Setting the People Free

Abstract

If Eden was the undisputed number two in the Cabinet, by 1954 Butler had become the undisputed number three. When Eden was ill in America he had acknowledged Eden’s priority above himself,¹ but his own achievement as acting Premier while both Churchill and Eden were disabled earned him the respect of both his own colleagues and of the wider public.² When in January 1954 he arrived in Sydney, Australia, for the opening of the Commonwealth Economic Conference, at which he led the British delegation, it was announced that he had been appointed a Companion of Honour.³ During that year, largely owing to favourable terms of trade, the British economy continued to improve, and the Conservative objective of ‘setting the people free’ was gradually achieved by the ending of food rationing and the consequent reduction of the officialdom of the Ministry of Food. Tea, which came from within the sterling area, was freed of rationing in October 1952, followed in 1953 by chocolate and sweets, eggs and sugar. In May 1954 margarine, cooking fat, cheese and butter all came off the ration, and in July meat and bacon also.⁴