Herbert
Morrison, the son of a policeman, was born in Lambeth, London
on 3rd January, 1888. As a child he lost the sight of his right eye.
Educated at a local elementary school, he left at fourteen be become
an errand boy. He became active in politics and joined the Independent
Labour Party (ILP)
in 1906. Morrison eventually became disillusioned with the leadership
of H. D. Hyndman and returned to the ILP.
Morrison
was an opponent of the First World War. As he
was later to point out that this was an unpopular position to take:
"The overwhelming
majority of the people supported the Liberal Government in its declaration
of war after Germany's invasion of Belgium. Every possible influence
was brought to bear to create that attitude. The Conservatives were
for the war. All
the newspapers were in support, and there was no difficulty in whipping
up public opinion to near fever pitch.
He
eventually came to the conclusion that the Independent
Labour Party was
not radical enough and the following year joined the Social
Democratic Federation.
A
founder member of the London Labour Party, Morrison became Mayor of
Hackney from 1920-21. Morrison was also elected to the London
County Council (LCC) in 1922 and the following year he became
MP for South Hackney in the 1923 General Election.
In
October 1924 the MI5 intercepted a letter
written by Grigory Zinoviev, chairman
of the Comintern in the Soviet Union. In the letter Zinoviev urged
British communists to promote revolution through acts of sedition.
Vernon Kell, head of MI5 and Sir
Basil Thomson head of Special Branch, were convinced that the
letter was genuine. Kell showed the letter to Ramsay
MacDonald, the Labour Prime Minister.
It was agreed that the letter should be kept secret but someone leaked
news of the letter to the Times and
the Daily Mail.
The Zinoviev Letter was published in
these newspapers four days before the 1924 General
Election and contributed to the defeat of Morrison at South Hackney.
He returned to the House of Commons following
the 1929 General Election. The Labour
Party won the election and Ramsay MacDonald
became prime minister and appointed Morrison as his Minister of Transport.
In
August 1931 Morrison, refused to serve in MacDonald's National Government.
He was furious with MacDonald for making this decision and pointed
out that he had never been given a mandate from the cabinet to create
a National Government. Morrison later controversially attacked George
V for
acting unconstitutionally in order to split the Labour
Party.
Morrison continued to sit on the London County
Council and in 1934 became its leader. In this post he oversaw
the development of London's housing, health, education and transport
services. Morrison's main achievements in London
included the unification of the transport system and creating a 'green
belt' around the suburbs. In 1935 Morrison was once again elected
to the House of Commons and soon afterwards
was defeated by Clement
Attlee for
the leadership of the Labour Party.
During
the Spanish Civil War Morrison
was one of the leading opponents of the government's non-intervention
policy in Spain. He
explained his position in his memoirs: "Baldwin's retirement
in May, 1937, had accentuated the appeasement policy with the arrival
of Neville Chamberlain as Premier. My own view was that the chances
of avoiding war were nearly over but there was still time with a definite
policy of standing up to the Fascists over Spain. I opposed nonintervention
in Spain and was speaking for a minority within the Labour Party.
As much as feeling that it was in the interests of peace to do so
I felt that this was a question of principle. It was the elementary
duty of all socialists to back up the legally elected Republican Government
of Spain."
In 1940 Winston Churchill appointed
Morrison as Minister of Supply in his wartime coalition government.
Later that year he replaced John
Anderson
as Home Secretary. In this post he had responsibility for Air
Raid
Precautions and
the organisation of the National Fire
Service.
On 5th March, 1942, the Daily Mirror
published a cartoon by Philip Zec on the government's
decision to increase the price of petrol. The cartoon showed a torpedoed
sailor with an oil-smeared face lying on a raft. Zec's message was
"Don't waste petrol. It costs lives."
Winston Churchill and Morrison believed
that the cartoon suggested that the sailor's life had been put at
stake to enhance the profits of the petrol companies. Morrison arranged
for MI5 to investigate Zec's background, and
although they reported back that he held left-wing opinions, there
was no evidence of him being involved in subversive activities.
