Maltese Deadlock
By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS rrIl4E Maltese have gone home without their I conference even having met. The excuse for the failure to meet was Mr. Mintoff's refusal to sit down at the same table as Miss Mabel Strick- land. This was a refusal that had in itself a degree of reason. Mr. Mintoff's argument was that Miss Strickland's Progressive Constitutional Party should not be recognised as a party, since it did not a single seat at the last election. The argument had some force, since the Progressive Constitutional Party only polled 3,600 first- Preference votes out of a total poll of 120,000— an enormously smaller proportion than, for in- Stance, the Liberals poll in this country when they put up a candidate—and Mr. Mintoff had some reason for thinking that her claim would never have been considered had it' not been for her extensive contacts in this country.
Yet it is obvious that, had there been a genuine desire for agreement on both sides, some in- genious procedural compromise, by which Miss Strickland could have given her opinion without being formally recognised as a member of the conference, would easily have been found. There Was, in fact, a much deeper impasse. Mr. Mintoff Insisted on full independence and would discuss no lesser solution. The British Government was only willing to discuss methods of association within the Commonwealth: In favour of the British Government's stand, it must be said that there is up to the present not the smallest evi- dence that the Maltese people want independence. Mr. Mintoff is the leader of the party that won the last election by a substantial majority, and he has therefore a claim to speak for the Maltese People, but he has no claim to demand inde- pendence in their name. He won the last election on a policy of integration. He can make a plausible claim that the plebiscite of 1956 showed that the people still supported him on that issue. Re can produce no evidence at all that they 'Upport him in his volte-face from integration to independence. I do not assert that they do not support him. I only assert that up to the present there is no evidence that they do support him.
The British Government argues that inde- pendence would be an economic disaster for the Maltese, and, indeed, the nature of the Maltese economy is such that it is hard to think that this argument is not true. Malta, produces a smaller proportion of the wealth on which she lives than any other country in the world. Domestic exports at £850,667 are negligible. Imports at £21,187,115 account for almost all the necessities of life— £8 million for food and £8 million for manufac- tured articles. By far the largest importer is the United Ki4dom with £8,371,574. The United States, to whom so many Maltese eyes are now turned, supplies only £407,393.
It is clear enough, then, that brusquely to break all ties with Britain would be a serious step that might bring not merely hardship but utter star- vation to the island. It is clear also that on a calculation of brutal self-interest it is no longer of much moment to the British whether the Maltese survive or not, and the argument of the British Government is that nothing is more likely to frighten away the foreign capital, British or other, through which the island can alone survive, than political instability and extremist policies. In contrast to that, Mr. Mintoff's argument, that international assistance is in these days always readily forthcoming for distressed coun- tries in their first years of independence and his appeal to the example of Libya, is disingenuous. The Maltese, thanks to their highly artificial economy, enjoy a far higher standard of living than that of any other nation around the Mediter- ranean. It is calculated that the per capita standard of living in Libya is about one-eighth that of Malta. If the Maltese should frighten off all British assistance, they might be kept alive by international charity at a Libyan standard. It is highly improbable that they would be kept alive at the standard to which they have become accustomed. Yet it is obviously better that argu- ments of advantage should be deployed by Maltese rather than by British controversialists. We have seen in Cyprus and elsewhere that, when the British invoke arguments of material advantage against claims for independence from Britain, they merely encourage the retort—half-sincere and half-insincere—that freedom of the spirit is not to be bartered for a mess of pottage.
What, then, should be done? The emergency powers run out in April, and, if they are to be continued, new legislation is necessary. It will be a sterile and negative policy merely to continue them. If there is a merely negative refusal of independence, Mr. Mintoff threatens passive re- sistance to the British rule. Ominous comparisons with Cyprus have tripped glibly to many tongues. Frankly, I do not think that, even if the worst comes to the worst, we shall see another Cyprus in Malta. No foreign country is interested in Maltese disturbance. The Italians are by now quite extraordinarily disinterested. Malta is so much smaller than Cyprus, so much more thickly populated, its dependence on imported food so much greater. The Maltese have not the tradition of fighting against a foreign ruler which the Cypriots have inherited from the Turkish cen- turies. The religious influences in the island are entirely different. It is almost comically impos- sible to envisage Archbishop Gonzi in any role similar to that of Archbishop Makarios, and the weight of the Church, suspicious of Mr. Mintoff's notorious anti-clericalism, would certainly be turned against any dangerous campaign of which he was the leader.
Yet there can be little doubt that a campaign of resistance would lead to ugly incidents, whether of Maltese against Maltese or of Maltese against British, hateful in themselves and making more difficult the eventual settlement to which we shall have to come. The next step, therefore, is surely, before any further grant of emergency powers, to discover, whether by plebiscite or by election, whether the Maltese really Want- inde- pendence or not. Let the consequences of inde- pendence be courteously put before them without threats—preferably by responsible Maltese spokesmen. Let Mr. Mintoff have his say. We shall then at least know where we are. If it appears that the Maltese do really want inde- pendence, then we should regretfully accept the fact. If it appears that they do not want it, then the British Government can negotiate with those who have been shown to have the real right to speak for the Maltese people.
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