SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
The trouble is that governments can't just de- value money and let the process stop there: not, that is, if they go about it in the messy way we have been witnessing. It leads to a lowering of values far beyond the financial sphere. Hordes of politicians, of course, look cheaper now, from the big ones to the minor un- fortunates like Lord Chalfont, who was unlucky enough to cling to one form of official fib when it had in fact been superseded by a different one. Words, too, have been devalued by the cartload : this is unfortunate because the effects are so catching (hence respectable journalists can write of the Government's decision as 'brave,' as if it took courage to jump out of the way of an oncoming bus). Above all, one must speculate about the damaging effects of yet another major policy collapse upon the party and politicians responsible for it. Ob- viously, in the immediate future the Labour party and the Government will be markedly stronger because the devaluation nettle has at last been grasped. But it will not be so easy to dismiss the effects of the three years of wasted effort and sacrifice, of all the futility and bitter- ness and meaningless words. 'The years that the locust hath eaten' must leave their mark, and even the bright hope of electoral advantage won't erase it in a hurry.
Who cares?
One question which I should like -to see examined in detail by social-survey methods is to what extent (if at all) people really care about the enormous mendacities and self-contradic- tions which such an episode brings about. By- election voting is one index, it may be said, but in fact that is at least as likely to be a criticism of governmental inefficiency as of more profound disappointments. I tend to believe that it was the deliberate deceptions practised in the Suez venture which left a lasting stain upon the Tory administration responsible, although of course the inefficiency with which the business was executed aroused sharp feel- ings at the time. In the same way, I suspect that the moral devaluation of the present Government will outlive the initially greater shack caused by the simple failure of its policies. But this is only a supposition, which I would like to see tested. It may well be that what is glibly termed 'permissiveness' embraces anything, provided that in the end the great god Gross National Product is appeased.
In a small way the future of Mr Callaghan will be revealing in this respect. Admittedly he is among the more attractive figures in public life, yet it is surely astonishing that after Saturday there should have been any room for debate on whether or not he ought to resign. I shan't be altogether surprised, though, if Unlucky Jim emerges from this mess as some form of popular hero.
Eventually, I take it, the odds are that Mr Wilson, and not Mr Callaghan, will suffer the greatest loss of credit, and_ that will remain true even if devaluation 'works' and our old friend the pre-election boom appears on the scene in the nick of time. The number of the Prime Minister's speeches and writings which will haunt him accusingly for evermore is now legion. After the Opposition has enjoyed to the full its present quotation-spree at Mr Wilsion's expense, I shouldn't be surprised to find the anti-blood-sports campaigners seeking protective legislation to forbid all public reference to anything he said or wrote before 18 November 1967.
_ In the wet
One of the stock arguments against devaluation in the past was that its benefits would be nullified as other countries rushed to follow suit. This gave a sort of humour to the signs of consternation in some staunchly anti- devaluation quarters when Mr Holt, Australia's prime minister, announced that he would not follow our example. Australia's decision, how- ever, also recalled one of Mr Wilson's more memorable speeches on the subject, which he delivered in. Mr Holt's presence during his visit to London last year. Mr Wilson apostrophised Mr Holt thus (and I promise to quote no further wilsonising this week):
`But you, Mr Prime Minister, will recognise how remote from the realities of Britain's eco- nomic situation are the defeatist cries, the moaning !ninnies, the wet editorials—yes, the Sundays as well—of those who will seize any opportunity to sell Britain short whether at home or abroad. Her Majesty's Government have stressed time and time again our deter- mination to keep sterling strong . . . You depend on it, as we do, and so does the world ... I say again, as 1 have said before, the value of sterling will be maintained.'
Mr Holt must have been impressed by this. Australia kept her national reserves in London. Australia is now the poorer by many millions as a result. Somebody sold Australia short, and it wasn't the authors of those 'wet editorials.'
Black exchange
I note that South Africa, too, has declined to devalue, and so has Rhodesia, thereby illus- trating the regrettable truth that in international affairs the wages of sin, all too often, are golden. Rhodesia's decision, indeed, has an un- mistakably impudent air about it. Is this the culmination of Britain's long and expensive course of economic sanctions against the Smith regime—an upgrading of the illegal currency in terms of the virtuous English pound?
At least General Franco has followed our example. British workers can still enjoy their holidays in fascist Spain without having to pay higher bills, even if the running costs of talks- about-talks in police state Rhodesia will hence- forward be somewhat more expensive.
Crystal balls
If Lord Chalfont is feeling particularly morti- fied by his gaffe he might seek a consoling word from the Leader of the House of Com- mons. Mr Crossman will no doubt remember that on 18 September 1949 he published an impressive article in a Sunday newspaper ex- plaining conclusively why devaluation could never happen. That was the day Sir Stafford Cripps chose to devalue. 'The hon. gentleman is very unfortunate,' Oliver Stanley later told the House. 'Here was one of the rare occasions when he was toeing the party line, and then he found the line had changed.'
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