Layette Lobby

<p>The Layette Lobby&nbsp;

Formed to encourage the government to act on Lord Beveridge's proposals, with Thelma Cazalet-Keir as a leading member, the Tory Reform Committee put so much faith in the social causation of the 'halted breed' that Thelma Cazalet-Keir was actually reproved for 'taking the first step to a Fascist State', (by the Labour Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Education') for asking in May 1942 whether as a preliminary to post-war educational reform the President would not take the necessary steps to make it compulsory for all children up to the age of 11 years to attend the same school [28]. She was not the first natalist to be so accused, for Sir Arnold Wilson had similarly suffered. Hence, the Daily Express of 28 November 1942 compared his recommendations with those of the newly issued Beveridge Report under the heading "What more can Sir William Say?". Sir William however, did have one more thing to say that greatly strengthened the arm of his brother-in-law R. H. Tawney: "people will not have children for pay." This made it 'opportune' to consider other methods—housing, and especially schools [29]. The announcement of Beveridge's engagement to be married four days before the publication of his report seemed a natalist omen, especially after his Report's favourable reception by the 1922 Committee. The report certainly encouraged the raising of support themes like housing, schools, which as one Times correspondent saw it was now "opportune to consider". It catalysed choice-making: Beveridge himself admitting that his plan would not 'solve' the births problem as "people would not have children for pay" [26]. It seems to have convinced Sir John Anderson that the government should take "very special care" to see that "undue burdens" were "not incurred in respect of the old at the expense of the young". This heavy Scots calculating machine added "if savings have to be made anywhere, we should not wish them to be made in respect of the young" [30]. If, as Butler says, the financial statistics at the end of his own paper on educational progress before the Cabinet Committee in early 1943 were 'incompre- 8 Downloaded by [University of Alberta] at 05:19 06 October 2014 The Biosocial Background hensible" [31] even to Cherwell, Churchill's most numerate advisor, the figures and images put about by Cherwell's Christ Church colleague (and subsequent biographer) Roy Harrod, were not. For Harrod had been holding up the doomsday vision of Britain becoming "a nation in carpet slippers" with fewer young feet pattering about the family hearth [32]. And despite attempts by economists like John Jewkes to put the case for better education eventuating from a decline in the birth rate and increasing the rate of invention, or for the improvement of the labour force by women not embarrassed with family chores [33], Harrod harped on, finding nothing: "in the German evidence which should cast doubt on the idea that a bold plan of assistance would remove the danger of race extinction with which we are now faced. This assistance should cover the whole additional financial burden (including the provision of domestic help) due to the arrival of third and fourth children." [34] By 1943 Harrod was describing the shrinking birth rate as presenting problems of "unprecedented gravity which the Beveridge report would do little to solve" [35]. In the same year the correspondence column of The Times once again resonated on the population problem. Apart from the owner of the Daily News, L. J. Cadbury [36], R. N. Dixey asked "would a nation with a falling birth rate be able to defend itself or its standard of living against envious and less civilised nations with rising birth rates?" [37]. R. B. Kerr suggested that professors of population should be appointed in the universities for they agreed that "the great thing was to maintain a low ratio of population to natural resources" [38]. By 26 January The Times was editorialising on the need "to begin thinking of population policies" as it took eighteen years to replace a mother and only a few months to replace a bomber [39]. The veteran Dr. Kuczynski reinforced this by arguing that even to stabilise the population at 42,700,000 (it was then 46,500,000) it would need a twenty five per cent rise in fertility and sustentation at that level [40]. Here the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, added his weight to the stabilisers and in a widely reported speech at Nottingham in February pointed out that even to maintain the population at its existing level, families would have to be 25 per cent bigger. This he saw would necessitate building a social order that would induce such an increase in the birth rate [41]. His speech (and that of Sir John Anderson on the Beveridge Report) elicited yet another leading article in The Times of 6 March 1943—the second of the year on the falling birth rate—which concluded that "if it were necessary to choose between giving additional comfort and help to age or childhood, the priority would surely go to those to whom the future belongs" [42]. Travelling down to Chequers in March 1943 with Lord Cherwell, Harrod's Christ Church colleague, Butler listened to him arguing that, despite the continuing fall in the school population, the country would still be involved in additional expense were the sizes of the classes to be reduced [43]. 'Expense' was much on Cherwell's mind, at this time, for he viewed with some distaste the sentiment expressed in the Beveridge Report that "it was a time for revolutions, not patching" [44] and thought such sentiments might well prejudice the United States of America against helping Britain after the war [45]. The Beveridge Report also worried the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a former advisor to insurance companies. Kept out of the debate on the Beveridge plan by a timely but genuine illness, Churchill's abstention and the unfortunate noises made by those who spoke for 9 Downloaded by [University of Alberta] at 05:19 06 October 2014 W. H. G. Armytage him, sparked off the most important Commons revolt in the coalition. It led Churchill to broadcast on the twenty first of that month on the "most sombre anxieties which beset those who look 30 or 40 or 50 years ahead". "One can see ahead only too clearly the dwindling birth-rate. If this country is to keep its high place in the leadership of the world and to survive as a Great Power," he thundered, "our people must be encouraged by every means to have larger families." He did not like the prospect of a smaller working and fighting population having to protect twice as many old people in thirty years time and so he stressed his intention to provide "equal opportunities for all" and ensuring that facilities for higher education would be "evened out and multiplied" [46]. Words! For four days later came the appropriate bromide from the Ministry of Health in the form of an announcement by the Chief Medical Officer that the provisional vital statistics of 1942 showed that not only was the birth-rate the highest for more than ten years, but the death rate—even including air- raid casualties—was the lowest on record [47].</p>

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This article was downloaded by: [University of Alberta] On: 06 October 2014, At: 05:19 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Westminster Studies in Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cwse19 Back‐up to Butler: the biosocial background of the Butler Act W. H. G. Armytage a a Professor of Education , University of Sheffield Published online: 01 Nov 2006.</p>