LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
From John Biggs,Davison, mr, Oliver Herbert, Professor Hugh Berrington, and others
The great debate
Sir: Whatever one's attitude to the Common Market, the only safe assumption upon which to base our European policy is that the us will in time withdraw its conven- tional forces from the Continent and will not risk the nuclear an- nihilation of Chicago for the sake of Copenhagen or Coventry. Rus- sia on her side may be expected to propose her own version of a European security system, 'extend- ing under Soviet sway from Lis- bon to Vladivostok, and to de- nounce as contrary to Chancellor Brandt's Ostpolitik and to the spirit of Soviet-German detente political and military unity between Bonn and the West.
Our choice then is not between a European and some other orienta- tion. We cannot up-anchor these islands and seek a North American haven, even if they'd have us. The multi-racial Commonwealth is not a power base but an inco7 herence.
So our future is European—in which term I include Australia, New Zealand. Canada, a Franco- British creation. and white South- ern Africa. The 'old' Common- wealth is European as the us is not, and the 'new' Commonwealth is not. Agricultural discrimination against the European Common- wealth would undermine Western Europe's industrial markets and sacrifice political as well as econo- mic advantages from the 'dynamic effects' of overseas expansion.
If there is no vision to hinge the European Commonwealth to the European Community, we should not sign the Rome Treaty; we should nevertheless establish the closest relations with the Communi- ty while pursuing the paramount aim of a common European de- fence and diplomacy. General de Gaulle, whose was the only truly European policy so far. founded as it was on the inescapable reality of the nation-state. several times pro- posed reciprocal economic arrange- ments with Britain, the Scandin- avians, the Irish and others. Euro- pean political unity has moreover been sought outside the Commun- ity which, as the recent monetary crisis demonstrated, has not pro- duced a single voice on great ques- tions.
Let us keep the Community in proportion. It is neither Utopia nor a death trap. Survival and a world role for Europeans are larger pur- poses than the enlargement of a market. As the General said, 'le commissariat suivra'.
John Biggs-Davison House of Commons, London swl
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