THE TABLET, November 29th, 1958. Voi. 212, No. 6184.

TH E TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0 NOVEMBER 29th, 1958

NINEPENCE

Deep Springs of Europe : The British Remoteness Gomulka’s Two Years: The Smile on the Faec of the Tiger. By Eugene Hinterhoff

North African Notebook : II. Morocco. By Robert Speaight Nicholas R-OSCarroek : F irst Layman on the Rack. By P. A. Boyan

Meditations in Advent I I. Accepting Christ. By William Burridge, W.F.

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

BACK TO LLOYD GEORGE

A FTER nine years in office Mr. Mcnzies has been returned to power for a fourth time in Australia, for the simple reason that the Australian Labour Party under Dr. Evatt’s leadership does not inspire any sufficient confidence. In a country in which Catholics are numerous, he has estranged even those in the Labour Party by appearing much too friendly towards Communism both in and outside Australia. For his latest defeat he is blaming Archbiship Mannix of Melbourne, who expressed this feeling in his own downright and emphatic way just before polling day. A breakaway dissident group of the Labour Party, reflecting this Catholic distrust of Dr. Evatt, has not achieved much for itself, but its. continued existence indicates how unlikely Australian Labour is to achieve either unity or success under the present leadership.

The British Labour Party has produced a shiny and tabulated brochure called The Future Labour Offers You. Its authors seem to have been guided by the definition of a democracy as a society where people can say what they think, without thinking ; for the appeal is addressed to the least reflective and least informed of the weekly-wage earners. The general note is that which caused Dean Inge to define progressive politics as the art of taking away money from the pockets of your political opponents and putting it into the pockets of your political supporters. That about sums up this document. The “ You ” to whom the pamphlet is addressed is seen without illusions as the man who does the pools week by week, and has no moral hesitations about financial inequality and a privileged position, if luck should enable him to secure it. He is promised that he shall receive more, and that the wealthy shall pay, without any recognition that the present rates of taxation are much higher here than anywhere else. No one thirty years ago would have said that a supertax on the wealthy should begin at £600 a year. But that is, in fact, what happens now, when today’s £2,000 is the equivalent of £600 when surtax was first introduced. There is a promise to put more burdens on unearned incomes, even though these incomes are derived from what has been saved and was taxed when earned. That people should save is very much in the public interest, and indeed necessary for all policies of expansion such as both parties share.

There is a cartoon in the Labour Party’s booklet which shows a young couple being helped by Labour over a high wall labelled “ Wealth and Privilege,” such as Mr. Lloyd George might reasonably have issued before the 1914 war. Readers are enjoined to keep this cartoon for use “ when the time comes.” Challenged by Lord Hailsham, Mr. Gaitskell has denied that this refers to the next General Election : “ It is ridiculous to suggest that we have said it would be used in an election.” One would like to see Mr. Gaitskell answering, with Lord Goddard questioning him, what exactly “ when the time comes ” is supposed to mean.

British business is still depicted as the great source to be squeezed, an enemy with dividends and expense accounts, because the artisan readers do not draw dividends or have expense accounts. But the same men, like Mr. Harold Wilson, who do not hesitate to seek power by these methods, will not blush as Ministers of the Crown to urge British business to fight even harder Britain’s battle for exports, while leaving the British business man and the British company heavily handicapped in the competition of the world, particularly when compared with Americans or Germans.

The document represents one more step in quietly changing the meaning of the word “ Socialist.” Except for the re-nationalisation of steel and road transport— the second is a way of subsidising the railways—there are no definite promises of more Socialism in the sense of the public ownership of the means of production and exchange. The Labour Party is still in full retreat from Socialism, as it has to be if it wants to win the election, for even the artisan population, let alone the middle classes, have now very little use for classical Socialism, are not much impressed with the nationalised industries,