MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
NOW that the sediment stirred up by the debate upon the Beveridge Report has to some extent subsided, it is possible to examine the shape and colour of the misunderstanding which arose. The House of Commons, as might surely have been fore- seen, approached the discussion in a mood, not of deliberative calm, but of political disquiet. The atmosphere from the very start was sultry with accumulated thunder-clouds. Many causes combined to create this sultriness. Man is by nature a political animal, and although while danger is immediate and acute he can tolerate the suspension of politics, yet when pressure is relaxed his nature tends to reassert itself in varied forms of restlessness. This inevitable exasperation was increased last week by more specific causes. Only a few days before Conservatives had, in the opinion of their adversaries, challenged the party truce by their rebellion against the Catering Bill. The Beveridge Report, moreover, had received unexampled publicity both at home and abroad. It was inevitable that the debate would be exploited, to quote Mr. Barnes, " as an acid test of how- Parliament would approach the bigger problems of recon- struction." Nor was this all. The Report was obviously something more important than any plan for the simplification and enlarge- ment of our social services ; it was a statement of wide Socialist principles ; it implied the redistribution of wealth, and as such it was bound to arouse prejudice on a plane different from the accustomed level of Parliamentary deliberation. It should have been foreseen by those who were responsible for the handling of the debate that doubt regarding the Qiovernment's intentions was both •wide and deep. They should have been careful from the outset to remove these apprehensions. They were not careful.
The first mistake was to put into the mouth of Mr. Arthur Greenwood a motion which was unrepresentative of opinion in the Labour Party, and which by its very evasiveness suggested from the outset that some attempt would be made to minimise the scope, immediacy and authority of the Beveridge Report. Had this Report been intended as no more than a " comprehensive review " of our existing social provisions and as a " valuable aid " in deter- mining future legislation, then why had the whole world been allowed to suppose that it was an affirmation of our early intention to build a more equal social order? Mr. Erskine Hill might be right in warning us against. " conversion by headlines," but, if that were so, why had the headlines been printed and circulated in.such enormous type? The impression was at the very start created that Mr. Greenwood's truly admirable loyalty to his former colleagues in the Government had by some means been abused. And what Mr. Greenwood had hoped would prove a useful peg on which to hang the debate proved in fact an apple of discord which shook the loyalty and discipline of the Labour Party and which substituted conflict for co-operation. The second mistake' was the choice of Sir John Anderson as .the first of the three Government spokesmen. Suspicion, when once aroused, can only be allayed by the most unqualified assurances and by the utmost simplicity of phrase. Sir John Anderson is a man for whom I have the deepest esteem ; his mind is muscular, his memory prodigious, his courage heroic and his integrity unsurpassed ; yet Nature, who lavished so many of her gifts upon him, did not grant to him the gift of simplification. He speaks with the precision of a pianola, giving exactly the same emphasis to qualifications as he does to assurances, exactly the same stress to " no " as to " yes " ; he is so honestly anxious to avoid misunderstandings that he is almost invariably misunder- stood. He was quite right, for instance, to point out that the whole Beveridge plan was based upon the assumption that un- employment would not exceed a certain figure, and that it was impossible at present to forecast whether this assumption was justified. But he became so involved in phrases such as "a prior demonstration of its validity " that even Dr. Burgin failed to gather what he meant.
The confusion aroused in the minds of Members by Sir John Anderson's meticulous precision was not in the least diminished on the next day by the gyrations of Sir Kingsley Wood's " sympathy and hope." The Government, as we learnt from Mr. Herbert Morrison on the last day of the debate; were in fact resolved to accept and put into legislative form some 70 per cent, of the Beveridge plan. Yet Sir Kingsley, owing to long habits of caution, owing to his unhappy passion for the double negative, assured us blandly " that they were doing nothing to retard these proposals." Seldom in any gladiatorial combat has a protagonist shown such unnecessary hesitation. Instead of using his trident he sought, for no apparent reason, to involve his antagonist in a net ; he lifted his shield instead of hurling his javelins ; alld the rapid movements of his legs raised a heavy cloud of dust. And there, crouching under the gallery, sat Sir William Beveridge himself, brooding like the Witch of Endor. And what (had Sir Kingsley been able to com- mune with him) would the witch have said? The answer would have been no less discomforting than that delivered to Saul on the eve of the battle of Gilboa. " Moreover," Sir William, with his accustomed charm, would have replied, " the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into the hands of the Philistines." And even Mr. Morrison, with his superb mastery of the occasion, proved unable to deliver Sir Kingsley out.
The final vote was received, not with jubilation, but with gloom. Each side felt that, owing to inadvertence, the House of Commons had been placed in a false position. Most of those who voted for the Government were indignantly conscious that their vote would be represented as hostility to the Beveridge Report. Many of those who voted against the Government resented the fact that their vote might be interpreted as lack of confidence in the present coalition. All were conscious that, although the difference of opinion was more apparent than real, yet it would assume in the eyes of the public and of foreign observers the proportions of a major conflict and would thereafter be magnified and exploited. All were conscious that a greater degree of frankness on all sides, a more prudent handling of the Parliamentary machine, a more intelligent tactical conception, might have prevented a collision which was desired only by the extremists on either side. All were deeply disappointed that so great an opportunity had been bungled, and that the community of purpose to which, during the years of danger, the House has given so sturdy an expression, should, owing to misadventure, have beea dislocated almost beyond repair. And all were enraged that a scheme which will require for its execution the united energies and unselfishness of the whole community had, by an error in shunting, been switched from a national cause into a party controversy. It may well be that the immediate political differences will give way to persuasion and that an internal crisis in the Labour Party can be avoided. It may even be that the fissure which was opened in the cement of the coalition may be adequately repaired and the surface plastered. But the fact remains that owing to carelessness a tremendous opportunity for unification has been missed.
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I do not wish to seem pessimistic. The Beveridge Report is, after all, a great State document, and to more than two-thirds of its recommendations the Government are now irrevocably pledged. The Labour Party have shown their determination, and they know that (whatever may have been the voting figures) they can count on the sympathy of many progressive members on the other side. The public should have learnt by now that the Beveridge Report is not some magic incantation but a suggested course of treatment, involving much sacrifice, subject to many unforeseeable difficulties, and practicable only under certain conditions. And it may well turn out that the same errors of presentation and management• will not be repeated next time, and that when it comes to legisla- tion the House may recover the unity of purpose of which it was temporarily deprived.
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