Cousin Clem

It was like a visit from a seldom-seen and well-loved cousin. On his way from the conference at Washington, (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Great Britain's Socialist Prime Minister Clement Attlee stopped by to pay his respects to Canadians. As hosts will, Canadians fed him well, showed him a good time.

In Ottawa's cavernous Union Station, where he arrived with Canada's own homecoming Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, Clem Attlee shook the hands of nearly 100 welcome-bent dignitaries while bagpipes tootled Cock o' the North. Then he strode down a red carpet into three hectic days.

He lunched at King's house, on lobster, filet mignon, asparagus salad, raspberries a la mode. At Earnscliffe, stately home of British High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald, he talked with Canadian Socialist Leader M. J. Coldwell. If they did more than exchange niceties, they kept it to themselves. At night there were Scotch highballs and more food--oysters, roast turkey, baked Alaska--at a state dinner at the swank Country Club.

The schedule ground on. Sunday afternoon King dropped by and drove his guest to the Gatineau Hills for a windy walk. Monday morning Clem Attlee sat by a coal fire at Earnscliffe and was interviewed by reporters. He talked only in generalities, about foreign trade chiefly. Then, as visiting dignitaries always do, he stepped out to Ottawa's Confederation Square, laid a wreath at the foot of the city's World War I memorial.

Lastly, Cousin Clem, like a good guest, said his thanks. In a jammed House of Commons chamber he told Canadians how much he appreciated what they had done for Britain during the war. With one eye on Canada's evident riches, he could not resist reciting England's shortages--food, coal, "sheets, blankets, curtains, pots & pans and crockery," clothing, shoes, furniture. But all was not dark in the Isles. He quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: Britain "has a secret vigour and a pulse like a cannon." Canada, he said, is "the new shoot from the old stem; but the old stem is still . . . full of life."

An hour later, Clem Attlee was in a DC-4, London-bound.

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