Evening Post. TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1924. FATE OF, THE EVICTIONS BILL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 84, 8 April 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1924. FATE OF, THE EVICTIONS BILL

The inclusion of,- Mr. Wheatley in the Cabinet was obviously intended to placate the extremists of the Labour Party, and especially his fellow-irreconcilables of Glasgow, and to reconcile them to the large number of intellectuals and moderates for whom Mr. MacDonald had deemed it wise to find room. But Mr. Wheatley lost no time in showing that as a member <*>f: the Cabinet he was just as capable of wrecking it as if he had remained outside. Even before the meeting of Parliament he had got the Government ; into serious trouble. The excellent impression made by Mr. MacDonald's choice of colleagues was confirmed by the moderation and restraint of the policy statement which he submitted to the House. "The Labour Party," wrote Captain Wedgwood Bonn, M.P., " appeared oppressed by the disillusionment of power and responsibility." The speech with which the" Labour Government thus made its debut in the H6use provided the critics with very little to find fault with, except in regard to its omissions. Yet before the debate had concluded Mr. Asquith, who as the Liberal leader had exercised the casting, vote which brought Labour into power, had! pronounced what was taken to be u. sentence of immediate doom. "He intended,", he said, " to, ask for a full discussion of Mr. Wheatley's action regarding Poplar, ■which he believed there was not the slightest chance of the House of Cqinpons countenancing." '

All of, Mr. MacDonald's good work was threatened with instant destruction by the action which his Minister, of Health had taken in rescinding the order made against the Poplar Guardians and exempting them from the surcharges which their reckless administration had entailed. The issue was one on which Mri Asquith could easily have turned out, the Government, and that it was amicably compromised was doubtless the work of wiser heads than Mr. Wheatley's; Sinking the ship is much more in Mr. Wheatley's line than compro.nnse, and yet his very presence in the Cabinet is a proof that he is not ■ entirely above this human weakness. Immediately after the General Election he contributed to '• Forward;" an article in the true Bombastes Furioso vein, entitled ■No Coalition— No Compromise." In this article Mr, Wheatley condemned with equal severity Lib-eral-Labour coalition and a Labour Government dependent on Liberal support, and therefore limited to "a watered Parliamentary policy to which Liberals and many Tories would have no deep-rooted hostility." ■' . ■.'■■' This policy, he wrote, might include the pacification of Europe, the provision of relief work for the unemployed, reform in the old-age pension law, and more generous treatment to ex-service men and the dependants' of the dead. Ihe capital levy would be relegated to a committee of inquiry. v Our leader is too wise and too faithful to adopt either of these suicidal courses. .. . The second, course would be but a coalition oF ideas and be eqnally treacherous an3 disastrous. .. . Nothing is to be gained by attracting the support of a few weak-kneed people. In the desperate struggles of the immediate future they will be only in the way. But,- like Benedick, who "when I said I would die a bachelor," said Benedick, "1 did not, think I should N live till I were married." Even so, when this stern, unbending, no surrender fire-eater was denouncing any compromise as " treacherous," "disastrous," and even "suicidal," he had no idea that a few weeks later he would be a member of the very kind of compromise Cabinet that he had condemned. But in justice to Mr. Wheatley let us frankly recognise that he had not completely exorcised the old Adam when he did the thing he hated and entered a painfully moderate ' Cabinet. The freedom of the days of his happy independence still asserts itself occasionally, and scares .the chicken-hearted and sets the weak' knees trembling. That early adventure in Poplar displayed a touch of the old quality; and after a spell of a month or two clause 1 of his Evictions Bill gives us anPther. In the debate on that clause Mr. ■Neville Chamberlain very happily described Mr. Wheatley as fulfilling a double function—that of , "• a hostage in the hands of Mr. MacDonald for the good behaviour of thel Labourite* back-benchers, ! and a'pledge to his friends that class war would not be allowed to sjeep." Clause i of this Bill has given a cheerful stimulus to the energies of class warfare, and, as m the ' Poplar (jase, one wonders whether anybody but the backbenchers and their representative m the Cabineb had any'hand in it. ' Mr. • Chamberlain's inference from the clause that " the backbenchers were now beginning to realise their power " was certainly justified, but it was again left to Mr. Asquith to put on the'black and pronounce the sentence. -He denounced a clause which exempted an unemployed tenant from the payment- of rent as " an iniquitous, and'-invidious proposal," and declared that unless this pro-

| vision was deleted the Liberals Lwould vote against the second reading of the Bill. True to the Red gcspel as expounded by Mr. Wheatley in his " Forward " article, Mr. «l. Maxton, one of his .colleagues from Glasgow, urged the Government "to accept the Opposition's ultimatum and face the country on the issue," but Mr. Clynes, who leads the House in the Premier's absence, was too wise to follow this advice. Immediate disaster was averted by his agreeing to delete clausei 1 and to substitute "a clause providing that the cost of maintaining the unemployed in their homes should fall on the public' funds." For technical reasons this liability was limited to the local Poor Law authorities by the amendment which was ultimately submitted by the Government, but even in this form the House has by 221 votes, to 212 refused to accept the clause. Pursuant to the declaration in his policy speech that the Government would ignore defeats on detail, Mr. MacDonald does not propose to resign, but the point then left open,\ viz., the''effect of such a vote on the Minister immediately concerned, has still to bo determined. Will this slap in the face send Mr. Wheatley back to his^ policy of thorough or will he take it lying down ?