H. G. Bartholomew, editorial director and Cecil Thomas, the editor
of the Daily Mirror, were ordered
to appear before Morrison at the Home Office. Zec's cartoon was described
as "worthy of Goebbels at his best" and turning on Thomas,
Morrison told him that "only a very unpatriotic editor could
pass it for publication". Morrison informed Bartholomew that
"only a fool or someone with a diseased mind could be responsible"
for allowing the Daily Mirror to publish such material.
When Anueurin Bevan heard that the government
was considering closing down the Daily Mirror
he forced a debate on the issue in the House
of Commons. Some MPs were appalled when Morrison suggested that
the newspaper might be part of a fascist plot to undermine the British
Government. Several pointed out that the Daily
Mirror had been campaigning against fascism in Europe since
the early 1930s. Bevan argued in the debate that: "The Government
are seeking to suppress their critics. The only way for the Government
to meet their critics is to redress the wrongs from which the people
are suffering and to put their policy right."
During the Second
World War several leading fascists,
including Oswald Mosley, were imprisoned
without trial. In November, 1943 Morrison controversially
decided to order Mosley's release from prison. There were large-scale
protests and even his sister-in-law, Jessica
Mitford, described the decision as "a
slap in the face of anti-fascists in every country and a direct betrayal
of those who have died for the cause of anti-fascism."
In
1945 Morrison was given responsibility for drafting the Labour Party
manifesto that included the blueprints for the nationalization and
welfare programmes. After the 1945 General Election
Labour victory, Morrison became deputy Prime Minister and leader of
the House of Commons. When ill-health forced
Ernest Bevin to resign in March 1951, Morrison
became Foreign Secretary, a post he held until Labour's defeat at
the 1951 General Election.
Morrison
was expected to eventually replace Clement
Attlee as
leader of the Labour Party. However, Attlee
decided not to retire until December, 1955. Morrison was now sixty-seven
years old and he was defeated by Hugh
Gaitskell,
a much younger man.
Morrison
was created a life peer in 1959 and as well as being active in the
House of Lords served as president of the
British Board of Film Censors. Lord
Morrison remained active in politics until his death in 1965.
David
Low, All Behind You, Winston
(14th May, 1940)
The cartoon shows in the front row Winston
Churchill,
Clement Attlee, Ernest
Bevin and Herbert Morrison.
(1)
Herbert
Morrison, An Autobiography (1960)
Life in my childhood followed a more or less precise routine
There was the annual
week's holiday at Ramsgate, always in humble lodgings and always at
the same time of year. The joys of a seaside holiday were, of course,
eagerly anticipated and long remembered. Paddling castle building,
following the black-faced minstrels along the sands and hearing their
sketches and songs over and over again; these were the glamorous breaks
in a rhythm of life which prevailed in the remaining fifty-one weeks
of the year.
The time was coming when
my education was to be regarded as completed, so far as full-time
schooling was concerned. Secondary education was hardly thought of
by parents of my class and time. As far back as 1840 the Taunton Commission
had recommended the establishment of rate-aided secondary schools
in towns which had no ancient grammar school, endowed, as was usual,
to provide free or cheap education for a few local boys. The recommendation
was rejected and secondary education remained a privilege of the wealthy
or aristocratic boy until the Balfour Act of 1902 authorized local
authorities to provide secondary education. This Act came into force
after my fourteenth birthday, some months before which avid discussion
was taking place about how I should earn my living.
(2)
After
leaving school Morrison worked as a shop assistant. Hr wrote about
it in his memoirs published in 1960.
By day I watched the ordinary people as they came to the shop.
By night I read voraciously
the ideas of those who wanted to create a new society.
This literature was without
doubt the basic reason why my thoughts began to turn towards socialism.
My father was a stern
though kindly man, but the sort of fatalistic attitude which he and
many of his generation had in the essential inevitability of things
remaining as they were naturally rankled in my youthful mind. For
my parents' generation the long reign of Victoria seemed a symbol
of stability and even if there were many evils of poverty, squalor
and disease constantly at hand these probably appeared to be in the
divine order of things rather than the defects of a man-made society.
