AT WESTMINSTER
To describe the first day of the Foreign Affairs debate as a great Parliamentary occasion would be to use the language of hyperbole. The Foreign Secretary made a mammoth oration to a crowded House on a theme the importance of which can hardly escape a single responsible citizen ; and yet as a Parliamentary occasion it was flat and dull. Why? Partly, I think, that Mr. Bevin's own speech was to blame. An hour and fifty minutes is a very long time to have to listen to any speech, and in recent years it has been recognised that only Budget speeches should last so long. Even in these, Chancellors have implicitly' recognised the problem of retaining attention over so long a period by the tricks of suspense, and " keeping the jam for the end." This technique was scarcely open to Mr. Bevin, who suffered also under a further disadvantage. He is obliged, of course, to read his speeches and display great fidelity to the text. But there is an art in reading a text as well as in making an apparently extempore speech, as every good broadcaster knows and proves. Mr. Bevin does not number this useful attribute among his great qualities, and his loss is our misfortune. While not going so far as the Member who said that Mr. Bevin left the House prostrate, I must confess to a feeling of strain and fatigue.
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There is, however, a further reason, quite apart from Mr. Bevin, why this, as indeed most Foreign Affairs debates nowadays, was a rather desultory affair. This is the complete absence of any signifi- cant form in these debates. They saunter—alas 1 I cannot honestly say, leap—from China to Peru, from Palestine to Pimlico, in a con- tinual round of well-meaning inconsequence. Such total variations of theme forbid even the pretence of debate for the most part. There are far too many hobby horses and little autobiograpical essays, of varying degrees of gentility, on the " what I did in my holidays " theme. Diagnosis, of course, is easier than the prescription of a remedy. It might be possible to make the debates, by agreement, regional. This, however, while limiting the abruptness of geographical transition, would aggravate the real complaint by seeming to approve the practice of discoursing on limited areas without relation to the
broad sweep of Foreign Policy. * * * *
So far as content went, Mr. Bevin still seems to have most of the House and of his own party with him. There was a minor demon- stration against him during the part of his speech dealing with Greece ; but, though the dissentients appeared to have added to the volume of their interjection, it did not seem to me that they had added noticeably to their numbers. On Wednesday Mr. Churchill stole the show with the gravity of his utterance, which, though resented by one or two individual Government supporters, was listenesl to in a respectful attention, born perhaps of previous ex- perience, by the large majority. I 'vas not able to be present during the Prime Minister's speech, but was impressed by Mr. Butler's contribution on Tuesday. He had the very difficult task of following the Bevin marathon, but he acquitted himself well, with a sympathetic plea for a restatement of the British attitude. The most interesting backbench speech was Mr. McGovern:s defence of liberal democracy, which made a great impression on the House. It brought him into conflict with Mr. Platts-Mills, who, in spite of being worsted, developed a war on two fronts by referring to the observations of his party colleague Mr. Crawley as " humbug " and "rubbish." liked very much Mr. Birch's speech on Germany, and was very interested in Mr. Pritt's speech on Russia. At the end of it, I must say, I was left wondering by what process of ideological alchemy any British criticism of Russia becomes abuse in Mr. Pritt's eyes, and
any Soviet abuse of Britain becomes criticism. * * * *
Monday's housing debate appears to have satisfied very few. There were certainly many gaps in the discussion, notably costs, incentive, and output. Mr. Bevan was more polemical than practical. He certainly scored some dialectical boundaries ; but one of his wilder " cow-shots " was neatly fielded in the deep by Mr. George Hicks, and returned to the wicket. It would have run Mr. Bevan out, if he had not taken the precaution of running himself out of the Chamber before Mr. Hicks's reply. D. C. W.-S.
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