London Letter
DEAR
EDITORS,
It is unfortunate that in 'order to get this letter off in time I must
write it before any definite result has emerged from the negotiations in
India, and before the battle over Communist affiliation to the Labour
Party is fully joined. The big masses are not alive to the importance of
the Indian issue, and until something dramatic happens it will
be
dif–
ficult to judge what their feelings about Indian independence really are.
The Communist issue arouses perceptibly more interest. It is not yet
certain whether the Communists will have another
try
at affiliation, and,
if they do, the move will probably be defeated by one means or an–
other at the forthcoming Labour Party conference. But, owing to the
anomalies in the constitution of the Labour Party, it is just thinkable
that they might bring it off, with disastrous results. The leaders of the
Labour Party evidently regard the danger as serious and have been
denouncing the Communists in no uncertain terms. It is a complicated
issue, but I think I can make it clearer if I first sketch in the general
political background.
First of all, as to the standing of the Labour government with the
nation as a whole. There is no question in my mind that this continues
to be good, and all evidence in the form of local elections and public
opinion polls confirms this. At the same time we have as yet had no
solid advantage from the change of the government, and people in
general are aware of this. For anyone outside the armed forces, life since
the armistice has been physically as unpleasant as it was during the war,
perhaps more so, because the effects of certain shortages are cumulative.
The clothing shortage, for instance, becomes less and less tolerable as
our clothes become more and more completely worn out, and during last
winter the fuel situation was worse than it had been at any tim,e during
the war. Food is as dull as ever, the queues do not get any shorter, the
contrast between the wealthy person who eats in restaurants and the
housewife who has to make do on her rations is as glaring as it always
was, and every kind of privation seems more irritating because there
is
no .war to justify it. Black Market activities are said to have increased
since the war stopped. Then, again, the housing situation does not im–
prove, and is unlikely to do so for a long time to come, and there is
