The Wilmington morning star., 1947-08-15
Crisis Within Crisis
BY ANNE o'HARE MCCORMICK


How far can a Labor government coerce
Labor in peacetime, This was the question
worrying a young Yorkshire mine manager
interviewed by the writer as Great Britain
was preparing to take over the mines. The
manager in question was a staunch Socialist.
His family had been miners for generations
and Re had started as a pit boy at IA and
worked his way up to the SUPPLEMENTARY Of
one o. the most progressive mines in Eng
land. The equipment was modern; there were
shower baths, recreation rooms and a sports
field for the workers; we shared the hearty
dinner, q. piled-up plate OF meat and vege-
Italics, provided for them by the company as
a supplement to their rations when they came
up from the shafts at noon.
Yet the mine was undermined and most
o. the men we talked to were near or over
middle age. They had grown up in the mines
and knew no other trade. But they saw no
sense in working full time, let alone over
time, when three days pay could buy all
they were permitted to buy. In a lively dis
cussion over the table they agreed that the
problem was to spur production, and partic-
ularly to induce young men to work in the
mines. Their sons wouldn't, they said; the
"Bev;n boys conscripted for the pits during
the war, were a failure. Although LOG per
cent in favor Of naturalization, the men
echoed the managers question: Could the
Government do better than private owners to
get people to work voluntarily? And L not,
could it use its power to force people to work?
This remains the key question of the Labor
Government. The British crisis is not just a
crisis of the party in power. 1t is a compound
crisis, the climax of a historic tragedy in
which war and revolution, shifts o. power
and economic exhaustion, play their part. The
Conservatives are lucky to have been voted
out at the moment of military victory; they
could not have dealt with the inevitable after
mdth with anything like the popular support
which the Labor party, despite the increas-
ing privations it has to impose, is still able
to command. Apparently the British people
do not blame Labor for their present plight.
The parliamentary debate on the Attlee
'crisis bilr' demonstrates that even now the
Labor leaders have little to fear from the
Conservative opposition. Their real problem
is the division within their own ranks. The
Prime Minister got the bill through Parlia-
ment by a vote Of nearly 2 to !. although it
was contested in eighteen hours of the bitter
est argument Labor policy has yet evoked.
1t is clear that the present leadership is more
and more on the defensive, but the main
threat to it's power is from the dissident
Latorites. 1t was only by the skin o. his
teeth, by a margin Of four votes, that MI.
Attlee was able to win support for his pro-
gram from his own party.
It was this aspect of the situation Mr.
Churchill referred to when he argued against
granting dictatorial power to a Cabinet that
might change at any moment: 1t is slgnl1l-
cant that no spokesman for Labor questioned
the powers that invest the Government with
authority not only to freeze labor where it is
but to shift it where it is most needed. This
is "coercion'; it involves the fate1ul test OF
how much freedom of choice can be preserV-
ed in a consistently socialist system. There
is little probability that the Labor Govern
ment will use these powers to the extent pre-
dicted by the Opposition. 1t depends on the
working classes, for one thing: for another,
it depends on help from the United States,
and the drastic belt-tightening demand o. the
British people is at least partly inspired by
the necessity of demonstrating that Britain
is going to the limit in the effort to help her
self
Nevertheless, the emergency bill gives the
Government wartime powers of compulsion,
and neither Mr.. Attlee nor Mr.. Herbert Nor
rison will say what they intend to do with
them. The complaint Of their more radical
followers is that the bill does not 60 half far
enough. They demand greater cuts in mill
tary commitments and the armed forces.
more Government control over exports and
iraports-hence a recession from the Ameri-
can campaign Cor freer trade-and immediate
steps to nationalize the steel industry.
Thus the political crisis growing out Of the
economic crisis is primarily within the gov
ernink party. Current developments support
the prophets who predict that if there is a
change in the Government it is likely to be
a turn to the left rather than a return to the
right. But that, like every shift in European
policy, depends as much on external as on
internal pressures. 1t depends above all, at
this particular juncture, on the tempo and
what may be called the tense-present or
futyre,-of the policy Of the United States.
The talks that began in Washington yes
coal output o. the Ruhr have a direct bear
ing on the Anglo-American cooperation for
European recovery and therefore on the future
course OF Britain itself, which is more bound
up with the fate Of the Continent than ever
oetore. Since France has been promised a
voice in the future regime of the Ruhr, the
present discussions are supposed to be linn
i!ed tc the question Of coal, but this question
IS vital to too many countries to be isolated.
Inc crisis in England is also a crisis of coal.
Oh production, OF the scope of Specialization: |
1T IS SO much part Of the European crisis
mat discussions on the Marshall plan NAV
De said to be beginning with the present con-
versations.-New York Times.
Inc United States should halt most of its |
AID to Europe because Western Europe is
10 a large extent finished. No amount of
money can restore the economic conditions
mat formerly prevailed in Wesern Er11ope. |
-.nooert e. Wood. beard chairman Of Sears.
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