AT WESTMINSTER I F ever one clapped eyes on an unhappy
House of Commons it was that which reassembled on Tuesday. And there was plenty to be unhappy about. Mr. Attlee's statement of the Govern- ment's attitude to Peking's re-interpretation of its proposals for a settlement on Korea found general acceptance, but it threw into high relief the strain to which Anglo-American and even Common- wealth unity is being subjected. That of itself, whatever opinion is held about the prudence of applying sanctions, was enough to produce melancholy in any but the little anti-American faction on the Labour left. Incidentally, the prejudice and irresponsibility of some of the latter are frightening. When Mr. Churchill urged Mr. Attlee to bear in mind the dangers that would ensue for us from any breach with the United States one of these individuals demanded to know, " Why ? " Here, apparently, was a Socialist bigot ready to welcome a breach with U.S.A. for its own sake.
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But the unhappiness of the House has another source. It is the domestic dilemma. The Commons are caught as in a vice of adverse circumstances. The Government is neither inspiring confidence nor providing leadership, largely because, as many suspect, it is confused if not divided in mind. It dilly-dallies on defence measures. It has seemed incapable of deciding what it wants from the Z reservists. (If there is no further postponement we are to have a defence statement next week.) In its higher reaches it consists of tired men who have been continuously in office since 1940. Its Foreign Secretary is a sick man. It cannot renew itself from its own resources in men. Last week's limited changes exposed the poverty of the land in that respect. There are half-hearted rearmers on its back-benches and possibly in the Cabinet itself. And, of course, there is its precarious position in the House and the strong proba- bility that it no longer commands a majority in the country. It is the sense that no immediate escape offers, that the House is a helpless prisoner of circumstance, that is producing the unhappy assembly we have seen this week.
* * * * Some Conservatives see salvation in coalition and, notwithstanding Mr. Attlee's rejection of it, there are some Labour men, though not many, who would favour it. But coalitions are not contrived like this ; they are forced by circumstance. Coalition is a natural growth of war. Such natural growths were the Asquith and Lloyd George coalitions of the First World War. A coalition (somewhat partial) fell out of the sky in 1931 because the Labour Government of the day refused the last fence in the economic crisis. It was prepared to %Ike every required economy save that on unemploy- ment benefit. That is the only modern instance of a coalition created in time of peace. The complete Churchill coalition repre- senting all parties resulted from the moral defeat of Neville Chamberlain following the Norwegian debacle in May, 1940. There is nothing yet imperatively calling for a coalition today.
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If there are some Conservatives prepared for coalition there are more who would prefer an election, though even they could hardly wish it to take place immediately while the crisis over Chinese aggression is so acute. One has heard Labour Members give the Conservatives a majority of fifty in the event of an election. Oddly enough, however, one has found some Conservative authorities less optimistic and putting the majority at twenty. Fifty would be a working majority; twenty would not. What, then, if it were twenty? A coalition? In that event, however, it would be a coalition led by Mr. Churchill and that, in Conservative eyes, would fully justify an election.
* * * * Those who are hoping for a regenerate Mr. Bevan at the Ministry of Labour will have observed that on Tuesday he was talking of misrepresentation on the Z reserve business and of the need for the Press to exercise restraint. This may not mean much. He cannot be expected to throw off old hattts all at once. Moreover, being new to his office, he may not know that stimulation on the Z reserve business has come from other sources than Fleet Street. H. B.
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