These are the British

by Drew Middleton

The moderation of his political outlook expresses an important trend in British politics. This is the movement within both major parties toward the moderate center and a reaffirmation of the national rather than the party point of view. The antics of the extreme left and the extreme right in British politics are entertaining and occasionally worrying. But under present conditions neither group represents a dominant doctrine, although in London, as in Washington, governments must make gestures in the direction of their more extreme supporters.

This movement toward the center seems to express two deeply felt national attitudes. One is that further experimentation in transforming British society should be postponed until the changes that took place in World War II and the decade that followed it have finished their alteration of that society. There will be—indeed, there must be—further alterations in the industrial economy, and these, of course, will affect society. But I do not believe the British people are now prepared for further sweeping, planned changes in their life or would support such changes if they were to be proposed by either political party.

The second attitude is a growing determination to face up to the national danger. Successive governments have attempted to drive home the lesson that Britain's economic peril is very real and that it is not a transient matter; that exports and dollar balances and internal consumption will be matters of great importance for years to come. As the memories of pre-war Britain fade, and as a new generation that has never experienced the national economic security of imperial Britain gains power, awareness of the nation's real problems should take hold. And because the British are a sensible people bountifully endowed with courage and resource, they should be able to meet and defeat the problems.

But at the moment the percentage of those who understand the national position is too small. They must eternally contend against two psychological factors in working-class opinion which we have already encountered. One is the political lethargy of the new industrial worker who, after centuries of shameful treatment, has emerged into the sunlight of full employment, adequate housing, high wages, strong industrial organization, political representation, amusements, clothes and food that for decades have been out of the reach of Britain's masses. This new working class has shown itself capable of great self-sacrifice on behalf of its class interests and, let us never forget, on behalf of its country in the last fifty years. But now, having reached the home of its dreams, it has hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the gate. Apparently it has done with sacrifice and realism.

To a certain extent this attitude is encouraged by the big national newspapers. The emphasis on sport, crime, the royal family, and the trivia of international affairs leaves inadequate space for the grim realities of the long politico-economic struggle with Russia, and the new working class remains uninformed about its real problems. A Prime Minister or a Chancellor of the Exchequer may expound the realities of the national position in a speech, but if people are not interested enough to listen or to read, what good does it do?

Such a state of mind in an important section of the populace seriously impedes national progress. When dollar contracts are lost because of union squabbles there is something radically wrong with the leadership exercised by the trade unions. Would the contracts be lost, one wonders, if the union leaders had given their followers a clear explanation of the importance of such contracts not only to one factory in one industry but to the entire nation?

Admittedly, there are plenty of others in Britain who do not understand the importance of the economic situation or the changes that have taken place. But the attitude of a retired colonel in Bedford or a stout matron in Wimbledon is not so important to the nation's welfare as that of the members of the working class.

The second factor affecting the response of this class to the nation's needs is the effect upon it of the economic depression of the years between the two world wars. Again and again we have seen how the memory of unemployment, of the dole, of endless empty days at labor exchanges, of hungry children and women's stricken eyes has colored the thinking of the working class. It is too ready to see the problems of the 1950's in terms of its experiences of the 1930's. Consequently, it adopts a partisan attitude toward political development and a reactionary attitude toward industrial innovation.

There are those who argue that these attitudes will change as the working class becomes more accustomed to its new condition of life and place in the national pattern. This may prove true. But can Britain afford to wait until the union leaders understand that each new machine or industrial technique is not part of a calculated plan by the bosses to return the workers to the conditions prevailing in South Wales in 1936?

This partisan approach to economic problems is as important a factor as complacency and lethargy in obstructing adoption by the working class of a national viewpoint toward the British economic predicament. The British political system is a marvelously well-balanced one. But the balance is disturbed now and has been for some years by the tendency of organized labor to think almost exclusively in terms of its own rather than national interests. Labor can with perfect justice retort that when the middle class dominated British society it thought in terms of its own interests, too. This is true, of course. The difference is that the present national position is too precarious for blind partisanship.