Blackout

What the Luftwaffe and the submarines had failed to do, the coal shortage did this week. A large part of British industry shut down and the economic life of the country seemed to be jolting to a halt.

The crisis came almost without warning. For months Fuel Minister Emanuel Shinwell had been making alternately alarming and reassuring statements about the fuel supply. When he rose last week in the House of Commons, it was not to discuss prospects in the dim & distant future, but to state the stunning fact that industry in London and a large part of England and in Wales would have to shut down; that shops, buildings, hotels could have no electric power for five daylight hours a day; that domestic users of electricity could also have none in those hours. Only "essential" services would be supplied.

The blow came during the worst spell of winter within the memory of most Britons. Drifting snow had cut many important rail lines; many roads were blocked. Machinery at some mines was frozen over. The gap between Britain's long-dwindling coal production and consumption had thinned to the point of immediate disaster to Britain's export program and threat to her entire economy.

Dunkirk? This week, as Shinwell's order went into effect, Britain was a nation of confused, angry, alarmed people. Half of Britain's industry--most of her motor factories, machine shops, textile mills--was shut down. About 4,000,000 people were thrown out of work. By candlelight, thousands applied for the dole. Shares on London's stock exchange slumped as traders talked about "an industrial Dunkirk." Many towns were without electricity. Housewives queued up for runs on candles and kerosene. Women & children dragged bags of coal from railroad yards (see cut).

In London, on a grey day that set the mood for gloom, there was brazen disregard of the blackout in many stores and homes. The great grey pile of Buckingham Palace showed a few lights. In about half of the grimy little shops on Soho's back streets the lights were full on for everybody to see. But along majestic Regent Street soft, flickering candlelight illumined windows. Silversmiths and jewelers put their best Georgian candlesticks to use, but most of them took small items off the counters in fear of shoplifters in the semidarkness. Most of London's West End department stores were open, but there were few customers.

Woolworth's fell back on a few gas lamps which had never been removed--but now gas pressure was low, because many Londoners turned up the gas for heat. Dickins & Jones's big store was almost empty. It had one dissatisfied customer, who tried hard in the dark to distinguish between silk and linen materials. She muttered: "Drat this! I thought we'd finished with blackouts." In Fortnum & Mason's flower department a girl clerk said crossly: "I wish people wouldn't be so goodhearted about it all ... then maybe something could be done."

Faint Hearts? The Government's orders had been confusing and many Londoners were unable to figure out whether their lights were supposed to be on or off. Switches could not be pulled on nonessential users of power without pulling them also on essential hospitals, dairies, refrigeration plants and the like.

Looking haggard, but as grimly self-assured as ever, Minister Shinwell put the success of the indefinite blackout on Britons themselves. He spoke gloomily: "I say to domestic and industrial consumers that if they decline to cooperate in this emergency, we will find ourselves in the next ten days in a condition of complete disaster."

Shinwell was hit by blasts from the Laborite press, as well as by demands to resign in the Conservative papers. He had only one press defender: London's Communist Daily Worker (it blamed the Tories). London's Daily Herald, staunch friend of the Labor Government, severely took the Cabinet to task for failing to keep the public informed of the developing crisis. Said the Herald:

"We think that several of the Ministers deceive themselves; they regard the whole electorate as enthusiastic converts to Socialism. They believe that, however trying and irksome our present troubles may be, the average man will blissfully murmur: 'Attlee is in 10 Downing Street. All's right with the world.'. . . Labor is justifying the voters' faith. . . . But this is the transition period. . . . This is the time when the faint hearts may turn away from us."

The Tories strained to take it out on Socialism. In the House of Commons Winston Churchill flashed some of his old form and fire: "The brute fact is that Socialism means mismanagement ... incompetence. . . . Let us hope the nation will realize from this flagrant example the downward stairway upon which they are now thrust and down which they have descended only the first few steps."

"Resign! Resign!" shouted-Tory members when Shinwell rose to defend himself.

Shinwell had put the Government on a hot spot. But since the Labor Party had a clear majority and there was no split in its ranks, the Government probably would not fall. Nevertheless Clement Attlee's regime was in the worst crisis of its 18 months in power and the nation had had its worst jolt since the buzz-bombs began to fall.

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