My generation in its youth
was as restless as any youthful generation always is. If our parents
never thought of questioning the established order of things we young
socialists were equally convinced that every facet of it demanded
criticism and probably change. Fortunately for us this desire to create
a better world and to get rid of the bad old one did not exhibit itself
in some anti-social activities which so aggravate the situation today.
Thanks to the flood of books and pamphlets by wise and far-seeing
writers, both in fiction and in fact, we had our thoughts harnessed
to purposeful and feasible ambitions.
I cannot therefore claim
that a faith in the socialist way of life was a sudden revelation,
but it certainly was born very early. Its growth into a practical
contribution was natural and inevitable despite, and perhaps because
of, the environment in my home where criticism of the established
order of things was regarded as futile, unjustified, and even wicked.
(3)
Herbert
Morrison was an opponent of Britain's involvement in the First
World War and was active in the anti-conscription campaign.
My own view - as of the
Independent Labour Party with which I was associated - remained one
of opposition to the war, and there were a number of Liberals who
shared this view in general. There would be no point in denying the
considerable public enthusiasm for hostilities. The overwhelming majority
of the people supported the Liberal Government in its declaration
of war after Germany's invasion of Belgium. Every possible influence
was brought to bear to create that attitude. The Conservatives were
for the war. All the newspapers were in support, and there was no
difficulty in whipping up public opinion to near fever pitch.
I remember an open-air
I.L.P. meeting I addressed on Hampstead Heath one Sunday morning.
I had given my audience our views as to the cause of the war, and
expressed the conviction that the involvement of Britain in it had
been wrong. My audience was very hostile. I spoke amid a great deal
of violent and angry heckling. Ultimately I was dragged off the platform
and taken by force to the nearby pond. There was some dispute at the
edge of the pond, however, when the police intervened, and although
my pince-nez glasses were flung into the water, I was not. This was
a common experience among the anti-war speakers, except that some
of them did get a ducking.
(4)
Herbert
Morrison became Labour MP for South Hackney in 1923. He believes he
lost his seat in the 1924
General Election
because of the Zinoviev
Letter.
The letter presumably existed a month before the press reproduced
its text on the Saturday before polling day, which was a Wednesday.
Ramsay MacDonald, who was Foreign Minister as well as Prime Minister,
must have been aware of the letter at least ten days prior to the
press revelations. He had said nothing at his election meetings nor
to his colleagues in the cabinet.
With reason Jimmy Thomas
commented to Philip Snowden after they had read the scare headlines:
"We're sunk!" MacDonald may have thought so too, but he
effectively disguised the feeling. On that Saturday afternoon he was
due to address a mass meeting at Swansea. The public packed the hall
to hear what he had to say about the letter, and the press were there
in droves. We candidates anxiously awaited the evening papers so that
we could study what we expected would be a clear lead on what to say
at our meetings that Saturday evening.
There was not a single
word in the MacDonald speech about it. Not until he spoke at Cardiff
on Monday did he refer to it, and then he merely recited the known
facts. He did not take a clear hue.
Forty-eight hours later
the nation went to the polls. The Tories achieved a big victory with
419 seats. Labour members dropped from 191 to 151, and I was among
the defeated.
(5)
Herbert
Morrison,
like many members of the Labour Party, was
angry with the role played by George
V in the formation of the National
Government.
In the first place the Prime Minister, who it must be remembered
was also leader of the Labour Party, had gone to the Palace with the
cabinet's mandate for all of us, including himself, to resign office.
