Orphan’s Rise To World Fame

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26397, 16 April 1951, Page 7

Orphan’s Rise To World Fame

From the obscurity of a Somerset shire orphan, Mr Bevin rose to work eminence. As a trade union leader, h excelled as a negotiator; and thi. ability he carried into intemationa dealings during his six years at th Foreign Office.

Ernest Bevin’s father was an ordinary agricultural labourer, who died before his son was born; his mother was a village woman, who died when he was only seven. The boy went to relatives and had started to earn his keep at 11; he became entirely selfsupporting at 13, when he ran away from the farm and sought freedom in the nearest city, Bristol. There he became a dishwasher at a shilling a day. He was 15 when he settled down to a steady job, driving a horse and van for a maker of mineral waters at 15s a week, with a small commission on sales. He was later to speak of the times “when I found myself walking the streets unemployed and having to steal for my living.”

I Mr Bevin was, of course, not the only man to rise from real poverty to great eminence. What distinguished his career from others of this kind was its steadiness and the absence of luck. It was a slow, sure progression, step by step, merit coming before recognition, recognition before power, power before fame. Not only was his career steady; it always remained within his class. He never aspired to be a “bourgeois”; he helped the working class to rise, and he rose with it. This was not only a likeable characteristic; it marked him as a natural politician and leader. Never, since he became an adult, did he seek to solve his personal problem other than by social action, which would benefit his like. He was hardly 20 when he became the honorary secretary of a "Right to Work” Committee of Bristol’s unemployed. At 30 he was the (still honorary and unpaid) chairman of the carmen’s branch of the Dockers’ Union. Yet another 10 years went by before he became nationally known as the “Dockers’ K.C.,” who led and won the dockers' case in London in the first public wage arbitration award. Trade Union Leader From then on, Mr Bevin was for 20 years a power in the land as one of its chief trade union leaders; the mighty figure who made and led the gigantic Transport and General Workers’ Union; who broke the attempt to intervene in Russia against the Bolsheviks by threatening a transport strike; who led and lost the General Strike; and finally rose to be chairman of the Trades Union Congress.

But the formative years were the obscure period from 1900 to 1920,.before he became a big trade union “boss”—2o long years of struggle, of unaided decisions and steps in the dark, of serious responsibilities, and bitter defeats. He learned to train his instincts, to watch his step, to be both daring and cautious, to know and to use people, to persuade and to bargain. Above all, to bargain: for Mr Bevin was the happy negotiator, as Mr Churchill is the happy warrior. His mastery and delight in driving a bargain, in measuring the limits of bluffing and bullying that each side dared to go, in almost closing the door but not quite doing so, in judiciously mixing smooth and rough tactics, in never losing the advantage of having a clear conscience —all this he learned to perfection as an obscure young docker, staking his slender existence on untried experiments (trade unions were new then) and living perilously, always opposing superior powers. From those days, also, stemmed his unshakeable grip on working-class audiences, that confident familiarity which many years later enabled him easily to rout the "intellectual” critics of his foreign policy at Labour Party conferences, and to remain massively popular throughout a period of disappointments, bewilderment, and lean success. Appointment to Cabinet When, on the German invasion of the Low Countries in 1940, Mr Churchill formed his National Government, he knew that the man to organise labour must be one whom the workers trusted as one of themselves. It was Mr Bevin who best fitted the bill, and Mr Churchill appointed him Minister of Labour and National Service. A few weeks later Mr Bevin entered the House of Commons unopposed as member for Central Wandsworth. As Minister of Labour Mr Bevin was amazingly successful. Out of Britain’s population of 46,000.000 he was able to get 25,000,000 into national service. He called up the women for the first time in history, and in 1943 devised a ballot system to send one out of every 10 youths registered for military service, to work in the mines and help to meet Britain’s need for coal. His achievement went a long way towards securing victory. Throughout the war, as he mobilised

the nation's manpower, he jealously watched over the workers’ well-being. Canteens, rest homes and hostels sprang up all over Britain and factory welfare services were developed. Mr Bevin was planning for the peace even before the war ended. He steered through Parliament several important pieces of social legalisation. Then came the third and perhaps most surPhase in Mr Bevin’s career When the Labour Party swept into power in 1945, Mr Bevin’s appointment as Foreign Secretary came as a surprise to the country. With no special training in foreign politics but with enorlnous experience as a negotiator Mr Bevin plunged into the intricacies of his new job within a few hours of his appointment. On the ? lect . lons - Mr Attlee had returned to London from the Potsdam H°? f fJ’ ence . t o be present for the de°r the results, ol the polling. When the Potsdam deliberations were resumed Britain was represented at Prim, table by Mr Attlee - as Prime Minister, and Mr Bevin as Foreign Secretary. s This was the first of many internattnri a pri aSS w mb J ie ! wbich Mr Bevin atpf” ded - lost , no time in making clear to the world that Labour’s victeruii V? e Polls - would mean no material change in Britain’s foreign policy. Before long, he was leading Assemblv ele th ate q 0 th? t U "L ited Nat^ons Assembly, the Security Council and the Council of Foreign Ministers.

At the Foreign Office Mr Bevin became Foreign Secretarv S h of the most difficult periods the , history of his office. He had in wards to Ee e vnt la T n H ßrit^in,s attitude to” Peace treaties. He std Eur wFs ffiteS ■» 01 “ 8 Sri 1 . n signed in March, 1947 7 Dunklrk The consolidation of Western SJSM? S lux countries bound themselves for “=te.* 5 Economic .in 1949. he went to Washington tn ggn the Atlantic Treaty and the threePower agreement on Germany. He also signed the Statute of the Council of meetffil nfV ater at !*nded the first Tn f qfnt f l he c ,°„ uncll in Strasbourg. *n September, 1949. he attended the B n° n o t f alkS t th r t prece T ded the de£"lS. S‘. .tas-

. A* that time, his health was already Cevlnn h)^ 7 ! a ? d °" - his j° urne y to A® took sP ecia l Precautions a £amst fatigue and overstrain. Mr Bevin’s resignation as Foreign Secretary m March this year came after a long agitation for his removal mi? ?$ ce A ec , a , use of his continued ill-health. At Mr Attlee’s special re- ' h® was retained as a member 01 the Cabinet, in the much less onerous post of Lord Privy Seal. His successor as Foreign Secretary was Mr Herbert Morrison. Record Appraised It is very easy to list Mr Bevin’s weaknesses as a Foreign Secretary. The chief of them lay in his handling of administrative jobs—such as Germany—where a negotiating technique did not apply (and where his officials were equally inexperienced). The next was in questions where his emotional prejudices intruded—such as Palestine and, again, Germany—(particularly if nis officials shared his emotions, as they tended to in these cases). More obviously he lacked the ordinary equipment for diplomacy—languages, historical studies, and a knowledge of foreigners and foreign nations. His mind was powerful, but imprecise. He was supremely indiscreet and shockingly tactless. Also, he made enemies m his own party, and gave them plenty to snigger over with his loud references to “my policy,” and his hackneyed complaint of being “stabbed in the back.”

Yet, it is quite possible that history will rate him as one of the greatest Foreign Secretaries Britain has ever had, and the best she could possibly have had when he held office. It was remarkable that Mr, Bevin with his habitual bragging and his countless minor faux pas, never made a really big mistake and was always on the spot to “grab with both hands” any real chance the moment it offered itself. |