HERBERT MORRISON

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24632, 31 July 1945, Page 4

HERBERT MORRISON

BRITISH CABINET

This account of the new Lord President ana Leader of the House of ■ Commons— from the Profiles series of the “Observer,.January 10. 1945-. I! worth recalling to-day, when the policy of public accountabilitywhich he was foremost in expounding is about to be put into practice;

If all you know of Herbert Morrison is the militant buccaneering, frequently tyrannical, “steam-roller or me Labour Party Conference platform, you can hardly believe your sense? when you are ushered in to meet the Home Secretary in his office. The piled-up crest of curly hair, the aggressive heavy-sided glasses, the pugnacious chin, are still thrust out at you. But the bulging forehead. humovous mouth, apd natural, non-political voice are what make the impression. «e greets .you like an M.O. receiving an officer back from sick leave- .. Morrison, unique among i>it-wmg champions, never throws himself to the masses; he goes before the public with hands that are all the cleaner because they are neither empty nor open. He draws his assurance best from a piece of solid work behind him and a still bigger task .in front. IMdhad a chance of entering the War Cabinet without a department, or going on as I was. as Home Secretary, Id have found, it a devil of a decision to make. In public or private Morrison is looking always beyond the speech of to-day to the achievement of tomorrow, whether it be organising the London Labour Party, winning London for Labour holding London A much harder task, believe me -framing the new model through the L.P.T.8., fighting the battle of Waterloo Bridge, making the country “go to it” at the Ministry of Supply, getting down to a personal examination on Christmas Day, 1940, ?f Fascist internee cases, or reorganising Civil T}pf6nco . .. He is 55 —young as top-line politicians go—the son of a. Brixton policeman. “Who’s Who” will tell you that he was educated at an elementary school, and was successively an errand boy shop assistant, telephone operator, deputy-newspaper circulation manager ‘‘Who’s Who”’ won’t tell you of his ’ tastes and accomplishments—dancing, gardening, etc; more important, it won’t tell you but he will, the crucial fact of his life—that he got power at a much earlier age than most politicians, especially those on the Left. “What I Would Do” At 32 Morrison was called in from outside to ho Mayor of Hackney; but even before that, as secretary of an I.L.P. Federation, he learnt the difference between things being said and things being done. “Many advocates of change, he says, “devote ninetenths of their speeches to attacking the existing system, and what they say has often an awful lot in it. But they only have a tenth of their time to spare for explaining what they would do. And for that reason I always try to tell the audience what I would do, as well as picking holes In the other fellow, which I admit is good fun/’ Certainly nothing could have been more precise than ms recent Swindon speech, with its dear outline of a desirable post-war balance between Socialism and private enterprise. Morrison himself is at no pains to emphasise its more conservative aspects. “I still think of myself,” he said, “as a revolutionary and a Left-winger. But since no one seems to agree with me I suppose my reputation as a Moderate must survive. Whatever we have after the war in the way of party politics, the war has shown how much the British public can accomplish if they stick together and how far they can move together if you talk to them in the right language, the language of the ordinary man In the street,, and not of any party shibboleth or dogma.” You ask Morrison whether, in Jiig version of Socialism, the public corporations he envisages a%e to be run from Whitehall. “No,” he says, “decidedly not. There is a commercial language and a commercial mentality. You will always need a lot more ot them both than you'now get In Whitehall for dealing with enterprises whose

character is bound to remain prinarik commercial. But the principle of put lie accountability must override an . . . Capitalism, where it is monopoS tic or restrictive must go absolute!* . . , For the small producer there waT ■ always be a place as far as you m look ahead. ..." Cotabativeness It is difficult to say how far hk faults are the obverse of his virtues and how far, with a man still broads i ing, Still . developing, they will net i further diminish. At the time of j Hackney Marshes dispute he raised* i “class cry” against his opponents. He ■ has changed that sort of talk now and begun to emerge, in office, as a spoke®, man for the whole nation. Technically, however, he still lack* something in “communication.” w. rapport with the British people i» w yet complete. Except in Labour Con. ference circles he Is still spoken ot ' rather than felt directly, as a person, allty. Any failure here links up closely wifn his overdone combativeness, hj» supposed love of a fight for a sake. For example, his apparent fondness for' deliberately thwarting popular feeling, as over the “Daily Worker* ban, which, it is whispered, he would ’ have lifted earlier except for a dislike of appearing to give way to pressure. The truth is he has such a hatred of the forms of moral cowardice most common among politicians that lie' seems, in order to assert himself on the platform, to require some to. ' ner assurance that whatever' else he is doing he is not playing to thelpfllery. , How far does he owe this to his father, the Brixton policennat*£jj ; seems more*' like a legacy. He seems to take a positive' pleasure in publicly lecturing. thei Labour Party on their minority For years he was the chief Party; disciplinarian and “whippaMutfl though he admits: “Sometimes it: went a bit too far." v* ~| ' The Administrator - i The Left wing of the parly, oftat bitterly critical of him. remember hW gratefully for two things: the fact thati he was the first among the party leaders to oppose non-intervention in' Spain, and his insistence last war, ito face of considerable hostility, tost this' time tne peace must be very free d foolish and purposeless vindictiveness? His record as a conscientious objector'' in the last war has often been Morrison was content to reply in the! House of Commons: “I complied with! the law.” Outside he has added “other politicians have opposed the war and' lived to do pretty useful work In thtt next. Lloyd George was against the' Boer 'Wftr* 1 * He is supposed to have talked him-' self into the War Cabinet with a speech) exposing the humbug of foreign crft!4 cism of Britain. His Swindon oration; set the intellectuals peering into hiy prospective ideology and saying Kate Socialist theory had been jerked lor*s ward (or backward) for the first tiinr since Keir Hardie died. : The sceptical are daring him to ft-), veal an equal stature on international?. and imperial questions, Talking to him;; knowing the warm loyalty of hto naw*t boiled Civil Servants, and recalling legends of the team he built, arouwE, him in the L.C.C. days, Jiny that he has. to make seem to youian-i dental to his life as an admlmstrawljl'i to his real sphere of creation. do not doubt that he knows how press himself in public if . neces*B;| ■ “You can’t get away from words of a violent opponent aftet “Daily Worker” debate at a Labwffi. Party Conference. "He’s got hu, ptM. of view and nothing on earth wuUHj&. him putting it over At least youW:, where you are with him. He s nWttrt;