Part 25

Although they bewail a decline in the standards of courtesy since the war, the British are a polite race in the ordinary business of living. From the "'kew" of the bus conductor or the salesgirl to the "And now, sir, if you would kindly sign here" of the bank clerk they pad social intercourse with small courtesies. However, when an Englishman, especially an upper-class Englishman, desires to be rude he makes the late Mr. Vishinsky sound like a curate. But it is an English axiom that a gentleman is never unintentionally rude.

With some notable exceptions, the British are seldom loudly assertive. They will listen at great length to the opinions of others and, seemingly, are reluctant to put forward their own. This does not mean they agree, although foreigners in contact with British diplomats have often assumed this mistakenly. The British are always willing to see both sides of a question. But they are seldom ready to accept without prolonged and often violent argument any point of view other than their own.

They are a sentimental people but not an emotional one. Failure to distinguish this difference leads individuals and nations to misjudge the British.

Sentimentalists they are. Their eyes will glisten with tears as they listen to some elderly soprano with a voice long rusted by gin sing the music-hall songs of half a century ago. As Somerset Maugham has pointed out, they revere age. The present Conservative government and the Labor front bench are unusual in that they contain a large percentage of "young men"--that is, men in their fifties. Sir Winston Churchill did not truly win the affection of his countrymen until he was well into his seventies, when the old fierce antagonism of the working class was replaced with a grudging admiration for "the Old Man."

On his eightieth birthday the leaders of all the political parties in the House of Commons joined in a tribute that milked the tear ducts of the nation. When, six months later, Sir Winston retired as Prime Minister there was another outbreak of bathos. But when two months after that a new House of Commons was sworn under the leadership of Sir Anthony Eden, some of the young Conservative Members of Parliament who owed their offices and, in a wider sense, their lives to Sir Winston pushed ahead of him in the jostling throng making for the Speaker's bench. It was left to Clement Attlee, his dry, thoughtful foe in so many political battles, to lead Sir Winston up ahead of his eager juniors. Sentiment, yes; emotion, no.

For many reasons the British as a people are anxious to find formulas that will guide them out of international crises, to avoid the final arbitration of war. The appeasement of Neville Chamberlain and his associates in the late thirties was in keeping with this historically developed tendency. One has only to read what Pitt endured from Napoleon to preserve peace, or the sound, sensible reasons that Charles James Fox offered against the continuation of the war with the First Empire, to understand that this island people goes to war only with the utmost reluctance.

One reason is that in 1800, in 1939, and in the middle of the twentieth century the British have lived by trade. Wars, large or small, hurt trade. Prolonged hostility toward a foreign nation--Franco's Spain, Lenin's Russia, or Mao's China--reduces Britain's share in a market or cuts off raw materials needed for production at home. In this respect we cannot judge Britain by the continental standards of China or Russia or the United States. This is an island power.

Because they are polite, because they are easily moved to sentimental tears--Sir Winston Churchill and Hugh Gaitskell, who otherwise have few traits in common, both cry easily--because they are diffident, because they will twist and turn in their efforts to avoid war (although at times, for reasons of policy, they will present the impression of being very ready for war), the British have given the outside world a false idea of their character. Beneath all this is toughness of mind.

I recall landing in England in April of 1939. It was then obvious to almost everyone in Europe that war was on the way. On the way to London I talked to a fellow passenger, a man in his late twenties who had three small children and who lived in London. "The next time Hitler goes for anyone, we'll go for him," he said casually, almost apologetically. He conceded that the war would be long, that Britain would take some hard knocks, that going into the Navy and leaving his wife and children would be tedious. But he had made up his mind that there was no other course. The thing had to be done.

After the war--and, indeed, during it--many Americans ridiculed the British reaction to the war. They found exaggerated the stories of the cockney who said: "'arf a mo', Adolph" while he lit his pipe, the women who shouted "God bless you" to Winston Churchill when he visited the smoking ruins of their homes. This was a serious error. In those days, the most critical that had ever come upon them, the British acted in a manner which made one proud to be a member of the same species.

But that was a decade and a half ago, and the circumstances were extraordinary. Nations change--compare the heroic France of Verdun with the indulgent, faithless France of 1940. Have war and sacrifice, austerity and prolonged crisis weakened Britain's mental toughness? I think not.

