1951-11-23 — Page 4

THE CHINA. MAIL, FRIDAY,. NOVEMBER 23, 1951.

AND IF EVITA DOESN'T GET BETTER SOON

I

ON-THE-SPOT RECKONING... AFTER PERON'S-- SEARCHLIGHT-AND-SENTIMENT ELECTION

MONTEVIDEO. Her impatience is understand- Twas the night before able. The economic portion of the A little Argentine is just about as bad as the election.

it can be, and for-reaching deel- black jowled, black- sions must be taken now that the frocked priest stood before elections have cleared the road. 2 an improvised altar in

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London Express Service

The Tragic Dreamer

G

EORGE

LANSBURY

is remembered today for the years of his dotage; remembered

23

as the elderly pacifist driven from the leadership of the the Socialist Party; side-whiskered sentimental- ist whose conscience en- raged Mr Ernest Bevin,

But behind this survivor from a vanished age lay a lifetime of

dramatic strange und

events.

Mr Postgate Lansbury's son-in- law. has written a biography which will be read by many with The greatest interest

The strange life story of the Sentimental Socialist throws light on the animosi ties and bitter struggles for power behind the decorous facade of the Labour

movement.

LANSBURY

by ROBERT BLAKE

It was a tragic ending to the career of the most beloved leader that the Socialist Party has ever had, Two years later the war broke out which shattered for ever the dream world in which Lansbury llved. Mr Postgate's book contains some gaps. He discusses the reasons for these gaps m his preface.

They deserve com. ment.

the coffers will be empty.

He was holding

日 much-

Wheat exports, enze the Argen-

adverised open-air service of tine's richest source of foreign

intercession for Sebora Peron. revenue, have dwindled

The Mass was one of hundreds of nothing.

such Masses erranged by the

Perorist organisation throughout

the country order that the Argentine people may pray for

No hope

10

HE same applies to meat cx-

the recovery of their aling Lady THE

dangerous Bountiful from her operation.

ports. There is no hope of their making up the 230,000 tons they

Searchlights hung in the trees are pledged to export to Britain. were pouring down a strong white

The same is true in varying gh, on the gleaming microphone degrees of linseed, wool, maize, imo which the priest was praying, and the Argentine's other staple

But the congregation, despite

the publicity and pressure from exports.

the

party me-

chine, wes small

-and remark-

ably apathetic.

Not even Peronist func- Jonaries showed

more.

any bing

then the

most perfunctory in- terest as they knelt against the ostentatious, plush

stalls.

SEFTON

DELMER

Peron's credit is exhausted, Britain, thrice tricked

and defrauded by him, is not going to risk any more.

The Americans claim he has not fulalled any part of the contract made when they lent him 125,000,- 000 dollars (£44,842,857)

months a ago. They are

not to lose

1030

18

are determined another cent.

is

The result that the Argin-

tine's newly created industries

covered will shortly And themselves

unable to buy from abroad oil, machine tools, metals, and other For them this Mass was just essentials they must have if they Encher "acto," just another of

are to keep going. Those thousand-and-one demen-

Factories will be forced to close. strations of artificially cooked-up Unemployment looms, and work- scntimer, and pathos with which ers are able to redel" against one-time radio crooner Evita likes Peron and Evita,

theirs

.

to devour her husband's regime, In this predicament. Peron

But I am rartled by what could:~~ Beerns to The # comparative FOLLOW the example of indifference among a substantial Hler Germany and the During the war Mr Postgate number of Peronis.s to the fate of Communist People's Republies in received letters from Sir Nor-his remarkable woman boss

of similar crises. man Brook and Sir Edward

If so, he would tighten up stili Office Bridges of the Cabinet

For, as I see it, what happens fun.her his totalitarian rule, demanding the return of some

in Evita's private ward of the radicalise his expropriatory cam- Avellaneda Hosp!.al is ter more paign against the "dale rich," and on members of his Cabinet credits. By 11 votes to 10 the twenty secret Cabinet documents

the believed to be among Lansbury's

immediate lean more heavily sull Important fc: this

en his accepted wearing Court dress upon ap- Cabinet

future of the Argea ine than the Left-wing trade union supporters propriate vocasions-an action ultimatum, but the 10, headed papers. Mr Postgate agreed

re-election and their upon hand over thirty boxes of papers

universally-expected

secret Communist insisted Lansbury's

Lansbury, life spanned an which did much to reassure the bry

A call from

New on conditian that they would be

of General Percn as a result of bosses. immense gap in English history. King that a Socialist Govern- resigning,

a British returned to him as soon as the

the polls,

*If Evita, returns, she will» un- He was born in 1850. He did not ment did not necessarily mean York had destroyed

secret documents had been ex-

-doubtedly throw her influence in Government. 1940. For all his Su ared revolution.

