BECOMES A. * COMMONER™
And the Tories Win an Aristocratic image
_ LONDON #- For the past. year the. decline in influence and popularity of the Conservative (Tory) Macmillan government has been catastrophic, It began with a sharp rise in unemployment that shook the country out of the synthetic euphoria of the affluent society carefully built up by the ruling class through all its mass media, Abroad Tory prestige had been previously damaged by the failure to get into the European Economic Community -- (Common Market), blocked by de Gaulle'ts intransigeance; and by the American rejection of the Skybolt missile, which punctured the pretense of an independent British “nuclear deterrent." In addition a number of scandals culminating in the notorious Profumo affair rocked the administration, | revealing the threads leading all the way from the aristocracy to the underworld (the so-called Rachman housing racket) in the mad chase for profits and profligate "enjoyment of life," and casting discredit upon the whole fabric of government including the so-called "independent" judiciary.
/ With the term of the present parliament due to end in 1964, frantic moves were set afoot to change the Tory “image” in time for the elections next year. Pressure for the resignation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan began to mount in the ranks of the Conservatives, and his departure had been regarded as merely a matter of time since early last summer, '. The propitious moment for this event came with Macmillan's discovery that he had an illness requiring an operation, He took the opportunity to announce. his resignation, The stench of the scandals had been somewhat neutralized by the signing or the nuclear test-ban treaty with the U.S. and the USSR, which wrapped the mantle of statesmanship upon the tarnished figure of the Tory leadership. The economy showed some signs of temporary - improvement. The Conservative party, restive for months, was meeting in .annual conference, Whether by coincidence or otherwise, the moment was . just right for the change the ruling class saw as inevitable in the pre-. . sentation of its public political figure,
The Tory Evolutionary Process
As usual in such circumstances, the rulers went through the whole mumbo jumbo of "customary procedure" to bring forth the new leader, He is not elected by his parliamentary colleagues as is the case with the Labour party or even the now decrepit Liberal party, He is "evolved" by a hocus ' pocus of consultations which never see the light of day -- the first public indication coming only when the monarch sends for the chosen chieftain, .. later (on the successful selection of a cabinet) being confirmed by the _ ceremony in which he kisses the monarch!s hands.
In the course of normal development, a new leader is more or less established as a “crown prince" under the former Prime Minister's reign, This was the case, for instance, with Eden when he succeeded Churchill, When a critical situation arises, a question mark is put on the natural second choice, This happened after Suez, when Eden fell ill and had to resign, It has happened also now with Macmillan falling ill and having to resign, - In both cases, the most experienced, “most popular, . next. man in the hierarchy was R.A.B.Butler. .But Butler is known as the man who "remade! the Tory image in the critical years of opposition between 1945 and 1951,
om Loen after the great postwar Labour landslide, Those times required "progressive" adjustments, a more "leftish" look, —
Both after Suez and now, apparently, the rulers were in doubt whether - this kind of choice was the most effective one to make, Following Eden, they decided finally upon Macmillan rather than Butler as their man -— | Macmillan was not quite as identified with the "leftish" course as the lat~ ter: no one spoke of "Macmilskellism" as they did of "Butskellism" in comparing the Tory line with the moderate Labour line of Hugh Gaitskell, for instance. On the other hand, Macmillan had been a sort of rebel against reactionary Tory policies before the war. He was, therefore, more accept able to the solid right-wing core of the party which carries the veto . ‘power as well as to the ranks, Although he never surrendered completely to the right wing in the course of his administration «- clashing with its. most prominent public spokesman, Lord Salisbury, over African policy so that Salisbury finally withdrew from active public Tory-leadership -= Mace millan, after pursuing a gingerly opportunistic course (recognizing the "winds of change" in the former colonies, etc.), nevertheless earned their trust. It was he who did most to eliminate Butler as his successor by the wiliest, most cunning and least "gentlemanly" of ruses, It was Macmillan, also, who introduced and promoted the right wing's most likely candidate, Lord Home, [Pronounced "Hume."] The fourteenth Earl of Home, as his official title was, is flesh of the flesh of the core of the old ruling class, a man who,had never rebelled or been accused of the faintest touch of rebellion against it; at the same time he is a man who has known how to adjust adequately enough to the "winds of change" when it became inevitable. Vestige of Feudal Times .
His record, though modest -- until Macmillan appointed him: Foreign Minister three years ago he had held only minor, if not obscure posts == is sufficiently clear to establish a distinct political physiognomy, Edu~ cated at Eton and Qxford, as the top strata of Tory rulers nearly all are, he.entered parliament and served for some fifteen years until his old Scottish mining area seat was lost to Labour forever in the landslide of 1945, After another brief interval in the Commons when the Tories made their comeback in 1951, he succeeded to his ancient title and the estates that. ‘go with it -- all dating back to feudal times wnen his forbears were among the tribal chiefs of Scotland -- and thereafter participated in politics from his hereditary seat in the House of Lords,
. Among his known acts and views as a parliamentarian are the following: during the prewar. depression he thought up a brilliant proposal for solving the crisis in his constituency by sending the unemployed miners en masse to the south of England for employment as domestic servants in that relatively better off part of the country (many retired military officers and colonial civil administrators used to settle there). In 1938 he was one of Chamberlain's lieutenants at Munich, looking askance at Edents resignation and Churchill's attacks over that policy at the time. He had by himself. evolved a doctrine resembling the "better dead than red" one of a later days In 1944 he made a brief speech in the Commons that foreshadowed much of the Fulton, Missouri, ("Iron Cutain") speech line in 1946 of Churchill who, with almost universal support, took a dim view of this premature and embarrassing statement of ruling-class thought at a time when they were still engaged in the war-time alliance with Stalin, As Commonwealth Secretary in the post-1951 Tory administrations, he was a staunch pillar of support for Sir Roy Wellensky and the white settler die-hards in the Central African
'.. Federation (the Rhodesias), trimming to Macmillan's "winds of change" with the utmost composure and déliberation so-as to" ‘assure tne best sateguard~ ing of British investments ‘there.
