THE STRANGE CASE OF MR ANEURIN BEVAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 August 1948, Page 6

THE STRANGE CASE OF MR ANEURIN BEVAN

“BRUTUS” in the London Recorder.

Nlost of us in public life know the temptation to play to one’s immediate audience. That is the instinct of the trouper, and a good politician is usually a good trouper.

When, however, he becomes a Cabinet Minister, or a shadow Minister in the Opposition, he has .to realise that he speaks for the Government or the Opposition, as the case may be. Therefore we must ask ourselves whether Mr Aneurin Bevan recognises this responsibility or whether he regards himself as a one-man band, beating the drums, playing the fiddle and choosing his own music. Is ho above or below the law? Is he a lone wolf howling at the moon, or a little dog that barks defiance at the bigger dog over the wall ?

“Lower Than Vermin”

His most recent diatribe took place when he said that he hated the Tories, whom he regarded as “lower than vermin.” As the News Chronicle remarked in its leader column, he chose the birth of the National Health Bill as the occasion for this cerebral outburst.

Indulging in the deepest emotion of the Socialist, which is self-pity, he told his audience that when he was a boy he was supported by his sister and was even told to emigrate. The mere thought that Aneurin Bevan (destined to star as the soapbox Danton and eventually as the Doctors’ Dictator) should emigrate

and become a mere Canadian or a New Zealand or an Australian! . I agree that the insult is intolerable. , . Who was the verminous scoundrel who suggested that a boy might do better in the Outer Empire than m the harsh mining areas of South Wales? Is it not too late to expose him, even if it would have to be done posthumously. Story of the Human Family We know little of Mr Bevan’s early life and would not want to intrude upon his privacy. But the whole story of the human family is the elder brother or sister helping the younger members of the family. Often, indeed, it makes affection deeper and more lasting than in families where there has been no sacrifice. Mr Bevan was the son of a coal miner and no one doubts that life must have been hard and embittering He left school at 13 —like thousands of other successful men—and went down not suggested, however, that Mr Bevan was a coal miner for very long. A person of his sensitivity and poweis of observation could grasp the gum facts of life below ground wnhout spending a lifetime there. In this I imply no criticism unless it be that Mi Bevan saw more suffering than he enEventually we find that he took a course at the Central Labour College, that he became prominent in the counsels of the South Wales Miners’ Federation was elected to the local urban council and became a miners’ Dispute Agent. He possessed a gift of the gab —and the heady wine of mass applause was decanted and waiting for him. Friends Among the Rich So he came to Parliament, where, under the ancient democracy of our lives he could spit venom or talk platitudes and say anything which was m his head or his heart. No private member in the Tory Party could rank higher than himself, for this equality m Parliamentary life was the heritage which he could claim. He made friends among the rich No one suggests that he was a sycophant or that he tried to pay for his grub with flattery of the selling of his soul. He was a lively talker and he found complete freedom of expression under conditions which were physically agreeable, no matter how they may have seared his soul. On no occasion which I can remember did he denounce his hosts as being worse than vermin. In the meantime he had linked up with Sir Stafford Cripps and was producing a Left Wing weekly called Tnkune. In its own modest way. Tribune preached class hatred, maligned the Conservatives, distorted the facts about Tory rule, but kept its language out of the gutter. When Mr Bevan took office in 1940 he abandoned the Tribune and gave its editorial direction to Mr Michael Foot. “Saw the Light”

I must hasten to add that from this moment Mr Bevan was found no more in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. He had seen the light and was saved. Now he could seek companionship only with the poor and the worthy like Dick Stokes, George Strauss, Viscount Corvedale and the other sans-culottes of his party. f On the eve of the Scarborough Conference of the Labour Party he made a foaming spluttering speech in which he denounced the British press as the most prostituted in the world. It tic not any fear of libel which makes me hesitate to brand him as a liar.

On the contrary, I am convinced that when the blood rushes to his head he believes the words that issue from his mouth. It may be that the enthusiasm of his immediate audience has something to do with the miasma of his mind.

Yet even that speech was not as vulgar or irresponsible as his latest effort when he denounced half the adult population of Great Britain as worse than vermin. He may say that that was not his meaning, that he referred only to the Tories in Parliament. It is not my duty to sift the confusion of his mind, but will he now claim He meant that only Tory M.P.’s are vermin whereas Tory business men, Tory workers and Tory women are honest, but misguided, people? It is an open secret that the Prime

Minister deplores the vulgar extravagance of his Minister of Health. Yet the Prime Minister, like those of us in the Tory Party, recognise that. Bevan is a hard worker, a good administrator, and a man of considerable Parliamentary gifts. “Speeches Foul ... But the Minister of Health must heal himself. When the rush of blood, clouds out the balanced judgment of the mina it is not his victims who suffer, but the man himself. It may be that Bevan intends to lead the mob and that Parliamentary Government is too slow and too fair for his imperious temperament. In which - case he knows what he is no Government, even this one, can maintain a Minister whose speeches foul the public life of the nation.