Mutiny

Winston Churchill stood like a portly Puck before the House of Commons one day last week, to report on the state of Britain's muscle-straining $13.1 billion defense program. In other circumstances, what he had to say might have embarrassed a Prime Minister; things are still not going well: ". . . The rearmament program is much more likely to be carried out in four years than in three." But Churchill was in good spirits: he knew that his opposition came not from those who thought he was doing too little, but from those who thought the government was doing too much.

And he had only to look across the way to see how discomfiting the whole subject was to Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. There, down front, sat Clement Attlee's ex-ministers, anxious to criticize but handicapped by the fact that the defense program was, after all, the one they began while in office. On the back benches sat the left-wing rebels led by Aneurin Bevan, spoiling for trouble.

Rebellious Tail. With easy cunning, the Prime Minister sought to v-fden Labor's split. He paid elaborate tribute to such programs as "the Socialist compulsory military service." The opposition's attempt to censure him while approving his program, he conceded charitably, was no worse than the harassing tactics the Tories had used when the Laborites were in power. However, he added, with a glance that traveled from Labor's front to back benches, "they always knew they had us with them if it ever came to a vote against their own tail."

For six hours the House echoed with the polite rancor of a strange debate--strange because the quarrel was all on one side of the House. Attlee pointedly ordered all Labor M.P.s to support rearmament. Churchill just sat back, smiling in anticipation of the pleasure to come at voting time.

When it came, the Labor Party's pent-up quarrel broke into open mutiny. In the vote on Labor's own pallid motion (combining censure of Churchill with approval of rearmament), Nye Bevan and 39 of his followers stayed stolidly in their seats. Next came the vote on the government's motion approving the Churchill program. Attlee and the bulk of Labor stayed in their seats, abstaining but not voting against. But 40 Bevanites and another 15 Laborites, most of them pacifists, filed into the lobby in open defiance of party orders, to record Noes ("Nyes," one wit called them) against rearmament. They were the only Noes, and Churchill won, 313 to 55.

The front bench of Labor gasped in surprise at the size of Be van's rebellion. Attlee, mild in appearance but a ruthless taskmaster in matters of party regularity, jerkily jumped to his feet, left the House without a word, and took the train to his Buckinghamshire home. But next day he ordered an emergency meeting of all 294 Labor M.P.s for this week, to consider the defiance of his leadership. In rebuttal, brash Nye Bevan demanded and got an emergency session of Labor's executive committee, to be held later in the week. Bevanites are outnumbered on the committee, 23 to 4, but Bevan seemed unconcerned.

Long Shot. London buzzed with talk that Bevan and his key lieutenants would be expelled from the party. Nye Bevan did not still the talk when, four days after the Commons mutiny, he vowed before a Socialist meeting that he would not promise to get in line in the future. The Bevanites would try to persuade the rest of Labor to join them in fighting Toryism, said Bevan. "But if we cannot go on together, we shall go on alone." Presumably neither Nye Bevan nor Clement Attlee wanted a divorce, for such a split might mean a Tory government for a long time to come. But pride and strong wills were at issue. Even if there was a compromise, the intraparty cold war was sure to rage on.

Looking into the longer future, Laborites saw the possibility that some day party leadership might be handed over to a compromise leader, as Attlee himself came to power in 1935 when Arthur Greenwood and Herbert Morrison were deadlocked in the fight for control.

Bevanites are already talking, in a casual way, about such a man. He is James Griffiths, a 61-year-old Welshman who came, like Nye Bevan, out of the coal mines. They hint that should Attlee drop out at some future date, Bevan himself might not grab for control. Privately, the Bevan followers say that silver-maned Jim Griffiths would be a fine bridge between the moderate, old-line Socialists and the left-wingers. An old-style trade unionist himself, he came from the revivalist meetings and coal dust of South Wales, eked out an education in London's Labor College while his wife worked as a waitress, rose slowly but surely through the chairs of the mine workers' union.

A rebel who speaks with the roaring fervor of a Biblical prophet, Griffiths nevertheless is a master compromiser. When persuasion will not work, his sense of humor often does the trick. Once, while touring the U.S., he was told by an American: "Frankly, I don't like the English." Replied Jim: "That's all right. I have a lot of trouble with them myself." In Labor's reign, he handled the tough Ministry of National Insurance, later was Secretary of State for the Colonies. Respected by both Attlee and Bevan, Griffiths last week was giving no indication that he had even heard the talk about him. In the confidence votes on rearmament, he voted stoutly with Attlee.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.