LONDON LETTER
Dear Editors,
I
HAVE PUT
off starting this letter until today, hoping that some un–
mistakeable symptom might indicate what the Labor government in–
tends doing. However, nothing very revealing has happened up to date,
and I can discuss the situation only in general terms. In order to see
what the Labor Party is up against, one has to consider the background
against which it won its victory.
It is fashionable to say that all the causes we fought for have been
defeated, but this seems to me a gross exaggeration. The fact that after
six years of war we can hold a general election in a quite orderly way,
and throw out a Prime Minister who has enjoyed almost dictatorial
powers, shows that we
have
gained something by not losing the war.
But still the general outlook is black enough. Western Europe is mostly
on the verge of starvation. Throughout eastern Europe there is a "revolu–
tion from above," imposed by the Russians, which probably benefits the
poorer peasants but kills in advance any possibility of democratic So–
cialism. Between the two zones there is an impenetrable barrier which
runs slap across economic frontiers. Germany, already devastated to an
extent that people in this country can't imagine, is to be plundered more
efficiently than after Versailles, and some twelve million of its popula–
tion are to be evicted from their homes. Evei)".Yhere there is indescribable
confusion, mix-up of populations, destruction of dwelling-houses, bridges
and railway tliacks, flooding of coal mines, shortage of every kind of
necessity, and lack of transport to distribute even such goods as exist.
In the Far East hundreds of thousands of people, if the reports are
truthful, have been blown to fragments by atomic bombs, and the Rus–
sians are getting ready to bite another chunk off the carcass of China.
In India, Palestine, Persia, Egypt and other countries, troubles that the
average person in England has not even heard of are just about ready
to boil over.
And Britain's own situation is none too rosy. We have lost most of
our markets and overseas investments, twelve million tons of our shipping
have gone to the bottom, much of our industry is hopelessly antiquated,
and our coal mines are in such a state that for years it will be impossible
to get enough coal out of them. We have ahead of us the enormous job
of reconstructing industry and recapturing markets in the teeth of over–
whelming competition from the USA, and at the same time we have to