Secondly, he had not consulted his colleagues about the proposal which
the King had made to him, with the support of Baldwin for the Conservatives
and Sir Herbert Samuel for the Liberals. In this context his colleagues
to be consulted were not only members of the cabinet, but members
of the Parliamentary Labour Party and indeed the National Executive
of the Labour Party and, in my view, the General Council of the Trades
Union Congress. Thirdly, his decision meant that the Labour Party
would be in opposition and, therefore, find itself opposing those
former Labour colleagues who entered the new government, as well as
the Conservatives and Liberals who were to be part of it. Clearly
the Labour Party would be injured in the country as a result of these
events, although I think many of my colleagues did not appreciate
this at the time but thought that the Party would be in an advantageous
position politically if the new government, as was almost certain,
was to cut unemployment benefit and make other economies which would
prove to be unpopular.
On MacDonald's
sudden and - to his colleagues - unannounced decision to desert the
Labour Party I thought, and still think, that King George V was mistaken
in taking the course he did by inviting - or did he urge? - MacDonald
to become prime minister in a coalition. The natural constitutional
course for him to have taken was to ask Baldwin as the leader of the
Conservative Party to form a government with Liberal support, which
would almost certainly have been forthcoming. As it was, the action
of the King was conducive to a split in the Labour Party even though
the numbers that went with MacDonald were very few.
At the subsequent general
election many Labour supporters were naturally confused when they
found Labour leaders like MacDonald, Snowden and Thomas, making speeches
in which they advised the electors to vote against the Labour Party.
In all this controversy the name of the King became involved. None
of us wished to speak up too pointedly on that matter in view of the
general desire to keep the Crown out of politics, but the King's action
had in a way drawn the monarchy into politics, and pretty dangerous
politics at that.
(6)
Herbert
Morrison,
speech (1933)
I am a Socialist and my general socialist views certainly
influence my mind in examining particular economic problems. Most
public-spirited people, whether Socialists or non-Socialists, have
their ideals and their visions. It so happens that for me socialism
provides the ethical and moral framework of my ideals and visions
as well as what I believe to be a sound, practical and urgently necessary
economic policy for today. The high moral purpose of socialism does
not and must not prevent the Socialist in public affairs from carrying
a sound business head on his shoulders, nor must he feel it in any
way a treachery to his ideals if he must elaborate in a realistic
spirit the organization and management of socialized industries.
(7)
Ellen Wilkinson, Sunday Referee
(18th October 1936)
Herbert Morrison is an able administrator and a bit of a brute - the
rudest man I know - he will invite you to his table and then read
a detective novel but he is giving London almost exclusively gifts
needed by the nation.
(8)
In
November, 1943 Herbert Morrison controversially
decided to order the release of Oswald
Mosley from prison.
During his detention
under the 18B regulation, moves to have him released came from all
sorts of people and organizations. Some were undoubtedly genuine efforts
by those who put the basic principles of British freedom first even
if the matter concerned a man with an avowed policy of destroying
that freedom, but the majority, I had no doubt, were the efforts of
Mosley's class friends and political sympathizers.
And a few of the complaints
were doubtless meant to embarrass me personally or to put a spanner
in the works of a smoothly- running coalition by rousing political
controversy. I noticed with amusement that some critics, who had been
vociferous about the ruthless injustice of interning aliens and keeping
them interned, now, showed an equally large amount of indignation
about my tender-heartedness when the possibility of releasing Mosley
from prison was known. It was impossible to please everyone, and in
any case placating my critics was of no importance as compared with
observing the law and safeguarding the nation.
The crux of the matter
was Mosley's health. He had become ill with phlebitis. His doctor
was allowed to examine him and he reported that continued imprisonment
would jeopardize his life. I did not consider it advisable to accept
this without a second opinion. The prison doctors confirmed it. The
quandary was whether to free this leading fascist, a sympathizer with
Hitler and Mussolini, or whether to risk having a British citizen
die in prison without trial. Apart from such a blot on history going
back to Magna Charta, martyrdom is a very profound source of strength.
I had little doubt that some of the near-fascists in the country would
have liked nothing better than that their leader should become a dead
martyr. However, my task was to decide what was the right thing to
do.
(9)
Clement Attlee, As It Happened (1954)
One of the most difficult problems in war is to maintain civil liberty
while ensuring the safety of the country. Herbert Morrison, as Home
Secretary, had to carry this burden. Although there was some criticism
of the operation of Defence Regulations there is no doubt in my mind
that the balance was well and truly held, and that Morrison did an
outstanding service in a very difficult office.
