Portrait of the Week HOPES OF A SETTLEMENT of the
seamen's strike rose and fell all week. Feelings were rising, to0. 'My God, why have you forsaken us?'—thus, blasphemously, a • seamen's leader apostro- phised Mr James Callaghan after the Chancel- lor had briskly recommended a return to work. Mr Wilson, more discreetly, answered on Tues- flai that the economic effects of the strike were growing more serious; and the figures for May, published that day, showed a widening trade gap. The pound was supplied with a new set of crutches by the central bankers, meeting in Switzerland, and this time General de Gaulle proved helpful : the accompanying strictures about national extravagance echoed the usual sentiments voiced by bank managers to custo- mers with overdrafts. Meanwhile Parliament reassembled, and the Government secured an unexpectedly convincing victory over its own disenchanted back-benchers at a party meeting on Wednesday. The count-down for Britain's departure from the European space organisa- tion was abruptly halted by a governmental change of mind which seemed to reverse the original order. People were still talking about the castigation of Britain's frivolity which ap- peared in the New York Times—until Royal Ascot opened, at least, when the newspapers happily hunted for short skirts among the traditional flowery fashions; and, of course, Mary Quant got an OBE in the Birthday Honours, although there was nothing for the Beatles this time.
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