THE SCAPEGOAT

By D. W. BROGAN

AGENERATION ago a Scottish business-man found himself in difficulties. So he summoned a meeting of his creditors. The most important was the bank-manager, who asked the insolvent merchant ; "What do you blame for your deplorable situation ? " "I blame you," was the answer. "Me! Why me ? "

"You wouldn't honour my cheques." There are, alas, signs that in the coming storm many of our most vocal commentators will imitate the insolvent Scot and blame the bank-manager, that is the United States. For there is a danger that the Americans will not honour any more cheques than they have undertaken to do—and may not honour even those they have given a conditional promise to honour, on the ground, so repulsive to free and enlightened spirits, that the conditions show no signs of being met.

That there will be a storm we can take for granted ; that sail must be shortened we may take for granted ; that the crew and passengers won't like the storm, the cutting down of the hard tack and the postponement of the happy day of entry into some delicious harbour, we may take for granted. And, although we all have cause for worry, who has more cause than the officers and the would-be officers ? For the ship of State, as Bridges (Robert) so prophetically put it, has been leaning on the bosom of the urgent west and the west is now not so urgent. The need for leaning is greater than ever, but the bosom is getting harder, and there is natural indigna- tion.

Nous sommes trahis has been the battle-cry of the Socialist parties of Europe for twenty years past (since 1931 in this country, to be more precise). Is treason at work again ? Obviously, for the only other explanation is that to some extent the fault must lie with our rulers, with their theory or their practice or both. Since that explanation is ruled out, someone must be to blame, and obviously it is the Americans—who talk about freeing trade as meaning freeing trade, who begin to wonder have they an interest in supporting all the cumbrous structure of English life, who have their own troubles and who may ask (and are asking) what sacrifices they are to be prepared to make to cushion for us the effects of ours. And if the Americans are to be heartily abused for their unsporting refusal to support us in the style to which we are accustomed, it would be human, if foolish, of them to take us at our word and not support us at all. A few months of that might produce among the rank and file a strong desire to string our sea-lawyers up at the yard-arm, but however refreshing that would be, it would be no substitute for food and raw materials, not to speak of films and tobacco.

Of course, Congressmen are hardened to abuse—their home critics can give pounds to our critics—but they are not likely to be won to considering what is real and relevant in our programme by critics who can still think, in July, 1949, that the whole world is full of admiration for the way we are running our business, our main and primary business, earning our keep in this hard and unfeeling world. They may think, irritation apart, that it would be really good for us to get our "comeuppance" now, and come to our senses sooner rather than later—which may be too late. Anyway, it would be as well not to put the idea into their heads.

But serious as this anti-American peevishness is, it Is not as serious as the frame of mind revealed not only in print but in con- versation at all levels in this country. That the man in the street has no notion of what is up is natural enough. What is more serious is that many of his leaders apparently don't know what is up either, or if they do are wrapping their knowledge up in as rpany layers of sound-muffling cloth as a Balkan peasant-woman wears petticoats. There are great differences of opinion among economists as to what is wrong in general ; great differences as to the remedies. But there is not much difference of opinion about one thing. The world doesn't want to pay us enough for what we produce to enable us to keep up anything like our present standard of living, much less move forward to that brave new world promised in 1945—at our present production-costs. Labour believes in Britain ; well and good. Our customers and our suppliers don't—at least not in a confiding enough spirit to make it possible for this Government, or any Government, to escape having to disillusion its supporters.

For those supporters, at all levels, have been victims of a con- fidence trick. Sometimes they were hoodwinkers as well as hood- winked. But they did believe in the "Repeal of Arithmetic Order, 1945" or some equivalent. Not for them mere computations in meaningless tokens like pounds. It would be easy, but unkind, to recall the cheery way these problems were waved aside. Now it's the morning after. As Housman put it: "To think that two and two are four And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long 'us like to be."

The day of " sophistcrs, economists, and calculators has succeeded ;

and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever."

The sad truth is not yet appreciated. We have news of the crisis

of the gold reserves and the news that some cheerful planners pro-

pose to spend over Lioo,000,000 of our scarce resources on a new underground in London. We have the dockers on strike, the rail- waymen demanding more wages and pottery-workers shorter hours. And all of this on tick ; all of this in a market where price, that

unexorcised evil spirit, is back doing his diabolical work of making our foreign customers refuse to pay us more for an article than they can get it for next door. Price is more than half our troubles—price differentials that induce an English business-man in Baghdad to buy not even an American car but a Citroen ; price that is killing Ameri- can demand for our cars, now that the great back-log, when any car was salable, is a thing of the past ; price that defeats the best wishes of our best-wishing Canadian friends. And price is, in part, a result of some habits that do not fill our visitors with admiration. There Is the (to them) apparent waste of labour ; the repeated checking of tickets on thc railway ; the limitations on standing passengers on buses ; the hours at which offices and shops open and shut ; the whole leisurely tempo of a country where leisure is, perhaps rightly, considered as good as or better than money as long as, in addition, somehow money's worth is provided.

And how is it to be provided? By imitating declining Bruges In the late fifteenth century and clinging, by legal manipulation, to dwindling markets. By counsels of despair like trying to induce Canada to enter the sterling block, which may soon be an "exclusive" club, reduced to touting for members ae reduced entrance-fees. By (if the folly lasts long enough) forcing the Colonial Empire to take goods from us at much higher prices than it could buy them elsewhere. (Recent complaints from the West Indies must have made Lord North toss a little in his grave.) Yet it is only twenty years ago, when we were still a free-trade country, that the rights of arithmetic and the way of life necessary to a nation of shop- keepers were apparently self-evident truths. Nous avons chana tout cela—and not many Conservatives are entitled to throw the first stone, though they may join in the general assault a little later. The old-fashioned free-traders may have been narrow-minded, but they were not woolly-minded. And if we had some of their narrowness, we would at any rate not be so easily tempted to blame anybody but ourselves, the Americans, the Belgians, the Argentinians. We may be in a year or two, or sooner, in the position of the extravagant duke who called in his man of business to explain his financial straits. The man of business found some obvious economies ; for example there were three cooks and a pastry cook. "Dismiss the pastry cook ? Damtne I A man must have a biscuit." The great palace of that duke is now a great public school. Bruges is now mostly a museum piece. Absit omen.