Westminster Commentary
End of Term
By CHARLES FLETCHER-COOKE, MP THE Duke of Omni um went down to Gatherum foi a Saturday-to-Monday and n:ade his final list, hetped by the Duke of St. Bungay and perhaps Lady Glencora. To select a belted earl as Foreign Secretary would have advadtages: it would avoid the choice between some awkward contenders in the Lower House, and enable the Duke to pursue his personal communications with the Czar. Yet no one could say that the fourteenth earl, the hereditary pos- sessor of thcusands ot acres (albeit of beastly heather) was nothing but a messenger boy. A neat solution.
Preoccupied as he always was with these Russian communications when pacing the grounds of Gatherum, the Duke was not so remote from the hubbub of the Smoking Room that he did not anticipate some demur in that quarter. Mr. Ratler, MP and Mr. Bonteen, MP, had lived for weeks in a perfect fever of lists. On none of them had the belted earl so much as figured. When the rumour came to their ears they Were heard to say that the younger members would not stand for it, meaning thereby that they themselves did not like to be proved wrong.
Within twenty-four hours, Mr. Bonteen had come round. He was vastly pleased with the in- clusion in the list of his two friends, Mr. Turn- bull and Mr. Monk, those men of principle. The return of the prodigals however, came as no consolation to Mr. Ratler, who regarded them as a couple of disloyal troublemakers. Mr. Ratter sulked and shook his head and mutttered about the Constitution, but no one by now paid much attention to him, least of all the younger mem- bers. So they all went north as usual to shoot the birds, the Duke remained in absolute control --and now perhaps we can be allowed to forget Persona/id for at least six months.
Quite unnoticed amid all this, fifty-five Bills received the Royal Assent; a staggering load of legislation. Here are some of the titles : Adminis- tration of Justice, Adoption, Betting and Gaming, Building Societies, Caravan Sites and Control of Development, Charities, Civil Aviation, Clean Rivers, Indecency with Children, Mental Health (Scotland), Oil Burners, Payment of Wages, Pro- fessions Supplementary to Medicine, .Road Traffic and Roads Improvement. All of them have been thoroughly scrutinised in committee as, after nine long mornings on the Charities Bill, I'm here to testify. It :s a great record of reform. How has it been done? In the first place, there has been no filibustering. A been Opposition,' Crossman's ideal, could have wreckthe Programme at any time though with what object it is hard to imagine. When people grumble about the weakness of the Opposition, they. seem to think that Westminster is like a children's Party, with nothing between pandemonium and _a deathly silence. In fact the Parliamentary Labour Party has been as vigilant and vocal in ennimittee as it ever was during the heroic reign of the midnight hags eight years ago, and perhaps more so. Now that Mr. Wigg no longer thinks he can bring the Government down by shouting the odds on the Annual Army Act, be can and has concentrated his unusual abilities on improving rather than disorganising the run- ning of the country. It seems a pity that Mr. Cousins is going to put a stop to all that in October.
Secondly, the Chief Whip. When Amurath succeeds to Amurath, no one believe i that he can have quite the genius of his predecessor. The job IF a killer. An increased majority makes it worse. The velvet glove needs a deeper pile. Yet the moment has certainly produced the man. Some don should research into the ways of the Whip's Office and discover the secrets of this stable, which throws up winner after winner without any suspicion of doping After distributing the end-of-term prizes, I must now strike a sour note We delude ourselves if we fail to recognise that Britain's participation in Europe was buried during the debate on Mon- day, July 25. It was as decisive for the lifetime of this Parliament as was the Wolfenden fiasco a few weeks earlier.
For all their fine phrases, the front-bench speakers on both sides made it quite clear that they had decided to do nothing. Mr. Harold Wilson was the most negative of the four. Mr. John Hynd said truly,: 'One of the reasons why the Opposition have not jut down an Amend- ment advocating something More positive is that the Opposition is no more positive in the matter than the Government.' Yet the difficulty and the unpopularity of a sacrifice of sovereignty is such that it requires the active agreement of both front benches to bring it about. Apart from the various pressure groups that consider that they may be damaged—and of these the trade unions with their suspicion of the mobility of European labour may prove the strongest—there lies lurk- ing in the background the awful spectre of the patriotic cry. Englishmen 'put under' foreigners! No one party, however strong, dare face the risk that the other party will cash in on this emotion. 'Unthinkable,' says the President of the Board of Trade, that our agricultural policy should be at the mercy of Europe, regardless of the fact that our agricultural policy, fiscal policy, and any other policy he cares to name, is going to fall to the mercy of the great European economic unit whether we like it or not, just as surely as Irish economic policy is today totally dependent upon that of the United Kingdom. The only question is whether we can be more sensible than the Irish were, and get some voice and vote at the place of decision before it is too late.
Save for two Privy Councillors, all the back- bench speakers of all parties showed that they recognised this danger. A trio of Labour mem- bers from Sheffield were particularly far-sighted. How is this division between those who are or have been in the seats of power and those who have not to be explained? To state the dichotomy in these terms is to suggest the explanation. In the last resort the problem is one of the surrender of power, and no one who has tasted it win ever do that until the eleventh hour, if then.
The most we can hope for is that the Duke of Omnium. after visiting the German Emperor and the Emperor of the French, and after bagging a record number of birds, will take a long, deep look at our export figures and than start banging a few heads together. For it is upon him and him alone that our salvation rests.
The two Emperors will receive the Duke cor- dially, more cordially than their officials received his Ministers. But they are likely to demand too high a price for his adhesion. Then will come a time of great danger. Seeking with his subtle and dramatic mind a great stroke for our deliverance, the Duke may revert to the siren voices of his Russian communications, never far from his thoughts. How better to teach the Emperors a lesson than by reforming the Balance of Power! What more complementary economies than those of Britain and of Eastern Europe! And above all, where could one hope to find a bigger Dishing of the Whigs!
Please, Duke, on my knees, Duke, don't do it. Copybook heading number one runs: 'Never trust the Czar.' No spoon has been cast that is long enough for that operation. For the Czar is on the march. He does not care tuppence about the birds or the Whigs or the complementary economies. All he knows is that the United States lies out of action until next year and that mean- while the West looks weak, divided and on holi- day.
'Well, of course they're bigger than
ours
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