The Labour Party and the Welfare State in Britain, 1900–1948

Abstract

IN his detailed study of establishment of National Health Service Harry Eckstein insisted that, prior to I940's, Labour party had contributed little to concept of such a service: The Labour Party was certainly not in vanguard of agitation. It joined team, at best, in middle of game.' Alfred F. Havighurst endorsed this with declaration that Labour issued no statement on a national health service until I934.2 A third American commentator on British scene, Robert Brady, however, took an exactly contrary view, stating that the programme which [Aneurin] Bevan inaugurated on vesting day, July 5, I948, was almost a verbatim copy of one laid out by a Labour Conference thirty years earlier.3 This opinion, expressed rather more cautiously, though extended to apply to whole range of welfare state legislation between I945 and i948, was also voiced by G. D. H. Cole in one of his later essays.4 Cole's earlier histories of Labour party say little on Labour's attitude toward social policy. Henry Pelling similarly has largely confined himself to problems of power and organization,5 and latest narrative history of Labour party, by yet another American historian, is equally reticent about pre-I945 Labour pronouncements on social welfare.6 Maurice Bruce, in his admirable textbook on British welfare state, is clearly not impressed by earlier Labour party