The moderate center of the Labor Party now dominates the movement just as the moderate center of the Conservative Party dominates the Tory organization. In each the leader represents the mood of the majority within the parliamentary party. Macmillan is a little to the left of center among Conservatives. Gaitskell is a little to the right of center in the Labor Party. The identity of interest among the two dominant groups is greater than might appear from the robust exchanges in the House of Commons. The radical wings in both parties are handicapped at this point by a seeming inability to understand that politics is the art of the possible. Herbert Morrison, a great practical politician, summed up this weakness of the radical left at a Labor conference. A resolution demanding the immediate nationalization of remaining industry--at a time when the country was prosperous and fully employed--was before the conference. Do you think, he asked, that anyone will _vote_ for such a program? [Illustration] VI. _A Quiet Revolution by a Quiet People_ _Revolutions begin with infatuation and end with incredulity. In their origin proud assurance is dominant; the ruling opinion disdains doubt and will not endure contradiction. At their completion skepticism takes the place of disdain and there is no longer any care for individual convictions or any belief in truth._ F.P.G. GUIZOT _Revolutions are not made; they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back._ WENDELL PHILLIPS [Illustration] The changes in Britain since 1939 have been revolutionary. Yet because Britain is a nation with a highly developed political sense, the revolution has been fought not at barricades but in ballot boxes. And, seen on the broadest scale, what has happened to Britain and its people at home is part of what has been happening all over the world since 1939. The year that saw the start of World War II saw the beginning of a terrible acceleration of forces that for fifty years had been slowly, sometimes almost imperceptibly weakening Britain's position. This book is concerned principally with Britain. But let us look at what has happened to British interests abroad since 1939. The Indian Empire is gone. The lifeline of what remains of the Empire is unraveling in Ceylon, Singapore, Aden, and Cyprus. The rise of the Soviet Union and the United States has dwarfed Britain as a world power, and the imaginative conception of the Commonwealth is not yet, and may never be, an adequate balance to these two vast conglomerations of industrial and military power. Britain's ties with some of the Commonwealth nations--notably South Africa--grow weaker year by year. The remaining colonies are moving toward self-government, as the British always planned, but it is doubtful whether after they leave the Empire nest they will be any more loyal or responsive to British leadership than Ceylon is today.