Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps strode briskly into a crowded House of Commons one afternoon last week to read the Labor government's budget for 1950-51. Boyishly, Cripps slapped his battered red leather dispatch case onto the table, grinned as he began a long review of Britain's economic position. He spoke steadily for two hours and 17 minutes, pausing only twice for bird-like sips from a glass of orange juice and honey. At the end of the first hour the drama had been squeezed out of the annual rite; some members' heads were nodding. Winston Churchill fidgeted fretfully,...
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