London Make-Over

Still dazed at the political upset which gave their city a Laborite Government after 27 years of Conservative rule (TIME, March 19), Londoners were completely unprepared for the speed with which Herbert Morrison, their new "Prime Minister," went to work last week in London

County Council to fulfill campaign pledges. Though he was personally responsible for the Laborite victory, though he will run the County Council, which governs all London except the tiny "City," Laborite Morrison did not become chairman of the Council last week. That duty he delegated to Henry, Baron Sneil of Plumstead, a sober-sided Laborite Peer, bachelor son of a farm laborer. While Lord Snell was putting on the chain of office, Laborite Morrison was doing even better. Slum clearance and new housing projects were prime planks in his election platform. The same day the new council took office he appointed one Lewis Silkin to chairman the Housing Committee. Housing Chairman Silkin promptly an nounced that the -L-35,000,000 ($175,000,000) slum clearance scheme of the old Conservative County Council would be scrapped as "entirely inadequate." An immediate new survey will cover not only houses legally unfit for habitation, but also basement flats where now live some 100.000 souls. Only six out of every 100 U. S. inhabitants live in New York City, but one tenth of all Britons are Londoners. The new Labor Government in London had instant repercussions in the national Government last week. No sooner had the County Council an nounced its slum clearance program than the national Government pulled from its hat the largest slum clearance project Britain has ever known. Covering all England and Wales, it was to employ 115,000 men continuously for five years, cost the nation -L-115,000,000 ($575,000,000). In various cities 266,851 tenements were to be demolished and new houses built, to rent from $1.50 to $2 per week for small houses, from $2.25 to $3 for flats. In country districts 31,000 insanitary buildings were to be destroyed.

Herbert Stanley Morrison, who set an example for the Empire, is a onetime errand boy and telephone operator who grew up to be Mayor of suburban Hackney in 1920. Serving two terms in the House of Commons, he was Laborite Minister of Transport (1929-31). Since the fall of the Labor Cabinet he has concentrated on London city politics. Nowadays, despite his beliefs, he appears as correctly clad as any stockbroker, proudly carrying the Londoner's traditional furled umbrella. It was not always so. In 1929, three months after he became His Majesty's Minister of Transport, he startled all Britain by distributing prizes at a sporting meet without a hat, in sandals and wearing an open-necked tennis blouse.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.