With Qualifications

After four years of British Socialism, the Tory party last week opened a major campaign to persuade the voters that it was time for a change--but not much change. The Conservatives issued a 68-page booklet called The Right Road for Britain. Its theme was familiar to Americans who remembered how Wendell Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey tried to beat the Roosevelt New Deal. The Tories promised to keep most of the reforms the Labor Party had introduced; but they would carry them out better, and cheaper.

The Right Road for Britain took a stand against nationalization of industry. (The Laborites have also indicated that their nationalizing drive is almost spent.) On social services, however, the Tories go as far as Labor--if not a bit farther. Said the Tory pamphlet: "We regard [the social services] as mainly our own handiwork. We shall endeavor faithfully to maintain the range and scope of these services, and the rates of benefits." The Tories promised increased government spending on farm subsidies, rural housing, roads and forests, pensions to widows, spinsters and the aged, and free drugs to "private patients" who choose to stay outside the National Health plan.

Party Leader Winston Churchill went last week to industrial Wolverhampton, where he made what Americans would call a campaign keynote speech. He paraphrased the pamphlet, which he had helped to write. In the past, Churchill has used the slogan "Set the people free" with good effect. He tried it again last week, with qualifications. Said Churchill: "We mean to set the people free, so far as possible and as soon as possible." He warned that if Socialism causes Britain's economic collapse, "we shall carry many other nations with us into chaos and Communism." He refurbished a famous Churchill-ism for use against the Laborites: "Never before in the history of human government has such great havoc been wrought by such small men."

Lord Beaverbrook's anti-Socialist London Express fumed with disappointment: "The picture emerging from the Tory statement is that of half-socialized, state-guided economy ... If Britain is going to recover by the methods of Socialism, would it not be wiser to keep the Socialists in power?"

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