MINISTERS AND MINISTERS
Sta,—As a man who has made every effort in his power to get the present Government returned, I confess to slight irritation at the rather supercilious treatment, it is receiving from those who I think should know better. The smart Mr. Quentin Hogg corrects a Minister's grammar and now Janus talks of their " inferiority." With one or two possible exceptions, our new Ministers seem to me. man for man, superior to the caretaking Cabinet they succeeded. Some have not had previous Cabinet experience, but the remedy for that is in process. With Winston Churchill as an object lesson, surely you University chaps must by now have. discovered that pretty good training for statesmanship can be got though utterly different to your own.
The average Labour Minister was born in what is now considered a slum, in a house without ever. a water-tap. He got what passed for education in a class of fifty in a school fit for a stable under a school- master. so overtasked with keeping order that the bright boy rarely attracted his eye. Possibly a scholarship followed, more likely not. If not, straight into a job at fourteen to help the family income. And all the while environed by semi illiterate neighbours ,with self-education curtailed or prohibited by lack of .privacy in a small house with a noisy family. When, in spite of all this, self-sacrifice begets self-education, character is built up and scope for active work in his trade union with ever-widening responsibilities follows, we get a man whose whole training has meant the surmounting of obstacles, the rejection of temptations, the power to under- stand and persuade, and governed by an ever-present urge to improve his fellow-men morally, economically and politically.
Compare such a training with that of the ordinary Conservative Member of Parliament or Cabinet Minister, whose every need has been forestalled from the cradle onwards, and who his been helped to surmount all obstacles by unlimited education, cultured environment, social amenities and, if necessary, the log-rolling of admiring and well-placed friends. One class has met and overcome difficulties from the start, all the time and practically unaided. The other class chooses the obstacles it wishes to surmount, can afford perfect preparation for the battle and has ample aid. It decides to take up a political career, no one gainsays them, parents and party finance them. They sparkle (when they car.) into the House, and their broad an i generous natures inspire them to teach their betters grammar. It may, therefore, give them pleasure if I leave the indifferent grammar of this letter uncorrected.—Yours obediently, [Janus writes: There is no question at all of superciliousness. Mr. Athelstan Rendall thinks the present Ministers man for man superior to their predecessors ; am I to be forbidden to think otherwise? My comment, moreover, should not be divorced from its context. What provoked it was the claim of more than one Minister that his own good intentions were frustrated by the muddle he had inherited from his predecessor. I simply ventured to question this implication of superior virtue and ability.]
Previous page
