New Base

In the days when the sun shone unblinkingly on empire, the path of Britain's lifeline to Australia and the Far East was studded with steppingstones in the form of British bases. Since World War II, the demands of Asian neutralism and nationalism have gobbled up one British naval or air station after another in the Indian Ocean area until only two remain between Africa and Singapore, both in the Dominion of Ceylon, and both now doomed like the others to be sacrificed to local nationalism.

Last week Britain announced plans for a new steppingstone in the Indian Ocean: the island of Gan in the Maldives, a group of coral islands (pop. 93,000) some 400 miles southwest of Ceylon whose sultans have basked under the protection of the British navy since 1795. The rent (amount undisclosed) Britain has agreed to pay for Gan should provide a long-needed shot in the arm to the all but dormant Maldivian economy (now mainly dependent on shipments of fish to Ceylon). As for Britain's chances of hanging on to her new base--"It is difficult," said the Times of London, "to imagine either extreme nationalism or a scrupulous addiction to neutrality arising seriously in the Maldives."

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