Not Without Tears

Derby Day usually empties the House of Commons as Cabinet ministers, backbenchers, and the Opposition, uniformed in cutaways and grey toppers, flock to Epsom Downs. But last week, politics kept all but a handful of M.P.s from witnessing a spectacular seven-horse collision at the 182nd running of the Derby. In London, the Commons was jammed as the Tory government opened a two-day debate on the Common Market. In the constituencies of West Derbyshire and Middlesbrough West, the Tories were desperately trying to end their string of by-election defeats.

As it turned out. the Tories were running well if cautiously in the Common Market race, but in domestic politics they were in serious trouble, with the Opposition moving up fast.

The Market. The Commons debate began in the rosy afterglow of the weekend meeting between Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and French President Charles de Gaulle. No longer was Whitehall convinced that De Gaulle was determined to keep Britain out of the Market. Though the official communique was noncommittal, one British official summed it up: "Macmillan's weekend inclines us now to believe that De Gaulle will let us into the club--after socking us with the heaviest possible dues." No dues are high enough for some of the opponents to Britain's entry. The opposition includes some strange bedfellows.

At the COMECON meeting in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev let loose another tirade against the Market, while in Britain, in full-page advertisements paid for by Tory Imperialist Lord Beaverbrook, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein blared: "I say we must not join Europe.'' Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah denounced Britain's plans to enter the Market and found himself in tune with Australia's Prime Minister Robert Menzies, usually no friend of the Commonwealth's black members.

In the Commons itself, restraint was the keyword. Stating the government's case was the Tories' chief Market negotiator. Lord Privy Seal Edward Heath. In a factual, detailed 10-minute speech, Ted Heath argued cogently that Britain had no intention of joining the Market at any price, but explained why he was willing to pay a fairly high price. The British people, said Heath, are living "in a period of intense change, both politically and economically. Are we to be excluded from these developments? There are some who say that if we take part in them, we shall not be able to influence them. How much the less one can influence them from the outside. Will the U.S. or the Commonwealth look on us as better or more valuable partners if we remain outside the main stream of European growth?"

In reply, Labor Leader Hugh Gaitskell was skeptical rather than critical. "It is extremely foolish," he said, "to give the impression that we can carry through the whole of this operation without tears, and that there will be no difficulties whatever." But to keep the tears limited, Gaitskell wants the government to be guided by the wishes of the Commonwealth, a view not shared by Macmillan, who has consistently declared that the decision belongs to Britain alone.

Few points against membership were really scored as both the Laborites and opposing Tory backbenchers preferred to reserve judgment until final terms could be announced. "It has been fashionable to talk about the Labor Party sitting on the fence," said Labor's Deputy Leader George Brown. "If ever we had a fence, it has been shaking the last two days with everybody climbing up alongside us." The By-Elec+ions. While there was a kind of wait-and-see alliance between Tories and Labor on the Common Market, there was bitter contest at the by-election polls. Buffeted by a series of by-election setbacks since March, the Tories last week suffered a stinging defeat by losing their supposedly "safe" Middlesbrough West seat to a Labor candidate--the first Tory seat that Labor has taken since the 1959 general election. And in the West Derbyshire by-election, the Tories barely squeaked through to victory as their percentage of the total vote plummeted from 1959's 61.3% to 36%.

Labor's victory and the Tories' slim win confirmed the new importance of the long moribund Liberal Party. In Middlesbrough West, the Liberals more than doubled their 1959 showing, taking most of their votes from the Tories to throw the victory to Labor, and in West Derbyshire they came from nowhere to within 1,220 votes of a staggering upset. As the Liberals' percentage of the vote has climbed to an average of 27% in the 28 by-elections they have contested since 1959, the Tories' percentage has slid 17%.

Main reason for the Tory slide is the discontent over the government's economic policies. Last summer the Tories clamped down on inflation by introducing a series of austerity measures that imposed tight installment curbs and boosted purchase taxes and bank borrowing rates. The "pay pause'' kept annual wage increases down to 2.5%, the rate by which Britain's productivity rises each year.

With voter reaction against austerity reaching danger levels, the Tories have begun to take the lid off the economy. The government eased credit restrictions, lowered interest rates, cut minimum installment down payments from 20% to 10%. Last week the Tories signaled the end of the "pay pause" when a government tribunal recommended a 4% wage hike for 485,000 civil servants.

The Tories' by-election setbacks do not mean that they will automatically lose the next general election, which will probably be held late in 1963, nor does turning on the inflationary tap decisively improve their chances of victory. The Conservatives' fate depends largely on the Common Market negotiations. Should the project fail or the price of admission be judged too high, the Tories may well find themselves turned out of office. But if Macmillan. Heath & Co. lead Britain into Europe on reasonable terms, everything else may well be forgiven and forgotten.

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