LONDON LETTER
139
won the war," bring forward hundreds of handsome 'young RAF officers
as candidates, promise everything under the sun, and then chuck 'it all
down the drain as soon as they are back in office. However, more exper–
ienced observers than I think that they couldn't bring this off, the people
have grown too wise to be fooled again, and the Government can only
win the general election by keeping on the Coalition. Theoretically, this
puts the Labor Party in the strong position of being able to extort a
high price for their support, or else to fight the election on their own
with a good chance of winning. In practice the existing Labor leaders,
who are terrified of power, will certainly keep on the Coalition and
demand very little in return, unless very strongly prodded from below:
in which case we shall get a Parliament similar to the present one but
with a stronger opposition. There have been a few tentative moves to–
ward some kind of Popular Front, but they don't get far in the face of
official Labor disapproval and the hostility of the minor left parties
towards one another. The only organized opposition is still Common
Wealth, which has made a little headway (they have won another by–
election), but is suffering from mysterious internal dissensions. Control
of it seems to have partly passed out of Acland's hands into those of a
rather sinister business man who is helping to finance it and is thought
by some to have entered the party with the object of neutralizing it.
Since Acland no leading figure has appeared on the Left except for
Beveridge, who has won a kind of popular renown and probably has
political ambitions. Though a professor rather than a politician, he is
just conceivable as a popular leader-a lively, attractive little man,
rather like Cripps in his willingness to talk to anybody, but much more
genial. Nor has anyone worth bothering about appeared on the other
side. The group of Disraelian "Young Tories," apart from having no
definite policy, are a wretched crew, with not one really talented person
among them.
Pro-Russian sentiment is still strong but is cooling off in my opinion.
The Kharkov trials dismayed a lot of people. Even the distinctly doubtful
public-opinion polls conducted by the Russophile
News-Chronicle
show
that the mass of the people don't want reprisals or a vindictive peace,
though they do want Germany disarmed.
If
they grasped what was
happening I can imagine them turning anti-Russian quite rapidly if there
were any question of forced labor or mass trials of war criminals; or
even as the result of heavy casualties -when the Second Front opens.
Relations between the American troops and the locals are better, I
think, though one could not call them good. There is much jealousy
between American white and colored troops. The press shuts down on
this subject to such an extent that when a rape or something like that
happens, one can only discover by private inquiry whether the American
involved is white or colored. Discussion of inter-allied relations is still
avoided in the press and utterly taboo on the air. The best ex'ample of
