Malvern in Action

"The working-class mother with a large family is the real heroine . . . of our civilization. She never stops working from morning till night. She has no remuneration for her work and it is her meals that are cut down first." With these words of his first speech to the House of Lords as Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. William Temple began to carry out the proposition he had made at Malvern (TIME, Jan 27, 1941) : "It is the business of Lambeth [the Archbishop's residence] to remind Westminster [the Houses of Parliament] of its responsibility to God."

Occasion for the Archbishop's stand was a Lords' debate on the question of granting allowances to big working-class families with small incomes. His own inquiries, said the Archbishop, had convinced him that large, low-income families need such aid, since the rise in living costs put them at a marked disadvantage and "in times of unemployment in many industries it was more profitable for a man with a large family to be unemployed than employed" (because of the dole).

Upshot of the debate: the Lords agreed (in principle) to add some $500,000,000 a year to Britain's budget for such family allowances. The Government promised to do something about them as soon as a survey could be completed. Lord Chancellor Simon shifted uncomfortably on the woolsack. Plainly, plump, redoubtable William Temple meant to press politically, as well as spiritually, for the sweeping social and religious reforms he proposed last year at the Malvern Conference.

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