Defeat for the Bevanly Host

At Margate, the breezy seaside resort 65 miles east of London, 938 representatives of Britain's trade unions last week made two patriotic decisions; 1) they voted overwhelmingly to support "the greatest possible measure of rearmament," even if that means curtailing Britain's social services; 2) they agreed, more reluctantly, to restrain their demands for wage increases, so as not to price British goods out of export markets. Both decisions by the Trades Union Congress (T.U.C.) were victories for the moderate (Attlee) wing of the Labor Party, and defeats for Communists and the followers of Aneurin Bevan, who blame defense spending--as well as the U.S.--for most of Britain's troubles.

Arms. First big issue on the Margate agenda was rearmament, denounced in two big package resolutions inspired by the Communists. They hewed closely to the Kremlin line: rearmament is warmongering; friendship with Germany and Japan is truckling with fascism; Americans in general and Dwight D. Eisenhower in particular are bloodthirsty counterrevolutionaries intent on provoking World War III.

The Bevanites offered their own package, which contained some of the Red wares but came more attractively wrapped. It was presented by Alan Birch, whose powerful union includes shop clerks and warehousemen; he carefully denied that his union was afflicted with the "Bevanite neurosis"--then deftly put the case for Bevan. Unlike the Communists and fellow travelers, he admitted the need for rearmament, but advocated sharp cuts. He temporarily swayed the congress, which gave him a lusty round of applause.

"All right, friends," said T.U.C. Boss Arthur Deakin, bluff, levelheaded general secretary of Britain's biggest union (Transport and General Workers). "Now you're going to hear from the other side." A lean Liverpudlian, Tom Williamson, boss of the 800,000 General and Municipal Workers, pitched in with the counterattack: "All over Europe, people are scared--who by? Not by Britain or her Allies, but by the Soviet Union." Mineworkers' Leader Ernest Jones chipped in with rough-hewn Socialist logic: "If British miners were called upon to rearm in the interest of American capitalism and the Tory party, there'd be a devil of commotion . . . But . . . where freedom [is] at stake . . . the British miner [will be] in the last ditch of the struggle."

That did it. The T.U.C. tossed away the Communist as well as the Bevanite packages.

Wages. The Bevanly host and its Communist outriders condemned the Tory government's efforts to cut spending and hold the line on wages, as a threat to Socialism. But dapper Lincoln Evans, leader of iron and steelworkers, while promising that moderate wage claims will get T.U.C. backing, spoke unpalatable truths: "The world doesn't . . . owe us a living. If we price ourselves out of world markets, we will automatically produce unemployment."

Evans even dared attack the ark of the Socialist covenant--the notion that wages can be increased indefinitely by cutting into business profits. In Britain, said Evans, this "simply isn't true. Let us be honest. Broadly, the position today is that we all pay each other's wages." Higher wages inevitably mean higher prices: "How far can we go on this road before we are continually engaged in chasing each other's tails?"

It was the kind of bitter medicine that British Socialists are apt to call "criminal" when handed out by employers. But getting it from one of their own, the T.U.C. gulped it down. By a whopping 6,856.000 votes to 504,000 (delegates vote for their union membership by proxy), the congress accepted its leaders' call for wage restraint. But the buffeted Bevanites still had their day. As if to console them, the T.U.C., before it broke up, hastily resolved that: P:The T.U.C. General Council should make plans for more extensive nationalization, for the time when the Labor Party is returned to power.

P:Britain should trade more with Russia and Red China.

Both resolutions served notice that even in defeat, the Bevanite tail of Britain's labor movement packs a mean and powerful lash.

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