FUTURE PRIME MINISTER

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 92, 20 April 1935, Page 10

FUTURE PRIME MINISTER

At the height of the political crisis 5n the autumn of 1931, when the Labour Party was split from top to bottom, he and Mr James H. Thomas, then Dominions Secretary of State, took different sides. They attacked each other fiercely from their places in Parliament. Putside the House of Commons they remained “’Erb" and “Jim" to each ether.

Much the same has applied to Mr Morrison’s relations with his former chief,.Mr Kamsay MacDonald. Tho two opposite ways in 1931. k et consideration for personal friendship for Mr Morrison overrode everything else with ;the senior of them. “We older men are risking our whole future," Mr MacDonald wrote to Mr Morrison in August, 1931. “I would not ask you to jeopardise you rs. ’ ’

How Mr Morrison appeared to ins late Lord Haldane is shown in a terse minute by that elder etatesraan. “He has a cool head in a crisis," wrote Lord Haldane. “He knows his own mind. His administration is competent, clean and effective. He won’t let us down." One of the reasons why Mr Morrison is trusted Is because his friends all feel ;with the late Lord Haldane that they won’t be “let down."

Mr Morrison delights to recall the humble surroundings from which he came. He sometimes refers to himself as naving been “an errand boy to a grocer." On November 27, 1933, in the Central Hall, Westminister, at a mass meeting held to consider the German situation, he laughed tolerantly at Aryan Pedigrees. In comparison he quoted his own. “My father," he said, “-was a policeman in the East Lnd. My mother was a housemaid. I don’t need to look back any further." When he first spoke in the House of Commons his Cockney (East London) accent xaised a laugh. “I'm ’Oxton, not Ox(ford," he laughed back, and the smile iwas on his side. Hoxton is a densely l-luilbup region of workers’ dwellings ‘in the East End of London where Mr Morrison’s father lived. Presenting the prizes at St. AnBrew’s Church of England School, Stockwell, another London district, •where he wa3 a scholar before he got his first job, Mr Morrison heartened backward lads by telling them that a school prize was something he himself had never managed to win. His Early Work. From being a grocery errand boy, Mr Morrison when lie was IS became a store assistant who “lived in," that is, lodged and had his food on the premises. It was then that he tauglit himself political economy. Later on he was a telephone operator. In 1915 he was appointed part-time secretary to the London Labour Party. The post was made a full-time one in 1919 and he has held it ever since. His election to represent the South Division of Hackney in Parliament grew out of this.

His abilities soon became known m the House of Commons. As Minister of .Transport in a Labour Government be drew up a detailed scheme for the public ownership and co-ordination of the entire passenger traffic in London, including underground railways, buses end trams. His party went out of office before _tMs scheme bad materialised But bia plan was recognised as so sound that later on it was adopted arid put into operation almost in its entirety by the present National Government. Conservatives have thus been indebted to a Socialist for wbat has proved one of the most valuable administrative toforms ever effected in the metropolis. After the general election of 1931 ) when Mr Morrison was out of office, he refused the offer of a £SOOO-a-year post as organiser for the Electrical Development Association, a highly successful body he had been largely instrumental in setting up. He had taken Mr MacDonald’s advice to stick to the Labour Party, but he deliberately chose poverty for himself in this course, when he had the option of being in easy street.

In the following three years he organised victory for his party in the London County Council (municipal government), where thanks to his leadership Labour now mles for the first time in history.

Later in 1934 he was the main source of inspiration to Labour in the borough elections, contests which determine the political colour of the municipal government of tho larger provincial cities, besides a number of metropolitan areas. In these borough elections —just as had previously been the case in the London County Council contest—a swing-over to the Left took place. These successes for Labour have been of such dimensions as seriously to alarm the .National Government,, which

Mr. H. Morrison, Former Grocer’s Boy

ttmall in stature, but with almost certain prospect of some time or another becoming a Labour Party Prime Minister of England, is Mr Herbert Morrison, now head of the municipal government of London, says Mr Everard Cotes, in. the “ Christian Science Monitor. On Meeting-Mr Morrison for the first time one is struck by his youthfulness. This is not so much because—as years are reckoned among ministers of state—he is still very young. It does not depend npon his pleasant smile and remarkably gentle voice—though these are also noticeable. It arises from something else. It is that he inspires friendship. Even his bitterest political opponents have the most cordial personal relations with him.

must itself submit to a general election within the next 18 months.

