Tarnished Grandeur

Great chunks of the British Empire seethed last week in the cauldron of world unrest. While mutiny and riot sizzled and popped through India, Egypt, Palestine and Jamaica, Britons discussed in querulous tones the propriety of General Sir Thomas Riddell-Webster's extra shirt.

The London Evening News quoted the retiring Quartermaster General's delight at the civilian kit issued him on demobilization--"a suit, a raincoat, two shirts, one pair of socks, two collars, a tie and a pair of shoes." In clothes-short Britain, such an outfit would take more than a year's ration points. When hundreds of other ex-soldiers angrily asked why General Riddell-Webster got two shirts, the British War Office called it "a packing error" and sent an officer to retrieve the second shirt.

Shells & Toppers. Britons were too busy with the mere mechanics of existence; they could not listen to the rumblings of a shaking empire. It was of more immediate interest that seven lean years had slashed the average weight of the Oxford crew from 180 to 154 Ibs., forced it to order the lightest shell ever for the historic race with Cambridge (see SPORT). King George VI decreed that Ascot, once the world's swankest racing meet (grey toppers, lobster and champagne) would be held "strictly on austerity lines" (sack suits and sandwiches).

Food was so short that the Government offered free cartridges to anyone wanting to shoot grey squirrels. The Ministry of Food hawked tasty recipes for squirrel pies. Wages were high--but sharply increased taxes and sharply decreased buying power meant that a $4,000 salary was worth less than $2,000 in Britain of 1936.

Britain was tired. She had lacked so much of life for so long; victory's just rewards were one's due. Few Britons voted for the controlled life when they voted Socialist last year. They voted for a bearable life, and for the prospect of a good life. They have not got either and will not get anything better for a long time. Instead, they are adjusting themselves to a grey world of poverty--and to genteel inferiority in comparison with the powerful, prosperous U.S.

Veneer & Cockneys. Fatigue has left its mark. The incomparable veneer of British courtesy has cracked; too many Britons are too tired to be invariably courteous. Even British honesty, which had been no veneer, has cracked; thievery in the customs and shipping services, notably on incoming parcels of food and clothing, is now an open scandal. Black-marketeering prospers as it never did during the war's bad years--and it is no longer considered shameful to admit a part in it.

The "cheerful cockney" of literary and war fame has disappeared. "My God, man, there aren't any happy cockneys," said a knowing Londoner. A high U.S. official, transferred to London after long service in Rome, found British faces unhappier and wearier than those in hungry Italy. One of England's best writers last week said that no one writing about England today had any right to base anything upon the assumptions of ten, five, even two years ago: "Something has happened to all of us--all of us."

Gilt & Elbow Grease. However, few Britons will concede that Britain has lost anything of her basic vitality or human potential. The show will go on, as colorfully as possible. Last week Covent Garden, London's Royal Opera House, which jitterbugging G.I.s used as a dance hall during the war, reopened with a gala performance of the Tchaikovsky ballet Sleeping Beauty. The King and Queen, Queen Mary and the Princesses arrived in their gleaming Daimlers. A photographer, kneeling in the crush, tugged at a trousered leg, begged: "Give us a break, will you, George." He was embarrassed when the King turned around.

Led by Attlee and Bevin, most of the Cabinet appeared in evening dress. But leftist Health Minister Aneurin Bevan inevitably went in a sack suit, his leftist-M.P. wife Jennie Lee in her usual red tweed coat and lizard-skin shoes. Outside the royal box there were only two tiaras. And Covent Garden's scarlet-&-gold opulence had been restored mostly by mere elbow grease. Explained the manager: "Very little new paint has been used, and then only in cases where it was necessary for cleanliness. . . . There is hardly a spot of new gilt anywhere in the theater."

For all her tarnished grandeur, Britain still had elbow grease for bigger jobs than Covent Garden. Burly Ernie Bevin was one link between the two. As he left, a dowager spotted him and cried: "There he is! I must touch him." She had to stretch to do it, but she did.

As God Save the King sounded through the house. Princess Elizabeth pulled her sister Margaret forward to share the acclaim. Ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed Britons turned toward the royal box and beamed.

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