The prolonged conflict between employers and employed and among the great trade unions is the most serious friction within British society. Its critical effect upon Britain's present and future has been emphasized. I do not believe, however, that in the long run the men on both sides who hold their opinions so stoutly will be unable to compromise their difficulties in the face of the continuing national emergency. In the twenties and thirties such great convulsions in industrial relations as the General Strike were harmful but not catastrophic. The British economy was buttressed by overseas investments and by the possession of established export markets throughout the world. That situation no longer exists. Anything approaching the severity of a General Strike could break Britain. In the end, I believe, the extremists of both sides will realize this and will find in themselves the mental toughness--for it takes a hard mind to accept an armistice short of final victory in exchange for the promise of future benefits--to compose their differences and move toward a national rather than a partisan solution.

Of course, Britain's difficulties are not confined to the home front. But I have consciously emphasized the importance of her internal problems because they reflect the nation's present position in the world and help to determine how Britain will act abroad.

Just as the last decade has seen drastic changes in industrial direction in Britain, so the coming decade will witness changes equally great in the development of Britain's international position. Britain cannot, and would not if she could, build a new empire. But it is evident that the country intends to replace the monolithic concept of power with a horizontal concept. We will see, I am confident, a steady growth of Britain's ties with Europe and the establishment of Britain as a link between the Commonwealth nations and Europe.

The British have fertile political imaginations. They are adroit in discussion and debate. After years of uncertainty a number of politicians of great influence are moving toward closer association with Europe. At the moment the Grand Design (a rather grandiose title for the British to use) is endorsed by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, Defense Minister Duncan Sandys, Chancellor of the Exchequer Peter Thorneycroft, and President of the Board of Trade Sir David Eccles. Given a change in government, I think we can assume that the idea would be supported, although enthusiasm would be somewhat less great, by the leaders of the Labor Party.

What is the Grand Design? It is the concept of a Europe cooperating in fields of economy and politico-military strategy. It goes beyond the Europe of Western European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance and thinks in terms of a general confederation into which the Scandinavian and Mediterranean nations would be drawn. Existing organizations such as the Organization for European Economic Co-operation would be expanded to include new members. At the top would be a General Assembly elected by the parliaments of each member nation. There would be a general pooling of military research and development.

The establishment of such an association of European states is at least ten years in the future. The British do not think it should be hurried. Careful, rather pragmatic, they advocate methodical progress in which new international organizations could be tested against actual conditions. Those that work will survive. Those that do not will disappear.

Is the Grand Design a new name for a third force to be interposed between the Sino-Russian bloc in the East and the United States in the West? The British say emphatically not. They see it as a method of strengthening the Atlantic Alliance by uniting Europe. Naturally, they believe their flair for diplomacy and politics, their industrial strength, and, not least, Europe's distaste for German leadership will give them an important role in the new Europe. Obviously, that role, as spokesman for both a united Europe and a global Commonwealth, will be more suitable and, above all, more practical in the world of 1960 than the obsolete concept of Empire.

The development of British action toward the accomplishment of the Grand Design will be accompanied by the gradual transformation of what is left of the Empire into the Commonwealth. Ghana, established as an independent member of the Commonwealth in March 1957, will be followed by Singapore, Malaya, Nigeria, Rhodesia, and many more. Since 1945 Britain has given self-government and independence to well over 500,000,000 souls (at the same time the Soviet Union was enslaving 100,000,000) and the process is not over. Certainly there have been shortcomings and failures--Cyprus is one. But it seems to me that a people prepared on one hand to abdicate power and turn that power over to others and at the same time ready to conceive and develop a new plan for Europe is showing an elasticity and toughness of mind the rest of the world might envy. We are not attending the birth of a new British Empire but watching the advent of a new position for Britain in the world--one less spectacularly powerful than the old, but important nonetheless. The speed of its development is inextricably connected with an expanding and prosperous economy at home.

Bravery is associated with tough-mindedness. But bravery is not the exclusive possession of any nation. The British are a courageous people, certainly. As certain classes are apt to combine courage with the national habit of understatement, the bravery of the British has an attraction not evident in the somewhat self-conscious heroism of the Prussians. Of course, it can be argued that the apparent unwillingness of the British to exploit the fact that Pilot Officer Z brought his plane back from Berlin on one engine or that Sergeant Major Y killed thirty Germans before his morning tea is a form of national advertisement more subtle and sure than that obtained by battalions of public-relations officers.

