*

EA MERI A REE SOR IER RELI REG IER EE RA APA AEE ER REA A

dards of living.

_ Said,

PROFILE OF HUGH GAITSKELL

They call him a ‘Tory Seicher
some even drop term ‘Socialist’

NDOUBTEDLY Hugh Gait-

skell is now hoping to be. the
next Labor prime minister of
Britain. He has friends. For
undoubtedly, also, many people
in the Conservative party are
hoping that his wish will be
granted.

Just over four years ago that
excitable Tory newspaper the
London Daily Mail hailed Gait-
skell happily as “The Tory ‘So-
cialist.’ On second -thoughts,
it went farther. It even ruled
the word “Socialist” out of its
description.

“Mr. Gaitskell,” it told its
gratified readers, “may be cal-
led the Tory Socialist, or every
the Liberal Conservative.”

He had just made—on Sep-
tember 4, 1951—a speech to the
British Trades Union Congress,
telling workers that they must
produce 40 percent more in the
next five years — but they
Should not demand more pay.

They must, he told them,. as
chancellor of the exchequer,
face a cut in the standard of
living. Why ? Because they had

“to pay $14,000 million for arms.
And it was more important to ~
buy arms than to buy butter.

. “There was little in his words,”
commented the Daily Mail, “to
“which any progressive anti-
Socialist could take exception.”
.. That. was perfectly true. It
is still true.

Reading Gaitskell’s speeches
ef 1950and 1951 produces an
extraordinary . feeling of  un-

reality. For the voice of Hugh

Gaitskell,, Labor chancellor of
the exchequer, in 1951, is the
voice of R. A. Butler, Tory
chancellor of the exchequer, in
1955. :
The same alarm of “inflation.”
The same remedies. Speed up
output—but don’t push up
wages. Reduce spending—but

- mever on arms. Truckle to the
: United States—but hate the
‘Seviet Union.

The Soviet Union, Gaitskell
in speech after speech,
was ready to sweep = across
Europe. So we must cut our
standard of living and’ buy arms

.to face the threat.

Well, Britain did cut stan-
It bought our

arms. And nothing happened.

There it was, its arms rapidly
growing out of date, and its

standards growing more and
more uncomfortable.

But all the Soviet Union
did was to ask for peace con-
ferences, urge people to sign

peace petitions, and call for the

abolition of the atom bomb.
Yet Gaitskell was not thrown

out of politics. He survived:

The British are a tolerant — a

too tolerant — people.

And now he even hopes to be

a Labor prime minister.
m wt bes

What may be expected from
this product of Winchester and
New College, son of an adminis-
trator of the India Empire, who
rarely uses so blunt a word as
Socialism in his public utter-
ances, but usually refers dis-
creetly to “social justice’?

One thing is certain. It would
be foolish to expect socialism
or anything like it.

Gaitskell is 49. He took first
class honors in a_ philosophy
and economics at New College.
He is a successful ex-civil ser-
vant. And he is above all an
economist.

In 1947 he told the miners .

they were foolish to attempt
workers’ control of their indus-
try. In 1949 he told the elec-
tricians that he could not agree
to the demand for direct trade
union representation on the
boards of nationalised industry.

In 1952 he said Britain could
not move much farther along
the road of high taxation and

. HUGH GAITSKELL |

more ‘social services; there was
not much more income to take
away from the really rich. His
pat remedy was higher death
duties. Useful, but no substitute
for a socialist policy.

But that was three years ago.
Perhaps Gaitskell is no lénger
an advocate of social progress
through the wills of the
wealthy. What clue has he
given more recently to the pros-
pects of the British people if he
moves into Downing Street ?

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A more enlightened foreign
policy? Well, in a letter to
the London Times in November
last year he said there was much
more agreement between the
Labor and Tory parties on
foreign policy than on home
policy.. He summed it up very
well in a reference to one of his
speeches :

“".. while we had no bi-
partisan arrangements, the Con-
servatives, when in opposition,
had. generally supported the
Labor Government’s foreign
policy, that they had in the
main continued this when in
power, and in doing so they
naturally had been accorded
the support of the Labor party.”