(10)
In March 1942, Herbert Morrison, threatened to ban the Daily
Mirror after it published a cartoon by Philip
Zec that criticised war profiteering. When it became known
what was happening, some members of the House
of Commons forced a debate on the issue. Morrison tried to explain
his actions in the debate that took place on 26th March, 1942.
Supposing a secret Fascist organization wished to conduct propaganda
for the purpose of undermining morale. If it had sense, it would not
go about it by openly opposing the war. Not at all. It would set about
vigorously supporting the war and then it would paint the picture
that the House of Commons is rotten or corrupt or incompetent or something
like that, that the Government is the same, that the chiefs of the
Armed Forces are the same, in that way effecting a steady undermining
of public confidence and a spread of the belief that defeat is inevitable
and why should the needless spilling of blood and suffering continue.
That would be a perfectly understandable Fascist technique.
(11)
Aneurin Bevan was one of those MPs who criticised
Morrison in the House of Commons
for threatening to close down the Daily Mirror.
I do not like the Daily Mirror and I have never liked it.
I do not see it very often. I do not like that form of journalism.
I do not like the striptease artists. If the Daily Mirror depended
upon my purchasing it, it would never be sold. But the Daily Mirror
has not been warned because people do not like that kind of journalism.
It is not because the Home Secretary is aesthetically repelled by
it that he warns it. I have heard a number of honourable members say
that it is a hateful paper, a tabloid paper, a hysterical paper, a
sensational paper, and that they do not like it. I am sure the Home
Secretary does not take that view. He likes the paper. He is taking
its money (waves cuttings of articles written by Morrison for the
Daily Mirror).
He (Morrison) is the wrong man to be Home Secretary. He has for many
years the witch-finder of the Labour Party. He has been the smeller-out
of evil spirits in the Labour Party for years. He built up his reputation
by selecting people in the Labour Party for expulsion and suppression.
He is not a man to be entrusted with these powers because, however
suave his utterance, his spirit is really intolerant. I say with all
seriousness and earnestness that I am deeply ashamed that a member
of the Labour Party should be an instrument of this sort of thing.
How can we call on the people of this country and speak about liberty
if the Government are doing all they can to undermine it? The Government
are seeking to suppress their critics. The only way for the Government
to meet their critics is to redress the wrongs from which the people
are suffering and to put their policy right.
(12)
Robert Boothby, Boothby:
Recollections of a Rebel (1978)
Of the Labour leaders, Arthur Greenwood was the nicest, but
apt to be tight. Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison loathed each other.
The story that when someone remarked that Morrison was his own worst
enemy, Bevin said, "Not while I'm alive he ain't", is true.
(13)
Hugh Dalton, diary
entry (22nd October, 1942)
On Sunday night Cabinet changes are announced on the air. Morrison
succeeds Cripps in the War Cabinet and the latter drops down to Minister
of Aircraft Production, thus becoming a lodger downstairs in my own
building. This hole is made by the appointment of Llewellin to Washington.
Cranborne is to be Lord Privy Seal, and Oliver Stanley returns to
the Government as Colonial Secretary. Eden is to lead the House of
Commons.
I write
at once to Morrison, "Congratulations! The War Cabinet is strengthened."
Next morning the Daily Herald begins its leader with these same last
five words. It is, indeed, a great improvement. Nearly all Cripps's
'mystique' is now gone, and he has missed all his chances - never
really good - of resigning with credit. He has, I think, been very
skilfully played by the P.M. He may, of course, be quite good at the
Ministry of Aircraft Production, but seldom has anyone's political
stock, having been so outrageously and unjustifiably overvalued, fallen
so fast and so far. I add in my letter to Morrison that I would like
soon to have a meeting and a talk, and I write also to Ellen Wilkinson
summarizing my letter to Morrison.