Although they revere regimental traditions, the British seldom express their reverence openly. In war they are able to maintain an attitude of humorous objectivity. During the fighting on the retreat to Dunkirk I encountered two Guards officers roaring with laughter. They had learned, they said, that the popular newspapers in London had reported that the nickname of the Commander in Chief, General the Viscount Gort, was "Tiger." "My dear chap," said one, "in the Brigade [of Guards] we've always called him 'Fat Boy.'"

Coupled with tough-mindedness is another positive characteristic: love of justice. This may be disputed by the Irish, the Indians, the Cypriotes. But it is true that in all the great international crises in which Britain has been involved, from the War of Independence onward, there has been a strong, sometimes violent opposition to the course that the government of the day pursued. Beginning with Burke, the Americans, the Irish, the Indians, the Cypriotes have had defenders in the House of Commons, on political platforms, and in the press.

This is not the result of partisan politics, although naturally that helps. Englishmen did not assail the Black and Tans in Ireland because of love for Irishmen. Indian independence did not find a redoubtable champion in Earl Mountbatten because of his particular fondness for Indians. The impulse was the belief that justice or, to put it better, right must be done.

It is because a large section of the nation believes this implicitly that the British over the years have been able to make those gestures of conciliation and surrenders of power which will ever adorn her history: the settlement with the Boers after the South African war, the withdrawal from India, the treaty with Ireland.

The British people suffered greatly during both world wars. Yet any ferocious outbreak of hatred against "the Huns" was promptly answered by leaders who even in the midst of war understood that the right they were fighting to preserve must be preserved at home as well as abroad.

It was this belief in justice, a justice that served all, incorruptible and austere, which enabled a comparative handful of Britons to rule the Indian subcontinent for so long. It was this belief in justice, interpreted in terms of social evolution, which moved the reformers of the present century in the direction of the Welfare State. The British concept of justice is inseparably bound to the strong reformist element within the British people. As long as that element flourishes, as it does today, we can expect that British society will continue to change and develop.

Tough-mindedness, a quiet form of bravery, a love of justice; what else is there? One characteristic I have noted earlier: a living belief in the democratic process. The British know the world too well to believe that this delicate and complex system of government can immediately be imposed upon any people. They themselves, as they will admit, have trouble making it work. But neither fascism nor communism has ever made headway. Any political expert can provide long and involved reasons for this. I prefer the obvious one: the British believe in democracy, they believe in people. Long ago, as a young man entering politics, Winston Churchill, grandson of a Duke of Marlborough, product of Harrow and a fashionable Hussar regiment, adopted as his own a motto of his father's. It was simply: "Trust the People."

The actual practice of democracy over a long period of years can be successful only if it is accompanied by a wide measure of tolerance. Despite all their vicissitudes, this virtue the British preserve in full measure. The British disliked Senator McCarthy because they thought he was intolerant; they were themselves slightly intolerant, or at least ill-informed, about the causes that inflated the Senator. In their own nation the British tolerate almost any sort of political behavior as long as it is conducted within the framework of the law. Communists, fascists, isolationists, internationalists all may speak their pieces and make as much noise as they wish. There will always be a policeman on hand to quell a disturbance.

Toleration of the public exposition of political beliefs that aim at the overthrow of the established parliamentary government implies a stout belief in the supremacy of democracy over other forms of government. Even in their unbuttoned moments, British politicians will seldom agree to the thesis, lately put about by many eminent men, that complete suffrage prevents a government from acting with decision in an emergency.

Early in 1951 I talked late one night with a British diplomat about the rearmament of Germany. He was a man of wide experience, aristocratic bearing, and austere manner. During our conversation I suggested that the British, who had suffered greatly at the hands of the Germans in two world wars, would be most reluctant to agree to the rearmament of their foes and that the ensuing political situation would be made to order for the extremists of the Labor Party.

"I don't think so," he replied. "Our people fumble and get lost at times, but they come back on the right track. They'll argue it out in their minds or in the pubs. They'll reject extreme measures. The Labor Party and the great mass of its followers will be with the government. The people, you know, are wiser than anyone thinks they are."