tracted.

this direction. clulism. Lansbury remained heart Victorian Radical.

dic

He But a 1929 when MacDonald

For four yours Lansbury led

peace. But in fact Lansbury In 193! a for graver confict Unpractical

lived on from the days of Queen Victoria into the dark age Hiter and Stalln. I was tragedy that he falled to realise this change.

crisis and a

one

Lo

Mr

He

I

to

рго- not

It was an imprudent act. Not was perhaps the last of our gave the same wrders Larsbuy the tiny Socialist Party in oppo-

of these papers did To MacDonald, now sition to MacDonald, who had

ever see Postgate

agoin. political leaders to believe with refused.

a abandoned his former followers

made repcated applications simple faith in peace, progress the friend of duchesses and

of a National and the perfectibility of man. regular visitor to Londonderry to become head

Mr Attlee, by then Prime Minis- But these two House. such balancy seemed Government.

leaders had both by ter, but was informed that all however, elderly Lansbury,

were Crown Progress no doubt seemed in- absurd

A top hat now become dwellers in cloud- the papers evitable in an era of endless Bri- remained obdurate.

and that he could Pacifist

morning coal he would cuckoo-larids, different it is true perty, 1-1

was and expansion.

even look at them. but knee from each other, but equally plausible creed as long as the wear under protest,

remote from reality. British Navy could keep the hyrches and buckles-no.

Mr Postgate certainly appears for complaint. to have cause Whatever the legal position may Secrets of arose. Financial

be under the Official Act, it seems an abuse of power on the Bank of England idealism his min

to impound documents most of confrunted the Cabinet with desperate problem.

Should WHILE MacDonald declined which cannot possibly be, in the they re-establish British credit into hopeless senility, Lans- words of that Act, "prejudicial The story of Lansbury's life in Amerion by balancing the bury scared into stratosphic to the security or interests might, which in the political heights of unpractical idealismo. the

State"

They is inextricably entwined with budget,

As conditions

of the day, seemed In 1935, a characteristic and course, have been prejudicial to that of the Socialist Party.

that possible only by severe cuts in brutal speech from Mr Bevin the interests of some members treated by most writers,

forced him to resign the leader of Mr Attlee's Cabinet, but that subject has hitherto been an arid unemployment benefit?

is another matter, ship. and dreary waste. Mr Postgate is

Peace now became his cbses- Moral is sion. With pathetic optimism he began a tour of the capitals clear revelations of of Europe in order to advance R Postgate's

what followed form a real the pacifist cause. contribution to the history of our

a great improvement predecessors.

on

his Contribution

to history

It is true that he introduces many of the most absurd and odious left-wing platitudes into his buck. But these can be dis-

MR

Write-off?

וי

BELIEVE that the importance in Argentine of this women

future affairs is such that the course here will be vitally affected by whether

VEER to a more berel policy, aighten the restrictions on trade, provide a belated Incentive for increased agricultural produc→ tion by better prices, and perhaps even eliminate the crippling inter- ference of the Government.

They watch

Mover the years tell me it is

EN who have studied Peron

(1) She recovers from her operation and recovers sufficiently good health to enable her to regain her former ascendancy; (2) She fails to recover and must be written off as an infusce over her hesitating husband and ber own Left-wing henchmen in the quite on the cards that, If Evita and her fanailcism are not there rades unions.

to sway him, he will try to com- Ultimately, it could even decide bine both policies and fall between whether the Argentine Govern- them. His fall is by no means an ment machine, under the influence impossibility.

of

of

of the class-hared-filled senora,

TT is fair to add that we merely have Mr Postgate's side

regarded by the sceptical reader, time. We learn how opposition hudgment had become strangely reasons, not

sounded

crystallised

In 1937 he met Hitler, but his of the case, and there may be so far disclosed, At least Mr Postgate writes in a to the proposal

described Hitler which would justify the action at- around Lansbury; how Mac clouded. He lively style. Nor does he

the furious Donald

American publicly as "one of the greatest taken. tempt to conceal enimosities and the bitter strug- opanion; how the Cabinet was men of our time." In private he gies for power and prestige kept waiting on the end of which behind a decorous facade belephone line for the decision have long convulsed the Labour of the American Federal

serve Back, movement.

