Evening star., 1951-10-29
Mr.. Bevon's Chance

There is more than an outside chance that
events will show that the real winner of the
elections in Britain last week was not Mr..
Churchill, but rather the rebellious Laborite,
Aneurin Bevan.
1t is Mr.. Churchill to be sure who takes
office and forms the new government. But Mr..
Churchill stands on an insecure political base
He has but slim majority in the House of
Commons, and in terms of total popular vote
his Conservative Party ran second to the Labor
Party.
This would not be an enviable position if
smooth sailing lay ahead. But Mr.. Churchill
has hard road to travel. During the pre-
election campaign the major candidates of both
parties sdestepped the real issues in Britain.
The new government, however, cannot long avoid
coming to grips with them, and when it does
it will find, campaign oratory Notwithstanding,
that there is no easy solution.
The basic problem in Britain is how to pay
Tor the rearmament program and also main
tain an acceptable standard of living for the
people. The inflationary forces that are at
work in the islands must be curbed at a time
when the government is spending abnormally
large sums on arms. For to let initiation run
its course would be to submit to the cruelest,
the most inequitabe and the most disastrous
of all forms of economic adjustment
Those Britons who have given the most
thought to this question believe that the gov
ernment, in view of the prevailing trade deficit
has no real choice except to impose appropriate
"diSn6ationary" remedies-a six-syllable way of
saying that the living standards of the British
people must be lowered. And this in land
whose people have had to live with drabness
and shortages for the past 10 years
If Mr.. Churchill and his Conservative fol-
lowers had stated this issue in the campaign
If they had said clearly that Britains only
salvation is for her people to do with still less
and If they had been elected on that basis, they
could proceed with some confidence. Bat that
was not the case The issues were not defined
nor were the necessary remedies proposed
And if Mr.. Churchill, lacking majority in
popular voting support, attempts now to apply
the harsh remedies-as he muSt-Mr. Bevan's
opportunity will come.
For MIR. Bevan has an alternative to offer.
This fiery product of the coal mines is no Com
muIlist. But he is an unyelding partisan of
the welfare state, and he says that If choice
must be made between rearmament and the
peoples living standards, then 1t is the arms
program that must give way.
In this, Mr.. Bevan stands alone among the
ranking members of his party. Mr.. Attlee and
the others are committed to the arms program
Indeed, it is their program But Mr. Bevan has
never willingly gone along, and this may prove
to be his greatest asset For the sake of party
solidarity in the face Of the Conservative chal-
lenge, Mr.. Began played the party game during
the election campaign. But now that that battle
has been fought and lost by the Laborites, he
stands as the only leader with an alternative
plan to whom the people might turn If they
should be unwilling to accept the greater aus
terity that Mr.. Churchill soon or late, will
have to propose in one form or another. It will
be said that Britain, in dangerous world.
cannot afford to cut back on her arms program.
That is both true and logical. But truth and
logic are not necessarily controlling influences
in any country's domestic politics.