SOME LABOUR PARTY PROBLEMS
THERE is no great profit in raking over the embers of last week's debate on the Beveridge Report in the House of Commons (this week's debate in the Lords is in progress as we write) even though they are by no means dead embers yet. The Home Secretary had not spoken when we went to Press last week, but his speech, though Mr. Morrison was dexterous enough to put the Government's attitude in a considerably more attractive light than the Lord President or the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done, did not, and obviously could not, modify statements which had already been made on the basis of decisions taken by the War Cabinet. The claim that out of 23 changes in our social security system proposed by Sir William Beveridge one only—the conversion of industrial insurance business into a public utility— had been rejected, at any rate for the present, six reserved for further consideration, and the remaining sixteen accepted—is no doubt true, but this is no mere matter of enumerating proposals ; they must be weighed as well as numbered. The refusal to take industrial insurance out of private hands, and the refusal to give evidence of good intentions and firm resolution by appointing here and now a Minister of Social Security prepared to stake his political career on getting this great reform programme through, both justify severe criticism of the Government, while departures from the Beveridge proposals in the matter of old age pensions and of the payment of health and unemployment benefit for a period limited only by the recipient's need arouse considerable misgivings and will make a searching scrutiny of the Government's own proposals a public duty.
There the particular question may be left for the moment, but a general question has been raised about which a good deal must be said. The Government was opposed in the Beveridge debate by sections of all the political parties, in one case—the Conserva- tive—by speeches only, in the other two by votes. The Independent Liberals, almost all of whom, including the Chief Whip, voted against a Government of which their leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, is a member, are not likely in consequence to be racked by internal strains, for Sir Archibald is not a member of the War Cabinet and therefore not personally responsible for the decision taken on the Beveridge Report, while of the three other Independent Liberals who hold Ministerial positions it would be extremely rash to assume that any of them would have supported the Government if they. had been private Members. With Labour the case is entirely different. Three of its leaders, Mr. Attlee, Mr. Bevin and Mr. Morrison, are included in the War Cabinet (Labour indeed is the strongest political element in that body, since Sir John Anderson is an Independent and Mr. Lyttelton not primarily a politician), and the hostile vote of the Labour Party in the House, led by Mr. Arthur Greenwood, himself a former War Cabinet member and the very man who originally gave Sir William Beveridge his commission, was undoubtedly a challenge which they could not wholly disregard. They certainly have not dis- regarded it. There have been strong words about loyalty, confi- dence and party discipline, there has been serious talk of resignations, there have been various party meetings, which seem to have ended in frank and fairly friendly talk and abstention from the passage of resolutions on which no unanimity could be obtained. While anything like a crisis has been averted the question of principle remains unsolved.
It remains unsolved largely because it is a new issue on which f.lw precedents exist as guides. Under ordinary party govern- ment the revolt of a considerable section of the party in power i- necessarily a serious matter, involving possibly enough, if the dissidents vote with the Opposition, the Government's defeat and resignation. Such a step is a revolt amounting to a party revolution. How far does the same principle apply under a National Government consisting of a coalition formed for the sole purpose of furthering the efficient prosecution of the war? A clear distinction must be drawn between the unity that common resolve imposes and the freedom which members of all parties retain to voice their convictions on lesser issues not directly associated with the war-effort. It would not only be unreasonable to demand that the whole Labour Party should blindly endorse whatever conclusions Messrs. Attlee, Bevin and Morrison reached on the Beveridge Report, it would be completely disastrous. A distinction admittedly exists between voicing and voting. It is arguable that Labour members should have been content, like the dissident Conservatives, with saying what they thought and then either voting with the Government or abstaining. But let it be quite clear what that means. Any semblance of control by Parliament over the executive would have been publicly jettisoned. That, it may be said, would only be admitting what is actually the fact. The answer is that on matters of domestic organisation. and reform it ought not to be the fact even in war-time. It was supposed that one object of the three-day debate on the Beveridge proposals was to give Ministers an opportunity of hearing the views of the House and taking account of them. It may• be that account will be taken of them, though not much indication was given of that. But a Government which knew that its critics would talk against it but never vote against it would be likely to rate criticism very lightly. As things are, no sane person records last week's minority vote as any breach in Parliament's unity in the one supreme cause to which unity has been pledged, and no Ministers of any party have any just ground for feeling aggrieved by it.
There is one compelling reason why dissension in the Labour Party in particulat is especially to be deprecated at this juncture. Little, perhaps too little, has so far been said about the application of the British Communist Party for affiliation with the Labour Party. That application has been considered by the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, which, as always before, has advised its rejection, and published a leaflet giving reasons for the decision. The reasons are clearly and cogently stated, and to them is appended a more convincing argument still—the Con- stitution and Rules of the Communist International, printed in full and without comment. From this document many things emerge, most notably the fact that the first and supreme allegiance of every national Communist Party is to the Communist Inter- national, with its headquarters in Moscow, and in particular to the Executive Committee of that body, all of whose decisions it must- unhesitatingly execute. It is in the light of that that the assurance of Mr. Harry Pollitt that the British Communist Party will loyally carry out all decisions reached at the Labour Party's annual conference must be read. This double allegiance is not possible. It would only become possible if the Communists succeeded in so dominating the Labour Party as to ensure that the decisions of the Party were identical with the decisions of Moscow. It may be argued that such a development could never happen. No complacent reliance should be placed on any such assumption. The constitution of the Labour Party and its constituent bodies, particularly the trade unions, is such that the totally unexpected is always possible to a determined, enter- prising and tireless minority, attending local meetings, filling local offices and electing delegates to superior bodies, while the general rank-and-file, heavily taxed by the demands of war-work, displays an apathy which, if regrettable, can easily be understood. There is no need to state the objections to Communism. So far as Russia, or any other country, is concerned there are no objections at all ; Russia goes her own way ; in any case this is the last of all moments for criticising Russia's internal organisation. But Communism in Great Britain is another matter. The Com- munists here have an anything but admirable record. Their contemptuous disregard for their country's welfare in the early years of the war, till Russia came in, was flagrant. The war for them was " a conflict of rival Imperialisms " ; and they exploited grievances' and promoted disaffection deliberately. The Daily Worker was suppressed, and kept suppressed, for decisive reasons. The Labour Party would be weakened, dis- tracted and probably enough disrupted by the association of Communist Party with it. Its leaders and its members, particularl the members of those unions whose vote is in danger of bei captured by the Communists, need to sink all difference and concentrate on the common interest before the decision to taken at the Party Conference in June. Once successful in ge inside the Labour Party the Communists would make it thei sole purpose to capture the machine. And they might be equall successful in that.
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