Tolerance is coupled with kindness. British kindness is apt to be abstract, impersonal. There is the gruff, unspoken kindness of the members of the working class to one another in times of death. The wealthy wearer of the Old School Tie will go to great lengths to succor a friend fallen on evil days. He will also do his best to provide for an old employee or to rehabilitate an old soldier, once under his command, who is in trouble with the police. This is part of the sense of responsibility inculcated by the public school. Even in the Welfare State it persists. "I've got to drive out into Essex this afternoon," a friend said, "and see what I can do for a sergeant that served with me. Bloody fool can't hold onto a farthing and makes a pest of himself with the local authorities. Damn good sergeant, though."

I remembered another sergeant in Germany. He was a man who had felt the war deeply, losing a brother, a wife, and a daughter to German bombs. When it was all over and the British Army rested on its arms in northern Germany he installed his men in the best billets the neighboring village could provide. The Germans were left to shift for themselves in the barns and outbuildings. Within a week, he told me, the situation was reversed. The Germans were back in their homes. The soldiers were sleeping in the barns. I told a German about it afterward. "Yes," he said, "the British would do that. We wouldn't, not after a long war. They are a decent people."

It is upon such characteristics, a basic, stubborn toughness of mind, bravery, tolerance, a belief in democracy, kindness, decency, that British hopes for the future rest.

Any objective study of Britain must accept that, although there has been a decline in power at home and abroad, the national economy has recovered remarkably and the physical basis of the economy has improved. Far from being decadent, idle, and unambitious, the nation as a whole is pulsing with life. The energy may be diffused into paths that fail to contribute directly to the general betterment of the nation. But it is there, and the possession of the important national characteristics mentioned above promises that eventually this energy will be directed to the national good.

In the end we return to our starting-point. Although there is a cleavage between the working class and the middle class, it is not deep enough to smash the essential unity of the people. No great gulfs of geography, race, or religion separate them. The differences between employer and employed are serious. But there is no basic difference, nurtured by the hatred of a century and a half, as there is between revolutionary France and conservative France. The constant change in the character of the classes, the steady movement of individuals and groups up the economic and social ladders insures that this will never develop. From the outside the society seems stratified. On the inside one sees, hears, feels ceaseless movement of a flexible society.

The long contest with Russia has induced Americans to follow Napoleon's advice and think about big battalions. But national power and influence should not be measured solely in terms of material strength. By that standard the England of the first Elizabeth and the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century would have been blotted out by the might of Spain just as our own struggling colonies would have been overcome by the weight of England. The character of a people counts.

So it is with Britain. The ability of the British people to survive cannot be measured only in terms of steel production. The presence of grave economic and social problems should not be accepted as proof that they cannot be solved by people of imagination and ability. The existence of external class differences should not blind observers to the basic unity of political thought.

It is natural that in their present position Britons are far more aware of the ties that bind them to the United States, ties that include a common language, much common history, dangers shared, and enemies overcome, than the people of the United States are aware of the ties that bind them to Britain. But Americans must guard against the easy assumption that, because Britain is weaker than she was half a century ago, because she has changed rapidly and will change further, Britain and the British are "through."

It is often said in Washington that the leading politicians of the Republican and Democratic parties and the chief permanent officials of the Treasury, State Department, and other departments did not recognize the extent to which Britain had been weakened by World War II. It is hard to understand why this should have been so. The sacrifice in blood was written large on a hundred battlefields. The cost in treasure was clearly outlined in the financial position of the United Kingdom in 1945.

Americans should not fear political differences between the United States and the United Kingdom on foreign policies. As long as the British are worth their salt as allies they will think, and occasionally act, independently. What would be dangerous to the future of the alliance in a period of crisis would be the growth in Britain of a belief that Britain's problems, internal or international, can be blamed on the United States. A similar belief about Britain existed in France in 1940. Verdun occupied the position in French minds that the Battle of Britain does today in some British minds, that of a great heroic national effort that exhausted the nation and left it prey to the post-war appetite of its supposed friend and ally. If this concept were to be accepted by any sizable proportion of the British people, then the alliance would be in danger. The possibility that this will happen is slight. The British retain confidence in themselves, undaunted by the changes in the world.

The United States can help sustain this confidence. It is difficult to see why the political, industrial, and social accomplishments of the British since 1945 are so casually ignored in the United States and why Americans accept so readily the idea that Britain's day is done.

Certainly many Americans criticized the establishment of the Welfare State. Certainly ignorance led many to confuse socialism in Britain with communism in the Soviet Union. Certainly the achievement of power by the great trade unions has alienated those Americans who still decry the powerful position of organized labor in the modern democratic state.