THE T ABLET, November 10th, 1951

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 198, No. 5816

LO N D O N , NOVEMBER 10th, 1951

N IN EPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE POPE AND THE PRESS The Need for Improving Imperfect Arrangements ON MARRIAGE AND CHILDBIRTH The First Part o f the Recent Papal Allocution CAN WE BALANCE OUR TRADE? The Conditions o f Recovery. By Douglas Jerrold

A PREACHER OF SOCIALISM George Lansbury’s Great Role in the Labour Movement A ROME LETTER VIENNA IN THE YEAR SIX Chalcedon and the Assumption By Roland Hill

GETTING TO WORK

S INCE the Great Reform Act of 1832 the electorate has increased sixty-fold, from half a million to nearly thirty million, and the Government departments and the number of Ministers has increased four-fold. But the number of members o f parliament remains almost exactly the same ; there are, indeed, slightly fewer today than in 1832. One curious result of this is that where the governing party is, as it is today, little more than half the house, one member in four is absorbed into the Government machine, as a full Minister, UnderMinister or Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Minister, and then can only speak on his department’s business, and not always then. On these occasions it is with mixed feelings that one sees a number of the most independent and vigorous backbench critics accepting the muzzles : mixed, because there would be a sense of injustice if such men were passed over. Yet it is really quite illogical that offices should be filled not on grounds o f specialized aptitude but as a mark of recognition for a man or a particular school of political thought in the party. Perhaps more might have been made of the party offices, and of the party machine, as a way of extending party recognition without at the same time extinguishing the functions of general criticism in the politician recognized.

it on Mr. Attlee a t the termination of eleven and a half years of continuous office. No one will as a man begrudge him this great distinction, but it is important to underline this sustained continuity of Mr. Attlee’s record. It would not be at all a desirable development that Prime Ministers should come to expect the O.M. at the end of their Premiership, and, precisely because it is given by the King personally, it might become very invidious and difficult for the King ever to withhold it. In general this honour is best given either for great and incontrovertible services, about whose value there can be no controversy, as Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Churchhill received it in moments of national victory, or it should be given on retirement, so that it does not seem related to any particular phase or actions of the statesman receiving it. Otherwise there is a schizophrenic incongruity, if a man is given one of the highest honours one day for conducting the affairs of the nation in a fashion whose vast demerits are authoritatively set out the very next day with chapter and verse. A Legacy of Six Years

Mr. Churchill had no difficulty in disposing of the particularly idiotic criticism that he was giving too many posts to members of the Lords. He observed that he had given eighteen while Mr. Attlee had given sixteen. That criticism from the Labour Party and in the Press shows how dangerously far many people have slipped into acquiescence with the idea of single-chamber government. Anything which keeps the constitution more broadly based and distributes functions ought to be welcomed as in the national advantage. Otherwise we are drifting dangerously near to becoming a plebiscitory nation ; and this tendency is shown in the Labour Party’s continued insistence on the total number of votes cast for their party.

We are sorry to see that the House of Commons, after four weeks or so, will go into Christmas recess for ten, when there is so much to be discussed. Mr. Churchill is the last man who should start emulating the Stuart kings, who were always so much happier when Parliament was not sitting.

The picture which the new Prime Minister had to paint of the nation’s difficulties was grim enough in all conscience ; and it carries its own commentary on the conduct of affairs since 1945, where the fundamental error throughout has been one of presumption and over-confidence in minimizing the external military dangers and economic difficulties, merely because it was convenient to minimize them. I f they had been faced and accepted from the beginning, they would have ruled out so much that the Labour Party had set its heart upon doing at once in the domestic field where its heart lies.

Mr. Attlee had not been speaking for two minutes before he made this point, with its tacit assumption that no votes are ever cast for individuals. The logical deduction would be that there need be no candidates ; that the electorate should vote directly for the parties as parties, and the party leaders should then fill all the positions, including membership of the legislative chamber, at their convenience. But on the ballot paper there appears only the name of the individual, with no clue as to his affiliation. This is a survival, like territorial constituencies themselves, from an era before the party machine had become the dominant political reality.

One of the functions remaining to the Crown is awarding the Order of Merit, and His Majesty has graciously bestowed

The new Government is quickly off the mark, and is right to lose no time, from both the national and the party point of view, in endeavouring to arrest the rapid slide towards insolvency. But it ought to be understood how comparatively small is the immediate saving in real terms when internal Government expenditure is reduced. Certainly the unfortunate victims of the axe consume less, and have to husband their resources. But it is a very gradual business before their energies find other and more productive outlets, so that instead o f being an incubus on production they become part of it themselves, and can be transferred from the debit to the credit side. Very often there is no saving at all, as where a