Political Commentary
BY CHARLES CURRAN DURING the past fortnight Sir Anthony Eden has regained every yard of the ground he has lost inside the Tory Party during the past year. He has established a hold on Tory loyalties firmer and warmer than he has ever had before. So far he has acted about Suez in complete con- formity with One of the basic tenets of Toryism—and by doing so he has secured the support of the great majority of British citizens. For the party this result is seen as a vindication as well as an achievement.
The basic tenet can be simply stated. It is that the policy of a British Government must be directed to one primary end : the protection of the nation's security and welfare. It is not the business of a British Government to turn missionary, to become either the advocate or the enemy of any abstract theory. But when British interests are endangered by the actions of a foreign power the plea that those actions are based on some political abstraction, and are justifiable in terms of it, must be brushed aside.
President Nasser can, and does, justify himself by appealing to those mighty abstractions Self-Determination and Majority Rule. He can, and does, argue that he voices his people's will; that in an election where every man over eighteen was com- pelled to vote he got a 99.9 per cent. majority. If Self- Determination and Majority Rule are absolutes, there is no gainsaying Nasser's right to nationalise the Suez Canal.
But Toryism does not recognise abstractions as absolutes. It will tolerate no challenge to the security and welfare of the British nation—no matter what dogma from the political dic- tionary the challenger may cite in his favour. It will resist; and if necessary it will use force. For it puts survival first.
Now there is, or ought to be, nothing remarkable in the spectacle of a Tory Government affirming this tenet. But to see the Socialist leadership endorsing it is remarkable indeed. Mr. Gaitskell has displayed courage as well as realism. For he has exposed himself to attack from all the ideologues of the Left. The first blast came from Mr. Aneurin Bevan's Tribune, which proclaimed, 'Mr. Gaitskell's reactions to the crisis were those of the most orthodox Tory.' Further blasts have followed —amOng them, surprisingly, one from Mr. Denis Healey. The attack may well gather force; the unfortunate delay in calling the Suez Conference gives time for cold feet and second thoughts. It must be studied carefully. For it spotlights a dilemma at the heart of British Socialism; one that will have to be resolved during the next few years—if not over Suez, then over the next challenge of the same kind (there is more than one on the horizon).
The nature of the Socialist dilemma has been clearly stated by Lord Attlee. Examining a new pamphlet by Professor G. D. H. Cole in the Spectator last week, Lord Attlee wrote : 'It would have been interesting if Professor Cole had discussed from the Socialist standpoint what are the rights of particular peoples to the whole of the resources of the region which they happen to inhabit. Should, for instance, the oil resources of Arabia belong solely to the Arabs?'
In one form or another that question has haunted Socialism ever since it entered British politics. The first time the ghost walked was in 1900, the year that the Labour Party was born —the year of the Boer War. The Boer republics claimed then, as Nasser does now, that they had a right to do what they liked with their own territory; that the decision whether or not the gold of South Africa should be extracted, and on what terms, was one for them and them only. The Tory Government of 1900 refused to agree.
With one conspicuous and significant exception, the British Socialist leadership then hailed Self-Determination and sided with the Boers. The Socialist Keir Hardie and the Socialist Hyndman joined hands with the Radicals, who ranged from Lloyd George to G. K. Chesterton, in opposing the war. But one voice was raised against Self-Determination—the voice of the Fabian Society. Its opinion was stated by Mr. Bernard Shaw in that remarkable tract Fabianism and the Empire; and here is Mr. Shaw's central sentence : 'The notion that a nation has a right to do what it pleases with its own territory, without reference to the interests of the rest of the world, is no more tenable from the international Socialist point of view—that is, from the point of view of the twentieth century—than the notion that the landlord has the right to do what he likes with his estate without reference to the interests of his neighboufs.'
Mr. Shaw and the Fabians were in a minority then among their fellow-Socialists. But in fifty-six years, it must be con- ceded, the Socialist leaders have learned something. Mr. Gait- skell and Mr. Morrison today talk very differently from Keir Hardie and Hyndman. Yet although the leadership has pro- gressed, the Socialist movement still feels itself nonplussed before the dilemma'.
For Toryism there is no dilemma. The hard fact is that if Self-Determination Unlimited becomes the rule in Egypt, then a large number of people in Great Britain may have to choose between emigration and starvation. The British people cannot have full employment and three meals a day unless they are prepared, in certain circumstances, to deny that Self-Deter- mination is a political absolute throughout the world.
On that issue, however it is presented, the electorate will support the Tory Party because it must. For Toryism puts survival before ideology. And Socialism must follow suit, how- ever unwillingly, if it is to remain a governing party.
Even though Suez can be settled on a basis of international control over the Canal, the dilemma remains. (Whether it is really practicable, as some Socialists are now saying, to insti- tute international control of international waterways, seems highly debatable. Would Britain really cede Gibraltar, St. George's Channel and the Straits of Dover to a world autho- rity? And would the United States surrender Panama? The American answer on Panama would probably be not diplo- matic but derisory; it would come not from the State Depart- ment but straight from the Bronx.) But Suez is simply a par- ticular example of the recurring general problem : can Britain allow a political theory to be expressed anywhere in the world in terms that will endanger our security and our welfare?
It will be interesting indeed to see whether any of Mr. Gaitskell's Socialist critics are ready to say, 'Let justice be done to Self-Determination even though the British standard of life falls.' I will be ready to salute their sincerity when—and only when—they resolve their dilemma by proclaiming, 'Rather than challenge the universality of Self-Determination and Majority Rule, the British people must put up with less work and less food. Dogmas first, and survival second.'
For they cannot expect to have it both ways indefinitely. Even though the dilemma can be avoided by a compromise in ninety-nine cases, the hundredth case will come; and when it does Toryism is the only answer that the British people will find either practicable or tolerable. Suez may not be the hundredth case. But even if it is not, President Nasser deserves —though I doubt if he will get them—the warm thanks of the Tory Party. For he has exposed the fact that when Britain's vital interests are endangered Toryism speaks for Britain.
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