A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
SINCE Ministers are finding it worth while to scout any idea of a coming Coalition Government I suppose such a possibility has been talked of, though personally I have heard little of it. There is, I am convinced, not a prospect of such a thing, firstly because there is no occasion for it and secondly because nobody concerned wants it—Conservatives as little as Labour. The Govern- ment's stock is undoubtedly low, but by no means as low as its critics would like to believe. The Dalton episode is a blow to its prestige, but the demand for a change of Chancellor was widespread, and the succession of Sir Stafford Cripps, with the result, among others, that any clash between economic and financial policies becomes impossible, is a definite source of strength to the adminis- tration. So will something else be. The effect of the Marshall Plan on our immediate problems can no doubt be exaggerated, but it will obviously be substantial, and the Government will be entitled to considerable credit for it. Nothing can diminish the supreme debt which all Western Europe owes to the American Secretary of State, but it may well be doubted whether his initiative would ever have borne the fruit it has but for the immediate response it received from Mr. Bevin and the ceaseless efforts the Foreign Secretary exerted to carry the Paris discussions to success. If all that could be known ever is known the part Mr Bevin has played in the whole affair will, I believe, be found to have been more rather than less effective than has so far appeared. For all these reasons I have no belief in the likelihood either of the Coalition or of an early appeal to the country.
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