Recurrent

theme

RU

UNNING as an ever-récurrent theme in Lansbury's life was his rivalry

leader, with his Ramsay MacDonald. Handsome, theatrical, dazzled by aristocratic glamour, MacDonald was above All else a politician concerned with the arts of political man- agement and political intrigue. left-wing ti WPB Lansbury

the most Christian idealist ల uncompromising type.

"The two men soon

Re

told his friends that if only he But the moral for those who had stayed longer at Berchtes- own such papers is clear; don't gaden and had known some hand over anything more than German he believed he could you have to, and remember that have converted the Fuehrer to although possession may not be

in its that eventually "Christianity

more purest nine-tenths, it is much The message

than half of the law. came was clear: no cuts, no form."

PARIS NEWSLETTER from SAM WHITE

UNO wives get a look in

PARIS. aside from even the already

which The election results, to be penetra ed by Com- show him to have increased sub-

Arst stantially his fead muniste, and become the

the over the Americas.

Opposition parties, certainly do Marxist ci adel

weaker. not auggest he is any Already today the Communists

If Peron boggles over the -mostly refugees from Spaiti economic crisis, there are men hold key positions in Evita such as Minister of Defence Perco's General Confederation of General Sosa Moline who might Labour.

feel called on to intervene. I am well not counting on it. But. I am not Evita herself is only too aware of the political importance discounting it either particularly of her heal hand the urgency to if Evita is out of the picture..

-(London Express Service) get better soon.

Taikoo

icing makes the cake

Marcel, UNO barman, reports

among delegates are a for beer and tonic water over

FINAL touch of fan- exotic collection of UNO visitors. a preference

These daily showe

tasy to the United Na- shrewd business stroke by the all other drinks. He thinks it's

tions Assembly in Paris Parts dress hours.

器 has been provided by They know that hundreds of

a bad sign.

care

Mystifying warning on rich Latin American and Mid-

As-

cords,

into conflict. As early as 1912 daily mannequin parade in ole East delegates have, brought sembly admission

orders

deeply

Lansbury refused to obey the the corridors of the A- their wives with them to Parts. reads (1) The organisation of of his leader in the sembly buildings. While They also know that the wives the United Nations will not be material House of Commons, MacDonald Vyshinsky snarls and Ache played an important part in responsible for any

forcing UNO's move from Lake damage that the bourer of this He did disapproved.

Success to Paris. They wanted card may undergo within the not include Lansbury in the aon reasons, and' while

buildings were

where sessions are first Socialist Cabinet of 1924. great fog of gloom and Paris clothes and they

(2) Visitors are naked held." (2) Inside the Assembly Hall the to abstain from applause. They But in 1929 when he formed futility settles over all who determined to get them,

attend the sessions, the

cold war hots up; outside all is are invited to keep wilent ove h's second Cabinet MacDonald

continue to purpose, drive and resolution. during speeches given in a lan- decided to give Lenebury the mannequins

guage unknown to them." unimportant post of Dinister parade with a characteristic

WRONG NUMBER of Works, in order to placate manner of deliberate self-

Z-ROOM FAMILIES INSIDE UNO: The theatre the left wing of the party. Be

consciousness.

booking agency at UNO

SAN trouble began. It fore long

hookings from FRANCE has done less than rose, oddly enough, from

divial matter the Delegates' wives gather in ports heavy

groups to study details of the delegates for the Foller Bet any other European country Improve housing conditions" question of dress.

dresses displayed. The manne eron, S

# M. Claude

Hytte, M. Hytte's In 1924, MacDonald, aware, quin are went to the Assembly Meat harged man in Paris Recording to a French architect, of the strong prejudices of on an ordinary visitors Ucket in mot UNO delegate but

the leading Parls dress lawyer, M, Plateau. His tele- statistics show that 75 percent King George V, and instated tips ||23|

phone number. Pussy 2127, was of all reach working-class crossed for three days with fumbles, live in Awo rooms, 20 Their mincing gait and aloof Party 2117--which is the num- percent of the living quarters top-star. well as their sylph- her people must ring to reserve in France i hopeleted. altarse;" Orang Like Agures and extravagant, their womb in the UNO publia und 100,000 hourou fall into

maki Shopwielothes,vt bet, tum galleries.

peemingly

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