Skeleton's Exit

It was as plain as Violet Attlee's red straw hat against the brown-&-black background of the Bournemouth Pavilion stage. The 1,179 Labor Party delegates to the 45th annual party conference had gathered last week to ratify policy, not to make it.

The knockabout days of previous conferences, when Laborites could take carefree pokes at the Tories and each other, were past. The rank & file of British Labor now heard their party leaders, doubling as British Cabinet ministers, report on ten months in office. Though the delegates sometimes cheered at embarrassing moments, though they sometimes rumbled disapproval, though they censured their leaders on minor points, in general they fell in line with the Executive Committee's policy and gave a whopping vote of confidence. The old Labor leaders were firmly in the saddle.

Most of the promised fireworks turned out to be damp squibs.

To the British Communists' request for affiliation with the Labor Party, the delegates gave a resounding no (the ratio: 6-to-1). Bronzed, scholarly Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton summed up the Laborite attitude in a preconference rally speech: "We are not going to be mucked about by that lot any more."

Prime Minister Clement Attiee told a silent, disappointed meeting that nationalization of industry (see below) must not be pushed too fast ("We must not overload the legislative and administrative machine").

Big Ernie Bevin, target of spirited but disorganized criticism, triumphantly defended his foreign policy, although many Laborites would like to see a strong anti-Franco policy on Spain and a pro-Zionist policy on Palestine.

Irrepressible House of Commons Leader Herbert Morrison, wearing an enormous pink rose in bis lapel, best expressed the jubilant, confident mood of the conference. His somber warnings of a future U.S. business slump that might drag the world into depression did not keep him from enjoying the social whirl. He danced the Scottish reel with whoops and jigs, nursed a couple of small Scotches through evenings of gay chatter. "A regular scalawag is Herbert," grinned one delegate.

As the conference ended, Harold Laski, whose meddling speeches the past year have embarrassed the Labor Government, turned over the gavel as party chairman for next year to gaunt Philip Noel-Baker. "Others in the National Executive have looked upon me during this year with a combination of malevolence and charity unexampled in modern times," Laski joked. "Comrades, the skeleton now goes back to the cupboard."

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