A Spectator's Notebook
EVER SINCE SUEZ, Ministers and Government back-benchers have been telling us with some monotony that this country was not and would not be a satellite of America. So. much for theory; what about prac- tice? It is instructive to compare the Government's behaviour over the present Far Eastern crisis with its behaviour during the last crisis in 1955. Then, Sir Anthony Eden said quite Plainly that 'the offshore islands have always been regarded by us as part of China.' This time, although Mr. Diefenbaker has spoken out and suggested that the good offices•of the UN should be invoked, the British Government has merely said that it 'fully shares the concern of the Government of the United States at any attempt to impose territorial changes by use of force.' I realise of course that the Government needs American help to retrieve the blunder it made in sending troops to Jordan, but its change of attitude between 1955 and 1958 is certainly not in the direction of independence. Presumably it is an application of Mr. Macmillan's dictum about Anglo-American relations: 'we would rather be wrong together than right separately.'
Previous page
