The Wilmington morning star., 1947-08-10
| Behind The News
Britain Eacing
Dictatorship?
BY DEWITT
AP Foreign Affairs AnaIvst

Recently this column in c o N.
menting on Prime Minister At4a
e's drastic proposals for dpalin.
with Britain's economic coTIansa
ventured the view that III,
country's first about Socialist ex
pertinent already had arrived -
the point of considerable regimoa
tation of the Individual. In fsnt
had made a sharp turn toward
regime partaking of total.
tarianism.
Events strengthen that tbous5t
Yesterday Britain's Socialist con
trolled House of Commons "
tegral part of the 'Mother NJ
Parliaments' n Watchdog +or
the little mans bill Of rights
adopted a measure that places i,
the hands of the government
emergency powers which Democ.
racies associate with the exigen.
cies of wartime.
This legislation is called II,
"Crisis Powers" bill. 1t empowers
the government to tell the work.
ers of England where they must
be employed, and what hours thew
must work. The government ran
take over the management ~
firms considered to be operating
inefficiently.
The oil d conservative maestro
wartime Prime Minister Church.
hill, declared in a blistering at.
tack on the bill that the Socialist,
were asking Parliament to give
blank check for totalitarian gov.
eminent and were using the crisis
as a pretext. And when HON.
Secretary Clutter Ede said the
government believed that this is
a crisis likely to move forward
with such rapidly that we should
have power to deal drastically and
swiftly with awkward situations
that may arise" Churchill snap.
ped: "Hitler said that"
Well, Churchill is leader of the
opposition to the Socialist govern.
ment and he chaseises with
heavy political hand. Personally
I should want to know more Of the
future before charging the Social.
lists with totalitarian skullduggery
That they r about to apply regi.
mentation there can be no doubt.
but they say it is merely to meet
the economic crisis.
There are, Of course, extreme
left-wingers in the Socialist party
who are driving for a Muscovite
dictatorship. However, there have
been no signs previously that the
rank and file were doing more
than following Attlee in establish
ing the Utopia which they believe
is attainable through the magic Of
naturalization. They can't have
much idea of what nationaliation
will do to England, because it
hasn't been tried on a big scale
before, they are gambling on dis
carding the economic system
which made England great.
The conservatives charge that
the present crisis is Que to this
Socialist experiment. Perhaps
some of it is, but there can be no
doubt that a considerable portion
of it was an inheritance from the
World war. whether the difficult
les could have been overcome with
better management under any
form of government is a matter
of debate.
In any event, the Socialist re-
gime now is caught in a net from
which it probably cannot escape
without the aid of ~"crisis powers"
Those powers a%ssuredly mean reg.
imentation of the individual, but
the big question is how long that
RECOMMENDATION will have to be en-
ployed, and how far it will be
carried. This much we can say:
The longer. RECOMMENDATION is
practiced, the more closely will it
approach totalitarian dictatorship.
And should dictatorship be reach
ed there would be no turning back
through the peacefully expressed
will of the electrate.