As Foreign Minister in recent-years he has been. most noted for buffete ing the United Nations with aplomb, particularly over the Congo operation, where British mineral interests had to be protected along with the stooge Tshombe in Katanga until the threat of the Lumumbists and the possibility of Soviet intervention could be safely eliminated.
He attributes the "success" of the test-ban treaty to. the "tough, realistic" line he has pursued with Khrushchev, and sees. the possibility of further progress in decreasing tension as due to the Sino-Russian con= flict.and the softening up of the Kremlin. ;
Phis, in brief, is the political picture of the man whom British imperialists have chosen as Macmillants successor, For the first time since the 1890!s they have resorted to a member of the aristocracy for the main job in politics, In England's unwritten constitution it has been. accepted all these years that only a commoner could hold that post, barred Since that time to members of the aristocracy. This constitutional. hurdle was easily scaled by the rulers, They simply took advantage of a law passed in the last session of parliament which enables members of the aris~ tocracy to formally renounce their titles and so to make themselves eli~ gible for election and participation in the House of Commons, The Earl of Home thus henceforth changes his name and title to Sir Alex Home=Douglas (mere knighthood does not disqualify a man. from being considered a common= GP). - woo ou .. "Quaint" Apparatus of Rule
Ironically, the law that made this procedure possible was passed on the initiative of the Labour party after much Tory resistance, It was part of the piecemeal pecking away at the political vestiges of feudalism by the Labour leadership and then owed its success to the drive put on by Anthony Wedgwood Benn (one of the younger leaders’) who became disqualified for parliamentary life when he succeeded to the title of his father Lord Stans-~ _ gate, who had been made a peer to give Labour better representation in the upper house during an earlier Labour government.
The abolition of the House of Lords, where membership is by hereditary title, was inscribed as an objective of the Liberals in their heyday, in 1906, Labour took over as the main opposition to Toryism after the first world war. In the ensuing years, however, the Tories have been able to hang on tenaciously to every vestige of feudalism in the political fabrio, .and Labourts "attacks" upon these have been the most feeble and half-hearted of all its incursions into the ruling structure. of British society. Recente ly they have agreed to pass as law a Tory measure that makes newly created peers (to establish "political balance") only "life peers" -- that is, only for their lifetime, nonhereditary. This and the measure backed by Wedgwood Benn are the only changes since the bold objective was proclaimed by the Liberals over half a century ago.
ihe reasoning of the Labour leaders has always been superficial and even flippant. These remnants of the feudal past are "colorful," "quaint," "harmless,"' "less costly than electing a president (in the case of the mon~ archy ) ora senate," Almost forty years ago, in his famous polemical
pamphlet Where Is Britain Going? Leon Trotsky, analyzing the social structure of the country, pointed out the skillful way the ruling class was using all the trappings of tradition to tie the mass of the people to its rule of exploitation under the facade of democracy, The naming of Home, ' or Sir Alex Douglas~Home as he will now be known, is another demonstration of this same cunning circumvention of democracy.
There are political pundits who estimate that by bringing this scion of the hoary aristocracy into the leadership of the Tory party, the ruling class handed Harold Wilson and the Labour party the next election on a silver platter. To this observer that seems a very simplistic and doubtful interpretation of the move, It is more likely that the rulers of Great Britain are thus taking a calculated gamble. Their political. fortunes came to a Low ebb with the decline of the Macmillan administration. They face the distinct possibility of a Labour victory in the next elections, If the old shell game of a tax reduction is made possible by the new upswing in the economy, a refurbishing of their public image with the figure of one. "born to. rule, " with all the traditional strength behind him, might just carry off the "floating vote". of the petty bourgeoisie in an election once more, If not, they intend to entrench on their most solid class positions for relentless battles in opposition to a Labour government, That seems to be the real meaning, of Home.
ROBERT WILLIAMS ON TOUR IN CHINA
The militant American Negro leader Robert Williams, who was forced to seek political refuge in Cuba when the FBI -put on a nation-wide hunt for. him on framed-up kidnapping charges, has recently been touring China. He © appears to have made a favorable impression and has been honored.in many. different cities, On October 10 he was the featured speaker at a rally in Peking at which prominent Chinese government officials were present as well as speakers from a number of countries.
"The October 18 Peking Review reports Williams! appearance as follows:
"Kuo Mo-jo [Chairman of the China Peace Committee] expressed admira= tion for the unflinching revolutionary spirit of Robert F, Williams, calling him a contemporary lion-hearted fighter and leader of the American Negroes,
“The 38-year-old Williams, who hails from the state of North Carolina, was forced in 1961 to leave his native country and take up residence in Cuba. Robert Williams, advocating that Negroes must counter violence with violence and take up arms in self-defense, has since 1957 actively resisted the authorities who have been working hand in glove with racists, It was ‘at his request that Chairman Mao Tse-tung made his famous August 8 state-~ ment, [The statement, declaring