The Lawrence Myth Captain R. Gordon
Us Par+sports Clancy Ailed Opera Distributing Profits
What About the Envelopes? The True Emulsion Charles Peace
Commonwealth and Common Market
John Terraine, Alan W. Hyde
Canning, Roy McKenzie Sigal, Carlotta Anderson John Culshaw Antony Butcher Kenneth Hopkins Pierre Gilles D. Ward recall vividly your attitude towards the disas- IrcILIS Suez venture, and I am amazed that you do not recognise, in Britain's present negotiations with the Six, the aftermath of that wretched affair. . The dramatis personr alone should give one warn- ping- The men of Suez were: Sir Anthony Eden, rime Minister; Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, Foreign Secre- t-Y; Mr. Harold Macmillan, Chancellor of the Ex- "equer; Mr. Edward Heath, Tory Chief Whip. The ;len of the Common Market are: Mr. Macmillan, ,rirne Minister: Mr. Lloyd, Chancellor of the Ex- cilequer during the crucial approaches; Mr. Heath. chief negotiator. (Lord Avon. out of the arena, aPoears to have had second thoughts.) Suez revealed much, • and proved at least three things: L. Britain could not act alone, even against re- lativelY minor powers; 2. She could not depend, at all times and under all circumstances, on the American alliance;
3. She could not depend on the new-style Corn- Tonwealth as she had been accustomed to do on 'Re old.
The dismay that followed these revelations was profound. Tory anti-Americanism after Suez is a e iv IY memory. Tory anti-Cornmonwealthism was !'ightlY better disguised for a time, but the famous wind of change' speech was indicative. 0_,S° the search for a new alignment began. In short 'Ler Mr. Macleod's 'liberal policy' wound up our Afri ean colonies, irrespective of local conditions and rg-term interests. Admittedly, the forfeiture of ritain's moral authority by the Suez escapade made this more or less inevitable. But, given their new ?rientation, the British Government was not sorry
let the Africans go as hastily as possible.
t In the course of all this, the Union of South Africa, elhPorarily ruled by deluded bigots, was suffered to taithdraw from the Commonwealth altogether, un- _ rnented and almost unnoticed, but detaching about
million people of British stock.
t. It is now the fashion to mock at such concepts as rof blood and language. In the indecent haste ()rat seems to have gripped our rulers, even the bonds pmmon political institutions are disregarded. th ew of us--certainly not you, sir—doubted that _ere would be a stiff price for Suez. But very few "co us indeed—certainly not I—imagined that it w uld be our very nationhood.
And
flied for what? To go back into Europe; to revive iival associations. To submerge an identity for Were ., w1 e struggled throughout the days when we the tr r,..,eu by Dukes of Normandy or Anjou, when st„'Ing of England was the King of France, or 'uthOlder of Holland or Elector of Hanover; when
our frontiers were on the Rhine, the Loire. the Pyrenees, to our great disadvantage.
Surely I am not entirely alone in continuing to affirm that our real future is bound up with that of young, expanding countries which we have helped to make, rather than with survivals of the Middle Ages? JOHN TERRAINE 33a Kensington Park Gardens, W I I
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