11 JANUARY 1957, Page 7

Portrait of the Week

Tim Eisenhower doctrine which should have spread its healing wings over the week's news does not appear to have had quite the desired effect, perhaps because some people have been unkind enough to try to tie it downs President Eisenhower's private exposi- tion of it to Congressional leaders and his formal ac- count to a joint session of both Houses of Congress dis- closed the following points: that the draft declaration which Congress is in- vited to pass provides for military and economic co-operation in the Middle East, that the Presi- dent is asking for permission to use $200 million a year at his own discretion on the second part of the project and to use American forces at his own discretion on the first (providing they are asked for by some nation beleaguered by Com- munism and would not, by intervention, be con- travening the UN Charter). Numerous attempts to clarify the crucial points in this document have been occupying Congressmen ever since; Mr. Dulles has been put to the question and been induced to say. that Mr. Eisenhower did not intend to use his powers to prevent a Communist coup but only to react to one; he would not, however, say what the President understood by the phrase 'the general area of the Middle East,' and the inherent improbability of Mr. Eisenhower meaning what he said about American interven- tion being subject to the 'overriding authority' of the Security Council has also caused some heart- searching. Reactions elsewhere have ranged from dubious in the Middle East to hostile in India and violent in Russia. Other Western countries have been disappointed by lack of reference to Israel or to the Canal.

This omission has been emphasised by Egyp- tian intransigence during the week. The first salvo Was fired by Colonel Nasser, who said that British and French ships would not be allowed through the Canal until Israel had evacuated the Gaza strip (which at present she has evidently no inten- tion of doing). The British reply was that any discrimination would break not only the 1888 Convention but also promises given by the Egyp- tian Government to Mr. Hammarskjlild before British and French forces left Port Said. The happy circumstance that the British, French and Egyptian Foreign Secretaries happened to be in New York at the same time might have been helpful but for the Egyptian refusal to negotiate at all with either country except inside the United Nations.

There has been a large miscellany of Common- wealth news, largely overlooked during the above proceedings but none the less important. The committee in charge of the problem has an- nounced that it recommends Barbados as the capital of the new British Caribbean Federation, a decision which has caused some anger in Trini- dad and Jamaica but has been welcomed else- where. There have been outraged protests from the Yemen whose territory, it is claimed, has been violated by British planes and tanks. There seems to have been a mistake somewhere, for the British Government assures the world that British forces have been engaged in repelling Yemeni invasion about thirty miles inside the protectorate of Aden. The Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean have been chosen as the air base to replace the facili- ties lost in Ceylon. Mr. Lennox-Boyd has been touring Africa, and the Prime Minister of Rho- desia has talked of the 'folly of a belief that it is the policy of the Colonial Office to emancipate Africans from Europeans.' There has been a large strike on the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Kashmir dispute is to be referred to the United Nations. Mr. Krishna Menon is to be relieved of his post there, as leader of the Indian delegation —no doubt, to become Minister of Railways.

News from Hungary has, if possible, blackened again. It appears that Messrs. Malcnkov and Khrushchev have been in Budapest, where they met Hungarian, Czech, Bulgarian and Rumanian leaders (the Poles were significantly absent). What was said remains obscure, but Mr. Khrushchev remarked on his return that 'everything is now in order'; and seeing the Kadar Government's programme which was published next day one could understand what he meant. It reimposes single-party Communist rule, it denounces Mr. Nagy as a traitor, and, though it includes a few small concessions, makes no mention of the with- drawal of Russian troops. It is true that workers in Budapest factories have started a go-slow pro- test and Mr. HammarskjZild has proposed to set up a committee of the General Assembly to in- vestigate and report on events inside the country, but there now seems to be little hope. A last further symptom of Russia's tightening control is the new economic agreement with Eastern Germany.

At home the headline news of the week has been the resignation of Sir Anthony Eden as Prime Minister for reasons of health. Con- troversy continues to centre round petrol ration- ing and its results. The Minister of Transport's assurance on his return from a holiday in Switzerland that the scheme was going as he had planned it has not altogether satisfied the Road Haulage Association, who insisted on meeting the Minister to complain about their hardships. The Ministry's original claim that any mistakes were the fault of those who had failed to make their applications for supplementary allowances has since been slightly modified. The present assur- ance is that 75 per cent. of normal supplies would now be available. Dark hints that the oil magnates of Texas, on whom we now have to rely, have been holding out on us has been violently re- jected by their president, who assures us that supplies of petrol which could indeed be sold to us at less than the ordinary price had been re- fused by the British Government and the English oil companies. The shortage has had its effect all over the country. Most publicised have been the dismissal of employees of the Ford Motor Com- pany and the probable cancellation (later re- scinded) of the Boat Race, and the first of these, at least, has provoked the threat of a strike. Indeed the industrial dispute season seems to be upon us, for the AEU have decided to come out. in February, and a prolonged wrangle over wages for bus drivers and conductors has been narrowly averted. The medical profession has joined the fray with their demand for a 24 per cent. increase of wages and the Minister's flat refusal may land them (and us) Heaven knows where.

Amid a week of almost unrelenting gloom we can only find the following hopeful• facts worthy of mention : a large number of people escaped injury in a miraculously light rail crash outside Welwyn, Vickers have an enormous order for Vanguard aircraft in Canada, England won the Second Test Match against South Africa, and the present large size of pram wheels as seen at the Manchester Pram Fair is taken by one and all to be a reassuring measure of our prosperity. One should perhaps end a sad week on a sad note— the Aga Khan has disclosed that he and his family were forced to live throughout the entire war on the sale of two racehorses.