"At Whatever Cost"

All along what used to be called the lifeline of empire, flashes of discord flared up like warning signals. Cyprus went from bad to worse. At the Red Sea refueling base of Aden, nationalists shouted abuse at Her Majesty's visiting minister. Farther east, Ceylon's new Prime Minister had notified Britain that it must remove its forces from the base at Trincomalee. Talks on a new status for Singapore collapsed, and Chief Minister David Marshall departed, demanding: "How long can you keep Singapore with a bayonet?" Before long, Britain may have no secure base across the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean, from Aden to Australia.

Under such pressure, the Tory government steeled its heart and hardened its policy. Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, addressing a Tory rally, stated the government's position baldly: "We are an island dependent on our overseas trade and our overseas interests ... It is essential that we should retain certain positions of strength at whatever cost." He specified Cyprus, Aden and Singapore.

"At whatever cost" was the naked doc trine of the necessities of power. Forgotten for the moment were the usual sententious pleas that Cypriots had to be protected from terrorists, that the Turks in Cyprus had to be saved from the Greeks, that most Cypriots would be worse off under Greek sovereignty.

Two days earlier Lord Lloyd, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, had flown down to Aden to lay down a similar line. Greeted by a turbulent crowd that stoned his car, Lord Lloyd was firm. "I should like you to under stand," he told the Aden Legislative Counil, "that for the foreseeable future it would not be reasonable or sensible, or indeed in the interests of the colony's inhabitants, for them to aspire to any aim beyond that of a considerable degree of self-government . . . Her Majesty's government wish to make it clear that the importance of Aden, both strategically and economically, within the Common wealth is such that they cannot foresee the possibility of any fundamental relaxation of their responsibilities."

Shadow & Substance. But last week more and more Britons were increasingly unhappy about this policy, increasingly suspicious that it was jeopardizing the bases it was designed to secure. In Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios' exile was supposed to produce a "fertile vacuum" in which moderate leaders would step forward to negotiate. It did not. Labor Party leaders now insisted that Makarios must be brought back and a settlement negotiated. In a letter to the London Observer, Elder Statesman Earl Attlee wrote: "I believe that the government now realize that they have made a grave error in deporting the Archbishop, but will not admit it ... Any reading of history would have told the government that when discussions on constitutional reform break down, and when the accredited leaders of a nationalist movement are deported or imprisoned, the result is always a resort to violence. Leadership passes to the extremists, the voices of reason are silenced, murderers are regarded as heroes, and, if executed, are held to be martyrs . . . In the long run, the government always fail to enforce law and order and are obliged to retrace their steps and negotiate with the people they have denounced . . . In Cyprus, as in Singapore, the government are losing the substance of Britain's position for the shadow of illusory defense advantages."

Two years ago, when the diehard "Suez rebels" on the Conservative backbenches objected violently to Britain's withdrawal from the Suez Canal zone, Eden himself had argued: "In the Middle East, as elsewhere, our defense arrangements must be based on consent and cooperation with the peoples concerned." He was criticized then by zealot imperialists for giving up British territory. When British evacuation of the Suez was followed by Lieut. General Glubb Pasha's expulsion from Jordan, and Britain's whole Middle East position was threatened, Eden decided to stand firm on Cyprus. Earl Attlee observed: "The government are so afraid of being thought to be weak that they take what is called strong action."

Underlying Disquiet. In this dispute were the beginnings of a real foreign policy debate in Britain. For years now, with the strength of the two great parties almost equal as in the U.S., and with the party in power having captured the politically desirable middle, the opposition has found it hard to seize a good issue. A rigorous repressive policy in Cyprus may yet provide it. At first, Eden's show of firmness uplifted a people disheartened by retreats, but an underlying disquiet remains. The policy of holding "at whatever cost" had the sound of yesterday about it.

Examining the wider scene, east of Suez, the liberal Manchester Guardian observed that "Asian opinion objects to Western bases, and since bases on hostile ground are of little value, we shall soon have to go." Accepting this fact, the Guardian wondered whether Asian nations had examined the consequences: "In terms of a major war, Singapore and Ceylon are probably not important. [But] the military danger to non-Communist Asia is of minor wars, not of one major outbreak." Once the British withdraw, they cannot return on instant call; it takes weeks to make an abandoned base operational. Then it might be too late. "Not even an appeal by the United Nations--in the event, for example, of a serious incursion across the borders of Burma-would bring substantial British military help. It could not, because such help would be physically impossible. It is often forgotten that the swift t United Nations intervention in Korea was possible only because the Americans had fully staffed bases in Japan, not more than 200 miles away. The relinquishment of British bases round the Indian Ocean is a more serious matter for the Asian countries than for Britain."

Yet, while protesting the Asian attitude, the Guardian seemed to accept the dynamic of retreat. Labor Party thinking is tending to the opinion that it is useless to insist on cast-iron guarantees from local populations against future contingencies when, in an emergency, the British will act as the emergency requires anyway. In the meantime, it is far better not to widen enmities, but to seek consent and the cooperation of local populations by giving them as much as can be given of what they ask for.

Their most effective argument on Cyprus is pragmatic: by its hold "at whatever cost" policy, the Tories deepen the hostility of people who had once been their friends, antagonize world opinion--and are not succeeding in their aim of breaking the revolt.

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