The British seldom tire of complaining about the weather. This year they have good reason to grumble about it. After an unusually harsh winter even the spring is cloudy, dark, damp and depressing. But one thing must be said for the weather: it is almost tailored to suit the present mood of the politically conscious section of the people which is one of confusion and despair. As is their wont they are trying to put a bold front but they are just unable to carry it off. They themselves remain unconvinced.
Like the Indians, the British take pleasure in self-criticism. But the malaise is deeper than the desire to indulge in this innocent pastime. The problem is one of determining Britain’s place in the world and persuading others to allot her this place. Also this is not only a problem of adjusting to reduced circumstances. It is one of reconciling the irreconcilables.
Wrong Decision
The decision last year to seek admission to the European Economic Community and the difficulties that have come to surface now sum up one aspect of this dilemma. The application for membership of the Community was an open confession that the earlier decision to stay away from the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Rome was wrong. The obstacles that are being encountered now indicate that the British government was unable to take stock of the fundamental changes that have taken place in Europe. Once again Whitehall is depending on the Whitehouse to help it out.
The decision not to participate in the Rome Treaty negotiations was based on a miscalculation of the economic strength of the principal participants – West Germany, France and Italy – and a belief that all that was required was simply the lowering of tariff barriers which was sought to be achieved through the European Free Trade Association. This miscalculation was so complete that the British government even threatened the European Economic Community with reprisals. It simply did not appreciate the strength of the movement for greater European unity. The character of the forces behind the movement like the Roman Catholic Church and big business is a separate question because it was not on these grounds that Britain decided to stay aloof.
There is considerable strength in the Liberal party’s case that at that stage it would have been relatively easier to seek and secure accommodation for both the Commonwealth and British agriculture. Also British participation in the beginning itself could have helped to prevent the European Economic Community from assuming its present character which has been shaped by the marriage between German industry and French agriculture on the one hand (a point clearly brought out by Walter Lippmann probably for the first time, and the Bonn-Paris political axis on the other). With Britain would have come some other EFTA countries and lire community would have been much larger and thus less inclined to look inwards.
When the British government finally decided to join the Community it did not take into account the fact of this Franco-German concord. Till recently, it behaved as if the difficulties were purely economic-interest of the Commonwealth and EFTA partners and agriculturists at home – which could be overcome through patient negotiations. President de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer have now given it a rude shock. One has only to peruse the British press to know how rude the shock has been.
The altitude of the British press which faithfully reflects the government’s sense of despair is illustrated by the main article in last week’s Economist. It said “a spectre is haunting Europe again: not Marx’s this time, but the spectre of two authoritarian old men trying to run Europe in a way that means the exclusion of Britain. This apparition is not wholly a figment of the imagination of people like Lord Beaverbrook, who are disposed to think that bogey men begin at Calais”. All other papers speak in the same refrain.
De Gaulle
Even before de Gaulle’s celebrated press conference of last week when he spoke passionately of European unity being built on the basis of Franco-German axis, it was known that he was opposed to Britain’s entry into the Common Market. It was believed here that he disliked Britain’s “special relations” with America which gave her access to the latter’s nuclear secrets and that he felt that once member of the community, Britain would challenge France’s leadership.
During my visit to Paris last week, I discovered that the distrust ran deeper than that. It appeared that at least in certain sections Britain was blamed for the troubles between France and Germany in the past. What the British historians have described as the theory of balance of power was described in plainer terms in Paris as the policy of playing off Germany against France and vice-versa. The inference is drawn that once Britain is allowed into the Community she will seek to play the same role once again and this time with American support. This view is not shared in all circles but its exponents hold key positions.
Earlier Adenauer had said that Britain would have to choose between Europe and the Commonwealth. He made this statement in last March in a newspaper interview. Recently he suggested a way out – associate status for Britain in the Community. This has hurt Britain’s sense of self-respect. There is a widespread feeling that Adenauer shares de Gaulle’s view of Britain’s role in the past. Also he is unhappy about Britain’s support to the American policy of seeking negotiated settlements of Berlin and other issues with the Soviet Union.
It is no secret that Whitehall is depending on the Whitehouse to soften the resistance of Adenauer who it believes is still more amenable to pressure from Washington than de Gaulle. President Kennedy is willing to oblige because it fits into his own concept of United Europe with Britain in it being tied irrevocably to America in a grand military and economic alliance.
Paradoxical
It is a paradoxical situation. America is even more determined than the members of the European Economic Community to sec the end of the Commonwealth preferential trade and ensure the exclusion of Austria, Switzerland and Sweden. The Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, himself made this plain in Canberra earlier this month, even though Australia would be severely hit by the end of the preferential treatment she enjoys in the British market. The middleman is thus more exacting in his terms than the principals.
It has been made to appear that in trying to safeguard the Commonwealth trade, Britain is acting selflessly only in the interest of the less well-placed members. The truth is that Britain’s own export trade to these countries would be threatened if it did not enjoy preferential treatment in the Commonwealth markets. The prospects of a sharp rise in exports to Europe is something that is in the lap of the future; a major drop in the exports to Commonwealth countries is a certainty. What she might gain on the swings she would lose on the round-abouts.
The same sense of confusion permeates the other fields. As is known, Britain has opted out of the field of producing missiles because of the prohibitive cost of the programme. This makes her increasingly dependent on the United States not only for her protection against a highly improbable aggression, but also for maintaining the fiction of being an independent nuclear power. The bomber force is a wasting asset but the controversy arising from its existence is threatening to disrupt the Labour party. Worse, it prevents Britain from playing the coveted role of the honest broker between Washington and Moscow.
The Times of India, 26 May 1962