Little Specter

A little specter set about haunting Britain last week.* One year after its birth, the Common Wealth Party issued a manifesto: "An age is ending. A whole way of life is breaking down and is reaching its end. If the evidence before your own eyes does not convince you that this is true, no words of ours are likely to persuade you. The future struggles to be born."

Major demands of the Common Wealth Manifesto:

>Public ownership of land, factories, utilities, banks and insurance companies; present owners to get "reasonable" compensation--token payments to big capitalists, 100% to little ones.

>Self-government for the colonies; immediate freedom for India.

>An international council to regulate postwar trade, shipping and aviation.

>A general election in the United Kingdom, because the present Commons was elected almost eight years ago.

>Complete support for the Beveridge overall social-security plan.

The Common Wealth Party is the brain child of pious Sir Richard T. D. Acland, M.P., who believes socialism is the modern embodiment of Christian principles. He resigned from the Liberal Party to form the Common Wealth with Guerrilla Warrior Tom Wintringham, Independent Progressive M.P. Vernon Bartlett and Writer J. B. Priestley. Bartlett and Priestley quickly resigned.

But Acland bustled ahead, set up local Common Wealth organizations, contested by-elections against the Government Coalition. Common Wealth has won one by-election, lost others by narrow margins.

Common Wealth is not yet a serious political contender. Whether it can become one depends on the political acumen of Sir Richard Acland and the political temper of postwar Britain. Says Barbara Ward, foreign editor of The Economist, in the July issue of Foreign Affairs, after a survey of what youthful Britons in the armed services are thinking: "Young opinion in Britain is radical. Young people in Britain want change. They see that the times are revolutionary. . . . They want reform and progress." Says the Common Wealth Manifesto: "There is no use in patching up a way of life that has changed into a way of death. We believe that British people will not turn back to the old world, but will pioneer toward a new social order."

*Said the Communist Manifesto of 1848: "A specter is haunting Europe--the specter of Communism."

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