No Hands Across the Channel

That politely muffled scraping sound on the international stage last week was the British dragging their feet again.

"Verbal Misunderstanding." France, Italy, West Germany and the Benelux countries had announced that they were ready to start talks to implement the Schuman Plan. The British had grudgingly agreed to send delegates to these talks. But when the French suggested that the participating nations issue a joint communique stating the purposes of the talks (i.e., to merge Western Europe's coal and steel industries under an international authority), the British refused; they argued that this would mean an advance commitment to the plan. In its best diplomatic manner, France's Foreign Ministry announced that a slight "verbal misunderstanding" had arisen.

The French reworded their draft communique to make it clear that it implied merely an agreement to try to reach agreement. The British still argued that it read to them like an advance commitment. A Quai d'Orsay spokesman said testily: "Their diplomatic notes sound as if they haven't read our diplomatic notes."

Rene Massigli, French Ambassador to London, was called to Paris to see if his superior knowledge of the English language and the British viewpoint could help straighten things out. In Paris, British Ambassador Sir Oliver Harvey's big Rolls-Royce virtually ran a shuttle service between the British embassy and the Quai d'Orsay as Harvey delivered the messages from London. At one point, the British embassy issued a statement to the press: "It is important at this stage to make the British government's attitude quite clear. The British government yield to none in their approval of the proposal to hold a conference ..." Hardly had Parisian newspaper offices received this statement when the embassy called excitedly to withdraw it. The British government's attitude, it seemed, could not yet be made quite clear.

From his sickbed in a London hospital, ailing Ernest Bevin made a new proposal: let the Western Foreign Ministers meet to examine the procedure to be followed in negotiations. Within 40 minutes, the French rejected that suggestion, declared that it would simply waste time. The French and their continental friends announced they would go ahead without Britain, but would keep the British informed. His Majesty's government expressed a hope that Britain might be able to join the plan once the details became clear.

Frank Admission. Beneath this diplomatic squabble, which seemed concerned merely with formalities, was a deep and real conflict. As in most other recent instances when Britain was urged to participate in measures toward Western European integration, the Labor government was afraid that the Schuman Plan would interfere with its planned economy. In the past, British leaders have tended to deny or at least to evade the charge that the Labor Party's national socialism stood in the way of British cooperation with Europe. Last week some Labor spokesmen were more frank. Wrote Wilfred Fienburgh, the Labor Party's newly appointed research secretary: "A nation which has undertaken full employment planning cannot be expected to relinquish any of its autonomy to an international authority ... If the balance of power on any international body were to tend toward restriction [of industry], the full employment countries might find their full employment plans endangered ..."

This attitude was not confined to the Labor Party--nor to Britain. In any country, unemployment resulting from the closing of any inefficient nationally protected factory would call forth a sharp reaction against the Schuman Plan. The leaders of France, Italy, West Germany and Benelux understood that danger as well as the British did. It was significant that the others were willing to go ahead and explore the risky ground, while Britain's planners hung back.

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