The novelist Daphne du Maurier had meanwhile published Come Wind, Come Weather6 in which she told stories of how ordinary people, affected by Moral Re-Armament, were facing up to war-time conditions. She dedicated the book to 'An American, Dr Frank N. D. Buchman, whose initial vision made possible the work of the living characters in these stories', and added, 'What they are doing up and down the country in helping men and women solve their problems, and prepare them for whatever lies ahead, will prove to be of national importance in the days to come.' Her book sold 650,000 copies in Britain alone.

In the middle of the war of words about Buchman Ernest Bevin, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers, became Minister of Labour.* According to his biographer, Professor Alan Bullock, he was characterised on arrival as 'a bad mixer, a good hater, respected by all'. 'His ability, his strength of character and determination were obvious,' writes Bullock, but 'his unusual confidence was combined with a marked sensitivity to criticism, which he always inclined to take as a personal attack and with a strong suspicion which, once aroused, put a brick wall of distrust between him and anyone who took against him.'7 In the dire situation of 1940 none of these characteristics seemed to matter compared to the fact that he had the qualities of toughness and courage needed to stand up to the crisis, but they were to have a profound effect upon the fate of Buchman's workers.

(* In May 1940, when Churchill's Government was formed. He entered the War Cabinet in September.)

On assuming office Bevin found that his predecessor, Ernest Brown, had inserted into the Conscription Act a clause granting occupational deferment to 'lay evangelists', a category in which he included the MRA workers, whose work he knew and valued. Brown was a man of faith, where Bevin was a sincere atheist who discounted any spiritual factor in the war effort. In December 1940 he wrote to the Oxford Group saying the position of its workers was being reviewed and asking for comments. Full documentation was sent to him and, in February 1941, a delegation of Members of Parliament presented Moral Re-Armament's case to Bevin's deputy on manpower, Sir William Beveridge.

A. P. Herbert regarded this as a suitable moment to put down a motion on the House of Commons order paper on 27 February asking the new President of the Board of Trade, Oliver Lyttelton, to deprive the Oxford Group of the name and privileges granted them by Stanley, on the ground that Buchman had never denounced Hitler, that his work was 'harmful to the British cause' and that 'he was occupying in the United States young British citizens who might be better employed in their own country'. Herbert's motion gathered forty-nine supporters, while Sir Robert Gower's counter-motion, put down on the same day, was signed by seventy-six Members.

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