The Great Debate Begins

We have an opportunity to make history happen. It is in our hands now and no one else's. For 25 years we have been looking for something to get us going again. Now here it is. We have the chance for new greatness. We must take it.

With that Churchillian challenge, Prime Minister Edward Heath in a television speech last week took his case for entry into the Common Market to the British people. His approach, which was expressed more fully in a White Paper that he personally presented to the House of Commons, was a startling departure from the postwar British norm. Ever since their "finest hour" in the 1940s, the British have shied away from stirring rhetoric and appointments with history as if they were too drained by earlier exertions to cope with monumental actions or decisions.

By word and deed, Ted Heath now has forced upon his countrymen a truly historic decision. They can join the six-nation European Economic Community, renouncing a legacy of insularity that began in 1558 when England lost Calais to the French. Or, in the words of the White Paper, they can "stand aside from this great enterprise and seek to maintain our interests from the narrow --and narrowing--base we have known in recent years."

Publicity Campaign. Heath has organized an elaborate publicity campaign to persuade dubious British voters (57% antiMarket by the latest polls, 25% pro, the rest undecided) that joining Europe is Britain's best course. The Tory government will distribute 5,000,000 copies of a shorter version of the White Paper, and there will be a whirlwind speaking tour by Conservative leaders.

Later this month, Parliament will "take note" of the issue in a four-day debate. Not until late October, however, will the final debate and vote be held. By then, both major parties and the powerful trade unions will have threshed out the question during their annual conventions.

Neither the Tories nor the Laborites are anywhere near unity on joining the Six. Despite a hard core of right-wing Market foes within his Conservative Party, Heath has firmly declared that he will insist on strict party discipline when the final ballot is taken in Commons.

Serious Split. Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson faces a more serious split in the ranks. Roy Jenkins, Labor's No. 2 man, has pledged firm support for British membership in the Common Market. The strongest support for British membership came from the irrepressible Lord George-Brown, Foreign Minister during Wilson's unsuccessful 1967 attempt to join the Common Market. In a speech to M.P.s, George-Brown said that the Tory-negotiated entry terms "looked better than some of us dared hope a few months ago."

But a majority of the Labor Party is anti-Market--a sentiment shared by most trade unions. Wilson has said that his duty as leader is to keep the Labor Party united. In an abrasive televised reply to Heath last week, Wilson challenged the EEC entry terms as "too costly." But when the Labor Party meets to discuss the EEC issue later this week, he will still remain astraddle the fence. He may also allow a free vote on the EEC issue in Commons. Wilson is mindful of the tragic case of onetime Labor Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, who split the party in 1931 when he teamed up with the Tories in Britain's economic crisis. That action sent the Laborites into political oblivion for 14 years and ended his own career in ignominy.

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