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Late at night in the House of Commons, when the freshness has gone from the air, and the lights shine dully on bald pates, weariness creeps into the usually keen blue eyes of the man sitting alone on the government front bench. His blue suit crumples. The thinning blond hair is no longer so carefully brushed across the balding scalp, and every now & then he coughs chestily. He fidgets. His left hand rubs slowly over his cheeks, reaches for a handkerchief to wipe his plumpish fate. Or his right forefinger goes round and upward to scratch the top of his head.
But Richard Austen Butler. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, misses no point. If an opposition speaker misstates what he said, Rab is quickly on his feet to set the record straight in his clear, flat voice. If goaded, his reply is quick and effective. Hugh Gaitskell, Labor's lanky and self-confident economist and Butler's predecessor at the Treasury, pricks him with the barbed wish that some day he may hear a Butler speech which does not talk about "unity, stability, flexibility, and all the other 'itys.' " "Those are all nouns or virtues," Butler retorts, "to which the Right Honorable Gentleman and his friends attach little importance." And a rare smile lights Rab's wintry face, as chill and fleeting as breath seen on a cold morning. It is a maxim of Butler's—and he does nothing politically which is unstudied—that charity to the enemy is profitable in the long run.
This pale, chilly man is an odd fish in the Tory school—an intellectual in a party which prefers character to brains, a political philosopher in a party which habitually relies on dimly felt tradition, a remote ascetic in a party of sociable men. But Rab Butler, 51, is the Tory Party's brightest rising star. In his two years as Chancellor, he has done much to restore his country's pride and place. As party man, he has given his party new life, established himself as a coming Prime Minister.
How to Breathe. Both as Chancellor and Tory, Rab Butler was the prophet of a doctrine notably neglected in Socialist Britain: freedom is worth having, and no amount of security will buy it. Its price is hard work—by a nation, industry, or individual. For Socialist restrictions, he substituted incentive. For Socialist regulation, he staked his faith on the British character. For Socialist "fair shares," he proposed freedom to earn more. He abolished most government purchases of imports, scrapped the "utility" scheme which had kept many manufacturers confined to standardized models, struck off price controls, lifted rationing, turned builders loose to build small houses and factories.
Such policies were not always immediately popular. "Socialism had so battened down the hatches that the passengers had forgotten how to breathe." Butler said.