Britons steeled themselves to hear news grimmer than any since Winston Churchill had offered them "blood, sweat and tears" after Dunkirk. At last Clement Attlee was to tell Britons what they had to do to save themselves from bankruptcy.
There was a great-event atmosphere around the neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster. Londoners and provincial visitors gathered with tense faces around Parliament Square. Britons, to whom queueing has become second nature, waited in a long line for the few public seats available in the House of Commons' gallery.
Inside, members and lucky strangers sat through a dull "Question Time." It was just ending when Clement Attlee slipped in, scarcely noticed. Ernest Bevin, for one, did not see him. Bevin was on his feet answering a foreign policy question. Attlee slid down the bench just in time to avoid his Foreign Secretary's 240-lb. bulk as Bevin took a pace back, prepared to sit down.
At 4:15 Attlee rose to speak on the state of the nation.
"Chance of a Lifetime." It was not with a bang, but with a wheedle, that Britain's Prime Minister asked his nation to face her crisis. In a high, flat, singsong voice, he recited cliche after cliche. Now & then he wrung his hands gently. Some M.P.s fell asleep, others drifted out of the Chamber (making polite bows to the Speaker) for a chat or cigaret or cup of tea.
Attlee still talked of "limited emergency." To get more coal (agreed by all to be the No. 1 need for the revival of Britain), he proposed to miners that "there should be, as an emergency measure, for a limited period, an extra half-hour's work per day." To place and keep workers (including "spivs and other drones") in essential industries, "it will be necessary to resume to a limited extent the use of powers of direction." To reduce Britain's projected 1948 overseas military establishment of 1,087,000 men, Attlee proposed a cut of only 80,000 in the armed forces. Food purchases in dollars, he said, must be cut 40%, but he still spoke hopefully of avoiding cuts in rations.
Toward the end, he apologized: "No doubt this Government, like other Governments, has made mistakes. I am quite sure a Conservative Government would have made others."
When the singsong voice stopped, after one hour and 15 minutes, Attlee (whom Churchill once called "a sheep in sheep's clothing") had convinced few Britons that his Socialist Government was ready resolutely to make up for past mistakes. Attlee "touches nothing," said the Economist acidly, "that he does not dehydrate."
The man in the street felt let down. The fight fizzed out of him like the air from a punctured balloon. "Attlee missed the chance of a lifetime," said a furniture maker. "We know we are in a tough spot, so it's up to. him to take tough action. We would back him all right." Said a salesman: "Attlee's a good man, mind you, but we want more than that—someone with go in him." Many a Briton still agreed with the junior minister who said recently: "The sands are running out and our heads are still buried in them."