The Landlady's Knock

A thunder as ominous as a landlady's knock reverberated through Britain last week, as voters prepared for the first time to register approval or disapproval of the new Macmillan government. Tory leaders were quick to make light of the threatening sound. "They're just exercising their right to grumble," said one, as erstwhile Conservative voters hurled loaded questions at the Tory candidate in London's teeming, pie-shaped North Lewisham constituency. But the candidate, a blacksmith's son who has become a prosperous manufacturer (structural steel), was kefauvering his way ("I'm Norman Farmer; I'd like to answer any questions . . .") from door to door, day after day.

The by-election to be held this week in North Lewisham is the first of eight which, during the next two months, may well determine the Tories' immediate future. Any serious reverses in this "little general election" (as most Britons are calling it) could result in a prompt full general election. Middle-class North Lewisham, a marginal district that gave the Tories a mere 3,236-vote plurality (in a total vote of 40,904) in 1955, might cause the Tories to lose a seat.

Oddly enough, neither Farmer nor Labor Candidate Niall MacDermot (a Cambridge-educated barrister) had a thing to say about Suez. The issue at stake was far closer to the British home and pocketbook: rent control. Last week, despite some timid objections from the back benches, the Macmillan government was going all out to put through its bill relaxing the controls which have frozen some 6,000,000 British rents at close to prewar levels ever since 1939 (only 6 1/2% of income now goes for rent, as opposed to 11% prewar). The bill would raise the rent ceilings on some 5,000,000 houses and apartments up to $2.80 weekly after six months' notice, would remove controls entirely from 800,000 higher-priced dwellings, and release some 5,000,000 owner-occupied or vacant houses for control-free rental.

Seizing the rare opportunity to play on the fears of a whole rent-controlled generation who remember the old tales of wicked landlords, Laborites plastered the walls of North Lewisham with ominous broadsides (CAN I LOSE MY HOME? CERTAINLY . . .). The government's answer, as officially phrased by Candidate Farmer, is that decontrol is the "logical first step in getting rid of the housing shortage." The Tories' main hope lies in getting the bill passed as soon as possible to prove its long-range benefits.

But on the hustings, Tory Farmer and the other candidates standing in the little election had to face a more immediate problem. With election day only a week off, Farmer admitted under questioning last week that, if elected, he would vote against at least that clause of his party's bill which promises complete decontrol of 800,000 higher-priced dwellings.

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