Mr Morrison is now consolidating the ground that he has gained. He is preparing for the parliamentary contest that is to come. In a number of telling speeches he lias indicated the policy ho proposes to pursue. It differs from that hitherto adopted by Labour in that it is national as opposed to class. To clear the way for its adoption he had first to get rid of competing proposals. These have been sponsored by that brilliant lawyer, Sir Stafford Cripps, chairman of a powerful Left-wing Labour group known as “tho Socialist League. ’ ’

This body has been preaching an extreme form of Socialism with which Mr Morrison will have nothing to do. Sir Stafford had said, “I cannot imagine the Labour Party’s coming into power without a first-rate financial crisis." Mr Morrison fastened upon theso words. “That any Socialist," he said, “should make speeches presenting the Tories (Conservatives) with the war cry ‘A vote for Labour is a vote for a first-rate financial crisis’ seems to me childish. It may be good melodrama but it’s not fighting politics." Mr Morrison has won his point. Sir Stafford’s policy has been disowned.

Mr Morrison proposes to advance in. the direction of Socialism, that is, of public ownership of the chief utilities and industries. But he will do this just as far but no further than the blackcoated as well as the overalled worker can be convinced is desirable. And tho Labour Party has taken him at his word.

The test that Mr Morrison would apply to Socialism is oue as searching ns even the Conservative Party could ask. “Tho public ownership of a given industry,” he says, “can only be defended upon the basis that it is economically and socially superior to private ownership • • The public has a right to be satisfied that a publicly-owned industry is not going to bo run by politicians for party ends, and that it is going to be managed by competent people wbo understand or who are ca-pable-of grasping large-scale business operations."

“On another occasion he said, “We don’t intend to squander money. We realise we have a duty to the payer as Avell as to the receiver. But we have also an obligation not to treat people who ask for relief as though they wero criminals. ’ ’

Elsewhere he said, “London has given us a big job, one that needs all our hearts, all our consciences, all our brains. AVe must not let the citizens down. ’ ’

Some of Air Alorrison’s advice to his fellow municipal councillors is also significant. "You must all remember,” he said, "that you have been elected by the ratepayers of your different boroughs, and that you must serve those who have choseu you.” He went or. to give the sound counsel, "Keep contractors (those who bid for awards) at arm’s length.”

"Do not,” he said, "consider relations when appointments have to be made.” Another piece of advice was, "A chief officer must bo a chief officer. Otherwise you cannot criticise the working of his department. Do not so place him that if you find auy fault he can say, ‘I am not master in my own house.’ ”

A prominent opportunity of showing what could be done on these lines has already been seized by Air Morrison with characteristic energy. When his party was returned to power in tbs London County Council, one of its first tasks was to decide what should be done about the then collapsing Waterloo Bridge, one of the main routes of traffic connecting the London north of the Biver Thames with that on tho south. Mr Alorrison’s Conservative predecessors in office had been disputing over this question for nine years. Mr Alorrison tacked it in as many weeks. Denouncing as "an extravaganza of squandermania” a competing £15,000,000 project that had been holding up a settlement, and also refusing to bo intimidated by a hostile vote in the House of Commons, he proceeded to solve the difficulty in his own way. His solution did not please a number of people. It is to cost only a tenth of the other project. It pays no attention to opposition from London newspapers. But it has met tho practical requirements of the situation. A new bridge is being built. It may or may not prove to be an architectural masterpiece, but it has been-an object lesson in common sense and energy.

Air Morrison is getting on with his job. To-day it is to give London u new bridge. To-morrow it may be something very much bigger.