occasion no serious criticism. Mr. Dalton has made a good start at the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, where he is dealing with a subject in which he is keenly interested. Housing will be a very different matter and will call for the exercise of administrative abilities in which he has yet to prove that he excels ; his experience at the Board of Trade justified doubt rather than assurance regarding that. Mr. Marquand, similarly, in administering the National Health Service, will be tested as he never has been yet. But major interest, of course, is in the transference of Mr. Bevan to a new sphere—a move which will not greatly distress the medical profession. Of the abilities of the late Minister of Health there can be no question, and in a post which requires toughness he can probably command more of that quality than his predecessor, Mr. Isaacs. But which way will he exert it ? He is as impenitently Left as ever, and there is a Left in the industrial as in the political field. But knowledge that that fact is fully appreciated and that his attitude in industrial disputes will be closely studied will probably enable the new Minister to subordinate his personal sympathies successfully to the duties of his office, which may well involve considerable direction of labour.
* * * *
Previous page
