—Portrait of the Week— IRE PARIS TALKS of the Organisation
for European Economic Co-operation opened in an air of mutual suspicion, and presently developed into something indistinguishable from a riot. On the the other hand, the affairs of the Electrical Trades Union, which have long been indistinguishable from a riot, have now taken on an air of mutual suspicion, There was suspicion in the House of Commons about rioting in Cuba, and rioting in the Daily Express about suspicion in Suez. Christmas approached. It rained.
IN PARIS, the final showdown between Britain and France, ex parte everybody else in Europe, began: After some hours conditions were such that Mr. Heathcoat Amory, who ,was leading the British delegation to the meeting of seventeen nations. had to suggest an adjournment `to give everybody chance to cool off.' Complete breakdown seemed Possible, With the Common Market due to come into operation on January I, there was not much tiMe for the supporters of a Free Trade area to carry the day, and with increasingly sharp exchanges between Sir David Eccles and M. Couve de Murville, not much opportunity either.
MEANWHILE, the North Atlantic Treaty Ofganisa- lion was also meeting in Paris. Apart from the Possibility, hinted at earlier in the House of Commons by Mr. Macmillan, that the Foreign Secretary might accidentally run into the Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers there and stop to Pass the time of day with them, the affairs of Berlin in particular and Germany in general figured largely upon the agenda, and even more largely in th6 informal discussions. The main Western approaches had already been mapped out, with the firm rejection of the Soviet proposals for the future of Berlin, and there seemed little for the Ministers to do in that matter but dot the i's and cross the noes. But the wider question Of German reunification could hardly be ignored.
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Din TRADE UNION CONGRESS moved cautiously towards an investigation of the Communist racketeers who have the Electrical Trades Union in their grip. Messrs. Foulkes and Haxell also took up position. Preliminary shots hadlseen fired Over the question' of a Communist-front inter- national Meeting of electrical. workers which the Electrical Trades Union wanted to attend, but Which the Trades Union Congress, in fulfilment of its policy of not co-operating with `unions' from countries in which the figures are rigged even more whole-heartedly than Messrs. Foulkes and Haxell rig theirs, forbade them to. Then the General Purposes Committee of the Trades Union Congress decided to ask the Electrical Trades Union's owners what they intended to do about the various charges that had been made against them, and which were bringing the entire movement into disrepute. This was still very far from thc thorough clean-up of the racketeers, but it , was felt that it was at any rate a start.
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS adjourned 'after further discussion of Suez, ex paile the Daily Express, and an explosion of temper about the shipment of arms to the Government of Cuba. In an attempt to avoid the threatened candidature of Sir Alan Herbert in the by-election for the mar- ginally Conservative East Harrow seat, the Government found time in the eleventh hour for discussion of the report of the Select Committee on Obscene Publications. Whether the ruse would be successful remained to be obscene. Meanwhile, many citizens reported that they seemed to be receiving fewer Christmas cards this year, and the Weather grew foul and foggy.
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