Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home . . .
So sang 4,000 Tories last week as they gathered for the 69th annual conference of the British Conservative Party in Llandudno (pronounced: hlandidno), Wales. It was the largest Conservative conference ever held, and the first which opened with a religious service. An elderly delegate said: "We do well to thank God, and to pray for His help in the future." It was the first time since the Tories' great defeat in 1945 that the gloom which encircled them showed signs of lifting.
The Teatime Touch. With the benign air of the family's favorite aunt, florid, white-haired Party Chairman Lord Woolton rose on the flower-lined platform to announce good news. Conservative membership had risen from 1,200,000 to 2,250,000 from December 1947 to June 1948. Recent public opinion polls had shown that the Tories were ahead. But the delegates realized that they were still far from home. Said one: "The tide is turning. We must harness it to our projects." Said another: "But what are our projects?"
The Conservatives were far from certain.
The conference got under way in a blaze of imperialist hope & glory. Leopold Amery, former Secretary of State for India, while supporting economic cooperation in Europe, denounced the idea of a European federation. "We can never subject our loyalty to Crown and Empire to some outside authority." The conference came out against freer trade, and for the Empire preference system.
Urbane Anthony Eden soothed imperial passions. He pleaded that Britain must rely on the "three unities" of Empire, Western Union and the U.S. Later Winston Churchill declared: "There is absolutely no need to choose between a united Empire and a united Europe." But a split remained. "One class and one policy, that should be our slogan," a delegate told a newsman. "But we are not one class, and for split policy, look at that over there."
He pointed to a corner of the Llandudno Grand Hotel's lounge, where Leopold Amery sat, sparrowlike, on the edge of a big easy chair, munching a cracker and talking to a circle of followers. In the opposite corner sprawled Anthony Eden, expounding his viewpoint to his own group of disciples. Both had to shout to be heard above the squeaky strains of a teatime violin, piano and cello.
The Baldwin Touch. The Conservatives denounced controls and praised free enterprise, but they rarely descended from generalities. Arguing about denationalization of already nationalized industries, one speaker brushed off a tough problem with oldtime Tory nonchalance: "If I don't like my eggs scrambled, I'll throw them away and prepare another dish to my choice." That was an unfortunate simile; few Britons these days have any eggs to throw away.
In the party leadership, new faces were slowly coming to the fore. Chief among these was Richard Austen ("Rab") Butler, who is chairman of the party's committee on policy. In figure and pipe-smoking placidity, he recalls Stanley Baldwin; there might come a time when the exhausted British electorate would like just such a man.