Inventory

Two of the three nations now talking the business of war and peace in Moscow are continents in size and resources, in industry and manpower. These nations, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., have vital interests on the sea, but look to their own lands for their main strength.

The third, Britain, is a relatively small, highly industrialized country which owes its weight in world affairs to the quality of its people, the durable civilization they have built and the fact that this mother country is still the head and heart of a globe-girdling Empire.

Four years of war and several near disasters taught Britain just how tenuous the Empire's sea and air links have become, made responsible Britons re-examine the British attitude about the war itself and what should come after. Last week TIME'S London correspondents examined this national thinking:

Present & Future. Britain's first idea is still to get on with the war in Europe, to win it decisively and as quickly as possible. Aside from this immediate aim, British thinking is mainly concerned with: 1) Britain's trade and employment after the war; 2) the Empire's future; 3) relations with the U.S. and the Soviet Union; 4) the economic and political re-organization of Europe. All of these problems interlock; most Britons would rate the first as the most important and it is certainly the closest to home. They know well that the most pressing social force acting on Britain is the need for full employment.

Formal British political comment and argument goes mostly to the wide-open field of foreign relations. There the British hope above all for permanent cooperation with both the U.S. and the Soviet Union; the Foreign Office's worst nightmare is the prospect of becoming isolated from both nations, or, almost as bad, being forced to make a definite choice between them.

Britain is aware that events might force her to make such a choice. The nation's press and the flow of dispatches to the U.S. in recent weeks have reflected a mood of moderate pessimism. The British Government--as distinct from the great body of the British people--is worried, and apparently has made some effort to let its chief allies know that it is worried.

With a Grin. Britain probably expects less of concrete achievement from the Moscow conference than either of her fellow nations, but is more determined than either to avoid anything like a rupture or failure. The national attitude was shrewdly summed up by the New Statesman and Nation's "Sagittarius" (Olga Katzin), who in a dignified parody of Lord Tennyson saluted the Moscow conference with a fatalistic grin:

World architects, war strategists,

They strive for mankind's utmost good,

To fuse in larger brotherhood

A world of isolationists,

Rolling along through destined grooves,

And train of cause and consequence

Towards that crowning Conference

To which the whole creation moves.

Winston's Way. One idea shared by all ranks of British life is that the U.S. has treated Russia too much as a political issue, too little as a valuable ally in a tough war. Moreover, current U.S. criticism of Britain is forcing many British leaders to the uneasy apprehension that Britain may become a U.S. "political issue" in the same way. Nonofficial Britons, congenitally introversive, tend to shrug off the whole business of U.S. criticism. But to official Britain the current wave of reaction in the U.S. is profoundly disturbing. Were it continued and intensified, it might even push Britain farther toward alignment with Russia. That this has not happened is due at least in part to a powerful pro-American: Winston Churchill.

In Churchill's mind, Russian collaboration is a matter of hardheaded common sense, but U.S. collaboration is a matter of passionate concern to him. A break with Russia, nevertheless, would create a sharp split in Churchill's following and would send him back to the home-front political wars, even as his good friend Franklin Roosevelt.

The Prime Minister's strength is enormous. Party politics in Britain have been virtually nonexistent. The Tory Party dominates the Government; Churchill dominates them both. As a result, what Churchill thinks about British foreign policy is the current British foreign policy.

Churchill has been described as "a romantic of about Boer War vintage . . . with a love of the British Empire, pure and unadulterated." He and his Party are building Empire unity as a postwar bulwark. They unquestionably plan to develop this plan for all it is worth, despite any impact in the U.S. or Russia. This is the significance of the Smuts visit.

Lower Scale. Britain has a canny view of Western Europe and the Mediterranean; if higher hopes are blasted, she would regard that area as her natural sphere. Some signs of this interest: Britain never became embroiled in controversial French affairs so badly as did the U.S. State Department; Sir Samuel Hoare works in Spain for a restored monarchy and moderate conservative government; AMG and British influence in Italy do not appear to favor revolutionary changes; the Portuguese alliance has been beefed up, with British forces in the Azores.

Plan of Action. In postwar trade--vital to her great problem of providing full employment--Britain hopes especially for large-scale cooperation with the U.S. Yet Britain knows full well that the cooperating, at the beginning, would be one-sided. If ships and transport planes were to be shared, the U.S. would have to do the sharing; if Britain were to sell goods in the U.S. to balance her imports, the U.S. would have to cut tariffs. And a new U.S. Administration might be on the scene, in a mood to chuck cooperation for unlimited commercial expansion.

Britain would dread such a trade struggle, but would not run from it. By keeping her belt tightened in a planned economy, with rationing and heavy taxes, by making use of her lower production costs in some fields, by adroit use of her Empire, she would hope to stay in the fight. It is significant that Anthony Eden's recent Foreign Office reforms included the merger of Britain's consular and diplomatic services. Officials of the service are being chosen less for polish and background, more for economic and executive muscle.

Finally, the British have abiding faith in their "parish-pump" wisdom and ability to work to immediate practical issues rather than toward grand principles. As a people and as a nation they are confident that they have something to give to the world. They are also pretty sure that if the world comes again to dog-eat-dog, the British will be able to dine as usual.

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