(14)
Hugh Dalton,
diary entry (28th October, 1942)
Ellen Wilkinson to dine with me. This has been on the cards for some
time, but always put off. She is still a most devoted worshipper of
Herbert Morrison, and puts me second. What she would like would be
Morrison to lead the Party and me to be his deputy. She would like
us two to go into the War Cabinet, putting out Attlee and Cripps.
The difficulty about all such plans is that the right moment never
arrives to put them into execution! She says that Morrison, having
been deeply absorbed with his job until recently, is now feeling that
he has got it into running order, and is taking much more interest
in wider questions, including post-war problems and the future of
the Labour Party. Bevin, she says - though I think she puts him third
in order of merit among Labour leaders - is quite grotesque in his
garrulity.
(15)
Herbert
Morrison,
An Autobiography (1960)
The very honesty and simplicity of the (1945) campaign
helped enormously.
We had not been afraid to be frank about our plans. There would be
public ownership of fuel and power, transport, the Bank of England,
civil aviation, and iron and steel. We proposed a housing programme
dealt with in relation to good town planning.
We promised to put the
1944 Education Act into practical operation. We said that wealth would
no longer be the passport to the best health treatment. We promised
that a Labour Government would extend social insurance over the widest
field.
There was no temporizing
over our political policy. "The Labour Party is a socialist party
and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment
of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain - free, democratic,
efficient, progressive, public-spirited, its material resources organized
in the service of the British people."
At the meetings I subsequently
addressed I saw the large numbers of servicemen and women in the audiences,
representatives, who happened to be on leave, of thousands of their
comrades. They were old in the art of war but had been children at
the time of the previous election. I told myself and I told my colleagues
that these people were making up their minds whatever we said, and
that therefore what we said must match their intelligence.
(16)
Harold
Wilson,
Memoirs: 1916-1964 (1986)
Ernie Bevin could not stand Herbert Morrison, who had been a City
boss when Bevin had been head of one of the biggest unions and the
two had clashed. I would think that Bevin declared war on Morrison
in the 1930s and that they were never going to come together. You
could see his hackles rise every time, especially if Morrison tried
to encroach on foreign affairs.
Morrison had emerged from
the war with a good reputation as Home Secretary in the Coalition
Government and he was a figure of sufficient seniority in the Party
not to be denied. Attlee kept him at arm's length, did not trust him
and was particularly averse to the strong rumours during one period
that Morrison was maintaining
a liaison with a woman MP, with whom he subsequently broke.
(17)
Fred Copeman, Reason in Revolt (1948)
Herbert Morrison, Cabinet Minister and Party boss, I know
better than most of the other Cabinet Ministers. Political strategy
is Herbert's trump card. I do not believe his answer to the Communists
will do other than help them - indirectly. A brilliant administrator,
but a politician with no real answer to the world's present needs.
He hates being opposed and, in fact, tends to be intolerant of opposition.
Herbert has yet to learn that democracy gives to all - opponents as
well as friends - the same freedoms. It seems to me that he fails
to realise that Communism will be beaten only by those who have a
sounder, more progressive, ideology, passion and faith, and certainly
not by purges, which, being contrary to true freedom, make martyrs.
Herbert hates the Communists so much that he can't see the wood for
the trees. The Communist Party knows how to exploit the martyrs to
their cause.
(18)
Robert Boothby, Boothby:
Recollections of a Rebel (1978)
Of the Labour leaders, Arthur Greenwood was the nicest, but
apt to be tight. Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison loathed each other.
The story that when someone remarked that Morrison was his own worst
enemy, Bevin said, "Not while I'm alive he ain't", is true.
(19)
Konrad Adenauer,
Memoirs 1945-53 (12th July, 1952)
I told Morrison that in
my opinion the Federal Republic, France, Italy, and the Benelux countries
had not enough inner strength firmly to resist communist pressure
from the East in the long run, unless the internal structure of Europe
was consolidated once more and strengthened by the accession of Great
Britain. If one day Soviet Russia called the tune in Western Europe
it would also mean that England's strength had been weakened so much
as to be no longer sufficient for commitments in the Commonwealth.
