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In December
1942, the British Government published the report on Social Insurance
and Allied Services. This watershed publication was better known as the
Beveridge Report – named after its author, the journalist, academic and
Government advisor, William Beveridge and would shape British Government
Social Policy for the rest of the century.
The report
directed government towards the goals of fighting the five ‘giant evils’
of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. In return for a
weekly contribution, the British people would be guaranteed a minimum
standard of living in times of sickness, unemployment or retirement.
This
significant report was initiated by the coalition wartime Government in
1941 in order to fully plan was the new post-war world whenever that
came along. The Government’s intention towards post war reconstruction
was first announced at the weekly luncheon meeting of the Rotary Club of
London in 1940.
Coalition
Government minister Ernest Bevin (a future Foreign Secretary in the 1945
Labour Government) addressed the Rotary Club of London in the Connaught
Rooms. Rotary historian
David Shelley Nicholl tells us that Bevin was
clearly impressed by the service principles of Rotary and the work it
carried out in the community.
Bevin’s
audience included many who had fled the Nazi takeover of Europe. He
addressed himself to the causes of War and blamed “the failure to
provide an economic basis for the development of resources with a view
to securing for humanity a new start.”
Bevin
borrowed from Arthur Sheldon’s famous motto by declaring “If profit can
be the only motive, the natural corollary is economic disorder, and
economic disorder will bring you back to the same position you are in
now, ever recurring, and future generations will again pay, in the same
form or another, the bitter price we are paying now…In Rotary, you
accept service as the mainspring of your whole organization and being;
and does not service give the greatest satisfaction in life?”
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Why make
this landmark announcement to a Rotary Club? Perhaps it was the pure
internationality of the movement, or the general Rotary ethos. But
whatever the reason, the perception of Rotary (to both Rotarians and the
outside world) would from this point on change. Coverage was given to
the speech by the British press. The Daily Herald declared that
“The significance of [Bevin’s] utterance lay in the warmth of its
reception.” This Labour-supporting newspaper could not get over the warm
welcome London Rotarians (who, after all, represented businessmen) gave
to these radical proposals. The newspaper journalist, Hannen Swaffer
would entitle his piece “Rotary Applauds a New World”.
It is
highly significant that Bevin’s speech was made just around the corner
from the Kingsway Hall where thirteen years before, another socialist
named George Bernard Shaw had delivered his bilious reference to Rotary
‘going to lunch’.
Rotary
would itself play an important role in post-war reconstruction. The
Rotary Clubs of London published a report of its own on that exact
subject recommending amongst other things, a State medical service and
nationalisation of all banks and public utilities including transport.
How the times have changed!
Calum Thomson
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