The New Cabinet

Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee all but completed his Government. But he had had to scrape the Labor Party barrel for experienced talent.

By week's end the ministerial list (senior and junior) numbered 68. At least 23 of 30 senior appointees had held public office before, most of them in Parliament. Nine of them are ex-miners. Only two attended Eton, only 13 went to college. Their average age was 60—three years older than the Churchill Cabinet average and 20 years older than the new Labor M.P. average. Outstanding among the new appointments:

¶ First Lord of the Admiralty Albert V. Alexander, 60. He had been First Lord twice before, once under Churchill. Sound, jovial and popular, First Lord Alexander likes to bang on the piano while he sings Clementine and Little Brown Jug, could also be counted on to bang through the war against Japan.

¶ Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan, 47. One of the ex-miners, "Nye" Bevan spends much time furiously flapping the Labor Party's extreme left wing. He is expected to tangle talons right away with the British Medical Association over a National Health Service Bill (Socialized Medicine).

¶ Secretary of State for India and Burma, the Right Honorable Frederick W. Pethick-Lawrence, 73. Once a militant suffragist, Minister Pethick-Lawrence took his wife's name (Pethick), went to jail with her. Last week King George VI made him a baron. Minister of Health Bevan once referred to the new baron as "that crusty old Tory who still sticks in the Labor Party."

¶ Home Office Minister James Chuter Ede, 62. Wiry, spare, a former schoolteacher and teachers' unionist, Minister Ede has the Cabinet's general utility job.

If Minister of Education Ellen Wilkinson, 54. Since 1935, "Red Ellen" has represented Jarrow, England's poverty-stricken shipbuilding center. In 1931 she led the Hunger March from Scotland to Westminster, often slept under haystacks and peeled potatoes by the wayside.

¶ Minister of Labor George Isaacs, 62. Isaacs, who is a leader of the powerful Trades Union Congress, began his ministerial career by settling a serious railwaymen's strike twelve hours after taking office. A onetime printer's devil, he went to Buckingham Palace for his seals of office in a grey flannel suit, because "I hadn't the time to get myself up all posh."

¶ Food Minister Sir Ben Smith, 66. Ex-driver of one of London's first taxicabs, bluff Sir Ben was knighted for his work on supply during the war.

¶ Most portentous Cabinet appointment: Emanuel ("Manny") Shinwell to be Minister of Mines. To him will fall the tough task of nationalizing and modernizing Britain's antiquated coal pits. It will be a pleasure. Minister Shinwell belongs in Minister of Health Bevan's left wing. He is ruthless, knowledgeable, fearless, dour. In Parliament, he has boxed the ears of an M.P. whose opinions he disliked. He hopes to head the Labor Party some day.

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