Naught for Smith's comfort
Ferdinand Mount
Not much has been heard in recent years of Mr Jeremy Cardhouse. He seems to have passed from the scene as irrevocably as the flapper or the Gibson Girl. To younger readers even the name may be unfamiliar. Jeremy Cardhouse was the character invented by Peter Simple in Daily Telegraph to epitomise the progressive Tory MP who rode the crest of every trend and specialised in speaking up for African freedom-fighters while himself engaged in Something Nasty in the City. He was one of those unpleasant young men on the make who, by pushing pieces of paper about, piled up a remarkably large sum of money in a remarkably short time and once played chess with Mr Jim Slater. tie wore striped shirts.
The conventional view is that crashes and slumps have obliterated the Cardhouse world. His own unit trust or go-go fund collapsed; the accountants' reports were distinctly qualified; he lost his seat in 1970, perhaps his wife too; the house in South Ken had to go; the man is now growing vegetables organically in the Welsh Marches, sadder and wiser arid wearing jeans. In the absence of his ilk, the Tory Party has swung sharply to the Right and is now controlled by an old-fashioned mixture of provincial industrialists and free-market ideologues. Not since Bonar Law, we are told, have the Conservatives been so far to the Right. Law, like Genghiz Khan, has acquired a reputation for Right-wingness which may be historically dubious. I rather doubt whether Genghiz Khan would in practice have got on the short list in most Tory constituencies. 'Tell me, Mr Khan, if selected, do you intend to live in the constituency? And what are your views on proportional representation?' That at any rate is the myth and there is a lot less in it than is generally supposed. The last few weeks have shown that, as far as Africa is concerned, the Conservative Party ha,s moved scarcely an inch from the position of Harold Macmillan and lain Macleod. The party remains effectively 'liberal' on colonial policy. Some younger Tory MPs even smile when Labour roughnecks guffaw at the fruity voices of older imperialists like Mr Julian Amery; talk of protecting the sea-routes round the Cape seems to belong to another world. In the arithmetic of realpolitik even the preservation of the British investments in South Africa is now only one factor to be balanced against others, such as the British stake in black Africa and the competition for political influence with the Russians. The massacre of white missionaries at Vumba calls forth horror and disgust. There must be a pause for rage and mourning. But neither that particular massacre nor the rise in the general level of bloodshed has altered the essential direction of Conservative policy.
This continuity has startled many Tory MPs who had themselves begun to believe in the myth of a full turn to the Right. One Macleodite MP went into last week's meeting of backbenchers expecting to be nearly lynched and was surprised to find that his views were as courteously heard as those of Mr Patrick Wall. Another said: 'I'm so glad that Margaret hasn't fallen for this internal settlement. Somebody seems to have convinced her that Nkomo's going to win.'
That is putting it too sharply. But the Tories have been extremely careful not to
commit themselves wholeheartedly to the internal settlement. Privately and publicly, Mr Davies and Mrs Thatcher argue with a good deal of fervour that if Dr Owen had shown more enthusiasm for the internal settlement, it would not now be in such trouble. But they stop well short of offering anything concrete to shore up Mr Smith and Bishop Muzorewa — such as an end to sanctions.
What the Conservatives are really up to is quite different. Mrs Thatcher has sent Mr Davies to Central Africa to show willing.
He talks to everyone — the internal settlers, the Patriotic Front, the so-called front line states, but unfortunately he has nothing new to say and no promises to offer. The Tories remain bound by the Six Principles, favour no party above any other, and are concerned only to see that any settlement which does emerge respects these prin ciples. In other words, they too are sitting on the fence, backing both horses and waiting to see which way the cat jumps.
The difference between the government and the opposition is thus reduced to a difference of language and not of policy. It is the gross inadequacy of Dr Owen's response that rankles. Nobody disputes that it may be necessary to deal with 'thugs' or 'murderers'; it is important only that we should make it clear that we recognise them as such. The politician is sometimes obliged to sacrifice morality to expediency — or to dery himself the enjoyment of moral means in the pursuit of moral ends; but it is part of his duty as a politician to make it clear to his electorate that he is aware that this is what he is doing. Otherwise he demeans us by proxy.
Mrs Thatcher is bound not only by twelve years of bipartisan policy and the Pearce Commission but by her own party difficulties. She does not want to open up another front in the Tory civil war. Her foreign affairs spokesmen — John Davies, Douglas Hurd and Richard Luce — all belong to the liberal wing; so do half the shadow cabinet. There is Peter Walker. There is T*d H**th. No, on second or even on first thoughts, there is nothing to be said for making trouble. If Mrs Thatcher wants to carry through a radical economic policy she will have to concentrate all her energies on that front.
In any case the uncertainty about what is or should be the outcome in Rhodesia is genuine. Among the hard-boiled, the conventional view is that tough eggs always win. Lenin beats Kerensky every time. The p:ople who do the fighting in the end will do the governing. It is best to side with the faction that has the most guns, both to cut short the agony and to secure a piece of the action after the war is over. And yet there do seem to be exceptions to this rule. In Portugal, Mario Soares looks like the softest of eggs, yet his democratic regime has gradually strengthened its political hold, despite its apparently crippling economic weakness. The emergence of the Irish Free State suggests another possibility — that the moderates can win and eventually absorb some of the extremist leaders.
If the Army and the civil service are competent and cohesive enough, it may be possible for the less warlike political faction to gain and keep control provided that it has the votes. What matters is whether the apparatus of state is fully developed to the most modern standards and whether its effectiveness survives the shock of transition. But until legitimised by elections, the internal settlement remains an entirely rootless thing. The idea that it could be expected speedily to accumulate the authority to persuade guerillas to lay down their arms in large numbers was naive. It was in fact likely to intensify the fighting — as it has done; for if the settlement is to be shaken, it is more easily shaken before the elections and not after. The test of its effectiveness therefore is not whether it can bring about a ceasefire but whether it demonstrates visible progress towards the abolition of discrimination and the organising of mass suffrage. The prime criterion is civil and not military. And on that criterion it might even be helpful that the Conservatives' response should be scarcely less tepid than the British goverrment's. For if Britain — and a fortiori the United States — had immediately and wholeheartedly approved the internal settlement, there would have been even less pressure on Mr Smith to give swift and genuine effect to it. Feet would have been dragged even more draggily. The repeal of discriminatory laws would have slowed from a trickle to a dribble. The sceptical response from the outside world has forced the internal settlers to develop their own momentum. Who would ever have expected to hear white Rhodesian MPs chivvying Smithy to hurry up with the repeal of the segregation laws? This is not to say that the internal settlement will work this way; but it would have less chance of working any other way.
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