It might be somewhat daring to say such a thing to a British Foreign
Minister, but I felt that Great Britain had to stand on two legs,
in Western Europe and in the rest of the world, and that if she was
not firmly rooted in Western Europe she would in the long run be unable
to fulfil her tasks in the rest of the world.
Morrison thought that
it should be noted that Britain's present attitude to Europe represented
an enormous step forward compared with past centuries, perhaps as
great as that taken by the United States in its cooperation with other
countries and continents. In the nineteenth century Great Britain
did not feel herself a part of Europe. She had pursued a policy of
the European balance of power, but had reserved the right to keep
out of military conflicts or to intervene on either of two sides in
a war that broke out in Europe, guided by the British interest and
not that of the well-being of Europe. It was one of the consequences
of this policy that in 1914 the Kaiser did not know until the last
moment how Britain would behave in a conflict.
Today on the other hand
Great Britain was in the Western Union, a member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, a member of the Organization for European Economic
Cooperation and of numerous other organizations. The defence contribution
made by Great Britain at very great cost, not only for her own sake
or for the defence of the Commonwealth but above all for the defence
of Europe, could certainly stand comparison with that of any other
Western European country. Great Britain was committed to the defence
of Western Europe and had the full intention of meeting her obligations.
On the other hand, it was a fact that Britain was an island and that
was not the fault of the British; that was the way God had arranged
things and the British had to make the best of it. Beyond this there
were certain constitutional traditions in Great Britain that perhaps
were not always understood on the continent of Europe.
(20)
George
Brown, In My Way (1970)
In the end Herbert Morrison
went down, partly because he grew old like all of us and partly because
he fell victim to the politicians' disease of insisting upon having
the best job going in terms of prestige. When Bevin retired, the best
job going, next to the Prime Ministership, was that of Foreign Secretary,
which he wanted partly for this reason and partly because of the possibility
of it going to Aneurin Bevan whom he simply could not abide. This,
alas, was the one job that Herbert Morrison was not fitted to do.
He had bad luck of course - among other things he had the miserable
business of Dr Mussadeq and the Persian nationalization of the Anglo-lranian
Oil Company where, to put it mildly, neither he nor Britain were outstandingly
helped by the Americans. However, everybody has varying kinds of luck,
but I think it must be accounted here, even by one as indebted to
him as I am, that Herbert Morrison simply was not cut out for foreign
affairs, and his period at the Foreign Office was a disaster that
clouded everything that had gone before. Looking back beyond these
clouds that fell on Morrison at the end of his long political life,
one can see him in his true stature. Of all those in the Labour movement
whom I have known, I rate him as second only to Bevin in terms of
political and human greatness.
(21)
Herbert
Morrison , An
Autobiography (1960)
Attlee's retirement and acceptance of an earldom on 7
December, 1955, came as quite a sudden surprise to all but his family
and possibly one or two journalistic friends so far as I know.
I have
been asked more than once if I feel that it is true that Attlee deferred
retirement until it was over-late for me to succeed him. My answer
has always been, regretfully but inevitably in view of the evidence,
that this in my view is a correct interpretation. Quite apart from
any considerations of my own future, both Attlee and the Party would
probably have found it a wiser policy if he had retired after our
defeat in 1951 - assuming that retirement from the House of Commons
appealed to him. There were influential Labour M.P.s who talked to
him on this line, and I was told by them that their point of view
had found a receptive ear. They were presumably misled into believing
taciturnity meant agreement.
Following Attlee's announcement
of 8 December, 1955, the three candidates were nominated for the leadership
- Bevan, Gaitskell and myself. Bevan later agreed to stand down in
order to allow the unopposed election of myself if Gaitskell would
also do so. This proposal was not accepted. The ballot result was
announced on 14 December. Of the 267 votes cast, Gaitskell received
157, Bevan 70, and myself 40. The wishes of the Party were clear.
After offering Gaitskell my congratulations I tendered my resignation
as Deputy Leader.
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