Voice from the Rear

The tall, young Tory backbencher angrily waved an arm down toward his own government front bench. "There they sit," he cried, "a row of disused slag heaps." The occasion was a noisy passage in a depressed-areas debate back in the mid-'30s, and the critic was a comparatively unknown M.P. for Stockton named Harold Macmillan.

Last week a tall, young Tory back bencher angrily waved an arm toward his own government front bench. "The country and industry," he cried, "have looked in vain for economic leadership from the government." The occasion was a debate about Britain's current economic slippage.

The government is "wandering about in the highways and byways and lanes with out even knowing where the main road is," said the comparatively unknown Tory M.P. for Halifax, Maurice Macmillan.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was not on the front bench to hear his son's attack on his government. But next day the Prime Minister was ready when at question time a Labor M.P. slyly asked if there was "a rift in the family or something."

"No," smiled Macmillan in his best Edwardian manner. "As the House observed yesterday, the Honorable Member for Halifax has both intelligence and independence. How he got them is not for me to say."

At 40, Maurice Macmillan is a director of the family publishing concern, has been an M.P. since 1955, and for all his trench ant knocks at his father's government, is a close friend and frequent teatime companion of the Prime Minister.

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