New Talk of Unity

Picking up the pieces after the Suez disaster, the British found themselves getting used to the idea that they are not as big a power as they thought they were. The discovery made some timid Little Englanders decide that the sooner Britain settles down to being a comfortable Sweden or Holland the better, but there were others who were looking for new combinations of strength and finding them in the idea of European unity. A clear and insistent emotional cry for "Europe" was being heard last week in both Britain and France.

"Britain is no longer a super-Power," wrote British Editor Geoffrey Crowther in the current Foreign Affairs. "She is perhaps in a class by herself, but it is not the highest class, nor is it one that permits her the luxury of fully independent action." The urgent need, he insisted, "for Britain and France is to realize the extent to which they have become dependent on the U.S. and to accommodate themselves to this fact." Punch Editor Malcolm Muggeridge put it more simply: "The days of GREAT Britain are over."

49th State. Suez exposed Britain's reduced status as a military power, the vulnerability of its economy and the limit of what it once considered the unlimited backing of its closest ally. The danger in all the resultant self-flagellant humility was that Britain might turn to a "Lay this burden down" philosophy, or a retreat into a popular but disastrous attitude of "Let Uncle Sam do it." Yet many in Britain saw that though Colonel Blimp lies punctured, Private Mouse is not necessarily a wiser counselor.

Viscount Chandos (who used to be better known as Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton) wrote last week that although Britain, the Commonwealth and the U.S. must work together, there is a "need for us to play a leading and independent part. We cannot play this role as the 49th State. A spoonful--and it should not be more than a spoonful--of isolationism should also be permitted to us." The new leader of the Liberal Party, J. Joseph Grimond, wondered aloud whether Britain would not do better to reduce the Commonwealth to the "white Dominions"--Canada, Australia, New Zealand--and foresaw the day when Britain's economy might "look to Western Europe to give us added strength and wider margins. European unity would then become the major British interest and the foundation of our policy."

In France, Foreign Minister Christian Pineau insisted that it is now "more necessary than ever to realize the unification of Europe. For France it is perhaps a question of life or death. At the very least, it is a question of our national independence." All over Europe there was a new rush of talk about a "third force," but this time with a difference. In the words of Belgium's Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak, "the third force is not an attempt to neutralize Europe and place her at an equal distance between America and Russia. On the contrary, it expresses the European will to cease being a dead weight upon America and to become a genuine ally, ready to assume a full share of responsibilities."

Scattered Chicks. In the two months since Suez, the drive toward a united Europe has made more progress than in the previous two years. By happy political chance, France's Premier Guy Mollet and Germany's Konrad Adenauer are both dedicated "Europeans" who recently together settled the long-festering problem of the Saar. After months in the hands of the experts, two important new treaties are ready for submission to six Western European nations: one to eliminate internal customs barriers and provide a common market for 160 million people, the other to pool all atomic research and development into something called Euratom. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan has already begun negotiations looking toward British participation in a free trade zone of all Europe.

Commented Spaak dryly: "The European nations are something like scattered chicks when they see a hawk hovering above them--whether in the form of Stalin or Nasser--they tend to come together."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.