NEW MINISTERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 30 July 1945, Page 5

NEW MINISTERS

SEALS OF OFFICE RECEIVED FRIVY COUNCIL MEETING London. July 28. His Majesty received the Ministers of the old and new Governments at Buckingham Palace. The Ministers of Mr Churchill’s Government went in first and handed in their seals. Lord Simon was the first to arrive, Mr Eden next and then Lord Wooltpn, Sir John Anderson and Lord Beaverbrook, followed at five-minute intervals. The new Ministers received their seals from the King and took the oath at a meeting of the Privy Council after the departure of the retiring Ministers. Messrs Attlee, Bevin, Greenwood and Morrison. Sir Stafford Cripps. Dr. Dalton and Sir William Jowilt were present. Mr Morrison and Sir Stafford Cripps did not receive seals as the offices of Lord President and President of the Board of Trade do not carry them. The King was photographed with Mr Attlee in the Palace grour.-’.s after the meeting. A crowd gathered outside the Palace and watched the Ministers leave, and there were cheers for Mr Attlee. V'ho raised his hat in acknowledgment of the greeting. He left by car with a police escort. The Prime Minister called at 10 Downing Street, and afterward left for Northholt airfield where an R.A.F. plane was waiting to take him to Potsdam. The appointment of Sir William Jowitt as Lord Chancellor means that he will be raised to the peerage, causing a by-election at Ashton-under-Lyne. LABOUR M.P. KILLED Alderman A. J. Dobbs, who was elected to the House of Commons as Labour member for Smethwick, was killed instantly when the era in which he was travelling to Doncaster swerved to avoid a child and collided with a military vehicle. EXPECTATION AND CONFIDENCE The Labour members of the House of Commons were summoned to London by telegram and held a formal meeting today to constitute the new Parliamentary Labour Party and elect its leader—an office automatically assumed by Mr Attlee. The members met in an atmosphere of high expectation and confidence. Large crowds which gathered outside the hall to greet the new members gave the women a special welcome. Mr Attlee told the meeting that he was determined to have the best team possible for Ministerial and junior Government positions. After he had been acknowledged with acclaim as leader of the party he warned the members that some trusted old comrades would be passed over in the appointments still to come. This must be regarded as giving young blood a chance. The older and more experienced members were asked to adopt small groups of the newcomers to assist them to find their feet.

Mr Morrison will be acting head of the Government in London while Mr Attlee is absent in Potsdam. Mr Attlee in a statement from No. 10 Downing Street said: “The Prime Minister wishes to thank all the many friends and wellwishers in Britain, the Empire and abroad who have been kind enough to send messages of congratulations on his assumption to office.” The message adds that Mr Attl-e regrets he is unable owing to pressure of work to reply to all. FAVOURABLE PRESS The reaction to Mr Attlee's Cabinetforming is distinctly friendly. The “Manchester Guardian,” in a leader, says: “The first appointments in the new Government are good. As everybody had hoped, Mr Bevin has taken the Foreign Office. It is an appointment that will give much

pleasure. Of all the front-rank Labour men Mr Bevin is most of the calibre to succeed Mr Churchill as a • symbol of British democracy abroad. He has the uownrightness, courage and sincerity that we need to back the British word. True, he has no experience of foreign affairs, less even than Mr Henderson had, but he has imagination and principle. The root of the matter is in him. He will make mistakes, but he will never be'without a policy. At last the' world knows where we stand. NEW COMMONS LEADER “It is good, too, that Mr Morrison has put aside the temptations of department to become Lord President of the Council and leader of the House. The Lord President is nowadays a great co-ordinator and chairman of Cabinet committees, and Mr Morrison can do that work of co-ordination and inspiration well. He has also the adroitness to lead a party through the shoals of Commons business. Dr. Dalton may make a better Chancellor of Exchequer than he did President of the Board of Trade, where he was not strong. Sir Stafford Cripps may get on well there. Certainly a new mind was needed. With Sir William Jowitt as Lord Chancellor, Labour is showing that it can give distinction to the Woolsack. This first list is a good beginning.”

