Abstract

Britain Expects Action

Perhaps to say that enthusiasm for the Labor government has evaporated in the past six weeks would be an overstatement in Great Britain. A parliamentary recess, which lasts from August 24 to October 9, 1945, is not long enough for a fundamental change in the attitude of a mass electorate. Labor meetings in the three by-elections now in progress have been drawing big audiences ready enough to cheer; increasing shortages in the shops, from cigarettes to children's shoes, from cleaning materials to (mystifyingly) kitchen salt, are berne with good humor; and there is still solid confidence in the legislative program outlined at the beginning of the session. Yet there are visible beginnings of an estrangement between the government and its supporters. Though disillusionment might be too strong a word, the feeling is widespread that in the broad field where action is possible by administrative decision Ministers are taking an unconscionably long time to do anything positively Socialist in character, and that their approach to the problems which touch everyday life is excessively cautious and rigid.