The End of the Affair

After 16 uncertain months of courting the Europeans, the end of the affair came almost as a relief to the British. "At least, now we know where we stand," said many Londoners, and the Economist was moved to caution its countrymen against "pretending, as we sentimentally do, that Dunkirks (and the Brussels banishment is no less) are good for us."

Official reaction was pained, undaunted, and properly free of recrimination. A more popular view was heard on BBC television, in a spleen-venting poem by Programs Editor Antony Jay, which must have startled some of old Auntie BBC's listeners.* Grimly, officials turned to alternative half-plans, designed to boost exports and seek new markets. They knew they now had to provide against the day in 1967 when the Common Market, which now imports more than $2 billion worth of British goods yearly, will be protected by a single, uniform tariff wall. At Whitehall's request, Christian Herter, President Kennedy's special representative for trade negotiations, hastened to London to discuss new tariff-cutting strategy between the two nations to increase Anglo-U.S. trade. Britain also started a round of conferences with its hapless friends in the moribund Outer Seven trade bloc, and on a flying trip to Rome, Harold Macmillan assured Italy's leaders of Britain's eagerness for continued cooperation with Europe.

A Lot to Do. Frankly, the Prime Minister warned his countrymen in a TV address that was relayed throughout Europe, Britain's exclusion from the Common Market leaves the country with "no easy, readymade alternatives." He concluded, with a chin's up firmness: "There's a lot we can do, and must do, and what we must do is to be creative and constructive, not vindictive."

Britain had been half waiting for the Common Market membership to galvanize its torpid economy and to bring inefficient British industries into line. Now the job had to be faced without such a spur and opportunity. To cut costs and make British goods competitive in world markets, argue government planners, the nation will have to raise its productivity, give new tax incentives to exporters, even resort to such politically risky measures as imposing tight ceilings on wage and dividend increases. Britain also lags in its capital investment rate, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald Maudling, shrewdly noting Charles de Gaulle's threat to curb U.S. investment in Europe, declared: "Let us make it quite clear that American investment and know-how are quite welcome in the United Kingdom."

A Suede Shoe Act. Politically, though a Daily Telegraph Gallup poll last week gave the Labor Party a record 13% lead over the Tories, the Common Market, and Macmillan's appeal to "work together," were the kind of things that traditionally rallied Britons behind their government. As if to demonstrate his composure, the Prime Minister showed up for a grueling House of Commons debate on the Nassau pact wearing a jauntily informal tweed suit and suede shoes. To Opposition cries that Britain cannot afford to replace its bomber force with a fleet of Polaris-armed nuclear submarines (estimated cost: $1 billion), Macmillan stoutly retorted that the British must continue to have their own nuclear deterrent if they are to "remain allies, not satellites" of the U.S.

With his own party united behind him, and Labor's ranks demoralized by Leader Hugh Gaitskell's death, Macmillan trounced a no-confidence vote 337-234. Then, in a supreme gesture of self-confidence, Harold Macmillan fielded an Opposition question about the possibility of "the door being reopened to entry into Europe" with the bland retort: "Does the honorable Member mean in this Parliament, or in the next Administration which I hope to form?"

* You gave the world the guillotine But still we don't know why the heck, You have to drop it on our neck. We're glad of what we did to you, At Agincourt and Waterloo. And now the Franco-Prussian War Is something we arc strongly for. So damn your food and damn your wines, Your twisted loaves and twisting vines. Your table d'hote, your a la carte, Your land, your history, your art. From now on you can keep the lot. Take every single thing you've got, Your land, your wealth, your men, your

dames.

Your dreams oj independent power, And dear old Konrad Adenauer, And stick them up your Eiffel Tower.

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