“The Times” says that the choice of Mr Bevin as Foreign Secretary will be generally welcomed. The views which he expressed on foreign policy, specially in his recent speech at Blackpool, promise a practical approach to affairs, supported by the known resources of a forceful personality. “The transition will be rendered easier by the fact that no spectacular break in foreign policy is to be contemplated,” it continues. “The pronouncements of the parties on foreign affairs have shown no divergences of principle. They are, indeed, for the most part dictated by the plain necessities of the situation in which the country finds itself at the close of a victorious but exacting war.” INTERNATIONAL EFFORT “The Times” expresses the opinion that the Labour Government is not likely to be any less zealous than the last coalition in promoting international acceptance and application of the principle of trusteeship in the administration of colonial and backward territories, or in furthering the schemes for a world-wide improvement of material standards of living that were inaugurated at the Hot Springs conference and now being worked out by the organisation which then came to birth. The '‘Daily Telegraph” says Mr

Bevin’s appointment is the most inter esting of those so far announced, and adds: "Though Mr Bevin’s experience may be far more limited than that of Mr Eden, he is of large calibre mentally ’as well as physically. He did, on Mr Churchill’s testimony, ‘a fine job' during the war, and he is undoubtedly the best choice available for what will continue to be one of the most onerous tasks during the coming difficult years.” POSTPONED FOR WEEK OPENING OF PARLIAMENT (Rec. 10.10 a.m.) London, July 29. The King’s Speech and the State opening ol Parliament have been postponed for a week, according to an agency correspondent. Instead of taking place on August Bth as had been arranged they will now be on Wednesday, August 15th, he says. This means, he adds, that the new House of Commons will meet as expected next Wednesday, when the Speaker will be elected. On Thursday, about 500 new members will be sworn in. The procedure will be that each member will sign the register, repeat the oath and shake hands with th e Speaker, who will have the unenviable task of memorising all the new names and faces. Swearing-in will continue on Friday and then the House will adjourn for a week’s holiday. Among other things the postponement will enable Mr Attlee first, to complete the talks at Potsdam without undue haste, secondly, to select his full Ministerial team, which will number more than 100 when the junior appointments are included, and, thirdly, draw up Labour’s first programme which will be set out in general terms in the King’s Speech. When this has been delivered Parliament will sit for the remainder of that week and all the following week before the summer recess, which begins on August 24th, and will at least be a month shorter than usual. During this fortnight the new Ministers will run the gauntlet of a mass of daily questions. There will be a discussion on United Nations Charter, which may bring both the Prime Minister and Mr Bevin into action 3id there will be a full debate over the King’s Speech and including, no doubt, many Conservative amendments and criticisms. FOREIGN REPERCUSSIONS

VARIOUS VIEWS EXPRESSED New York, July 26. Observers in Washington believe it is certain there will be some changes in British foreign policies as a result of Labour’s win in the British elections. These changes, says the correspondent of th e Associated Press of America, may tighten rather than weaken Anglo-American co-opera,-tion, as the United States expressed policy is to let the people have any government they want. The foreign affairs analyst of the Associated Press of Great Britain, Mr de Witt Mackenzie, says England’s strong swing to the Left is not a revolutionary upheaval, but an evolutionary change arising from Labour’s desire for a bigger place in the sun and for a new way of life. Big changes in England’s social policies must be expected. Big estates will disappear with increasing rapidity and there will be considerable nationalisation of industry. Mr Churchill’s defeat brought mixed Congressional reaction. Senator George Ranking, Democrat member of the Foreign Relations Committee, considered it would cause considerable uncertainty in international relations. Senator Aiken, Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee, predicted vast repercussions in India, and also said the Labour Government would not be so anxious to restore the Italian King. Representative Rankin (Democrat) saw Mr Churchill’s defeat as a Communist trend. He declared it should be a warning to the American people. Mr William Green, President of the A.F.L., said the Labour victory must be interpreted as the outcome of the British workers’ insistent desire for higher living standards and greater economic security. The results should not be viewed as a repudiation of Mr Churchill’s brilliant war leadership but rather as the rejection of the Conservative Party’s domestic policies. The “Mineworker’ Journal,’.'»’ in an editorial on Ist June, said the British Labour Party did not want to win this election, recalling that Mr Ram>say MacDonald’s Government carried the onus of the reconversion of difficulties after the last war. The Japanese Saigon radio described Mr Churchill’s defeat as a deathblow and added that the most interesting news is that it. freed India of her arch-enemy Arnery and the High price of British imperialism. SURPRISE IN CANADA All Canadian political circles expressed surprise at the Result. A Government spokesman said the British elections had been fought largely on domestic issues. Labour and Conservatives were pretty well in agreement on foreign policies and interImperial relations. Mr Sidney Hillman, chairman of the C. 1.0. political action committee, said the British election is the occasion for rejoicing by liberal and progressive forces everywhere. The American Zionist Emergency Council stated that the Labour victory gives hope that the intolerable regime in Palestine will now end. GENERAL SMUTS’S MESSAGE London, July 27. General Smuts, according to a Capetown correspondent, sent the following cable to Mr Attlee: “I send you and your colleagues congratulations on a brilliant victory and you are assured that the happy co-operation existing between ourselves and the late coalition will continue unchanged in the future.”