Gaitskell told the last Labor
party conference that he had
come to the party because he
“hated to see poverty and
squalor,” and wanted “to see
a society of equal men and
women.”

These, he told the confer-
ence, “are socialist ideals.”

They are not. They are
emotional words. :

What the majority of British
working people want is not
phrasing, however
sincerely Gaitskell may believe
in the words, but a socialist
policy. The rest will follow.

But how can we get a socialist
policy from a Liberal-Conserva-
tive? Ora Tory-Socialist ?

‘PHILIP BOLSOVER

OVELS about science, gaping
at its victories and its
great men, are common enough
but who has written a novel
about the scientific spirit itself
and its everlasting struggles in
the laboratory ?
That is what Venyamin Kave-
rin has attempted in Open Book
(obtainable here at the People’s

Cooperative Bookstore, 337 W..-

Pender, price $2.35), based on
the true story of how a Soviet
form of penicillin was dis-
covered.

- The tale of that historic
speck of green mould that blew
in through the window of a
British laboratory in 1928 to
settle on Sir Sandford Flem-
ing’s microbes and start killing
them off is well-known.

But just why did ten years
elapse before that discovery
led to penicillin? What was the
blind spot in scientific thinking
that’ caused Fleming’s report
to lie lost in a mass of other
papers ?

What were the obstacles to
earlier success—a success that
could have saved millions of
lives ?

It is questions of this order
that the Soviet novel raises. For
in the Soviet Union too, it
appears, similar researches were
neglected for long years.

The dead hand of dogma pre-
vented some late 19th century.
results on the “curative pro-
perties of green mould” from
being followed up. There were
years of stumbling—why ?

The central struggle of this
novel of ideas is between the
true men and women of science
and the “high priests” who kill
science, reduce it to a routine.

They are men like the finely

The same the whole world over

Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicolas, Father
Frost, the thought is the same—Peace on Earth, Goodwill
Toward Men. And here, in the Soviet Union, Father Frost

; lifts a little boy whose emblem reads “Peace.”

New novel woven Sround theme
of struggle of Soviet science

drawn Professor Kramoyv, who
“gathers a theory around him”
and with the zeal of a school-
man blocks the road to ideas
that don’t fit and to necessary
experimentation.

The great merit of Open
Book, overshadowing its weak-
nesses, is that it treats this
chapter in medical history in a
serious way and with respect
for facts.

The layman reader comes to
see how the direction that re-
search takes closely concerns
him, how closely it is connected
with the social and politicet
trends.

Tanya, the narrator-heroine,
begins life as a scullery maid
in a_ provincial city before
the Revolution, then, with the
advent of Soviet power, goes
to school and university and
becomes a leading microbio-
logist.

As a girl Tanya is taught for
a while by an old scientist with
an inspired hunch about mould.

He is set down as a crank. His

manuscript work gets lost, falls
into bad hands and it becomes
one of Tanya’s main aims to
find it.

SRRSA RIA RE OE NEAT A EH OH NT NH SAR OE ENA OO

Wishing You A Merry Christmas
ye
:

agate gata canmiat KERRY

aid ~
Peace and Happiness throughout
the Coming Year .

Management and Staff
© UNION PRINTERS LTD.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 23, 1955 — PAGE

The researches ascribed to
Tanya are those in fact carried
out by Dr. Zinaida Yermolyeva,
who developed the uses of
lysozyme, the microbe-slayer
found in tears, and received the
Order of Lenin in 1943 for her
work on crustosin (Soviet
penicillin).

It makes an exciting story
that mounts in interest despite
a rambling construction, some
very flat passages, a lack of
tension in the narrative and a
mass of episode that often
dwindles into mere anecdote.

This arises’ from the too-vast
canvas of the book. All the big
events of Soviet history since
1917 are sketched into the back-
ground, often with scant rele-
vance, slowing the story up ani
producing an effect of in-
conclusiveness.

The book ends in May 1941

with the German invasion im-
minent. The promised sequé
may tie up the many loose
ends.

The spirit ot the book—science
as the property of the people
‘and their efforts to manage —
and direct it—should win it 4
good audience. ‘

STANLEY HARRISOY