The Earl of Sandwich's Crew

By HENRY FAIRLIE

SUPPOSE it is something to be twice an un- Isuccessful Conservative candidate and turn one's bile against the Government. Such is Mr. John Paul, the chairman of the Anti-Common Market League. I do not doubt his sincerity, of course, only his objectivity. Bile? Is it too strong a word? Hardly, surely, for a man who can refer to the merchant bankers 'who have only recently conic to this country from the continent, and cannot wait to get back,' and to the Duke of Edin- burgh as 'this German-born prince.' Both these remarks were made to a meeting of a hundred people at Evesham who, according to Mr. Frank Giles, the Foreign Editor of the Sunday Times, greeted them with 'evident satisfaction.'

They are not isolated remarks. On Sunday, at the anti-Common Market rally in the Albert Hall, Lord Sandwich, lately come from being Lord Hinchingbrooke, also referred to the merchants of the City of London, whose origins were 'in Hamburg and Frankfurt.' By their roots, he added, should ye know them. He did not often stoop so low when he was Lord Hinchingbrooke. Is this the kind of xenophobia with which Mr. Michael Foot, say, or Mrs. Barbara Castle, or, indeed, the whole of the Labour Party wish to associate themselves?

Still, by their roots, we are told, should ye know them. The first Lord Sandwich, I recall, flourished in the seventeenth century in the rank of Admiral of the Narrow Seas — not an inappropriate one for an opponent of the Common Market switched to the side of Charles II in good time to earn the double reward of an Earldom and the Garter, and was one of the men who advised Charles to sell Dunkirk to the French : a true- blue career, none more, which ended sadly, if magnificently, when his ship blew up in Sole Bay. Somehow, this is the kind of end which I imagine our own. Lord Sandwich wishes for himself.

'The Earl of Sandwich,' according to Burnet, 'perished with a great many about him, who would not leave him, as he would not leave his ship, by a piece of obstinate courage.' I see no reason why today we should follow the tenth Earl to a similar fate, especially when he keeps such bad company. He is a respected, liked and honourable figure, however independently freakish his views, and he should not be found addressing a meeting alongside speakers from bodies like the Empire Loyalists and the True Tories. This is not the company which should be serving with the Admiral of the Narrow Seas, in whatever capacity.

By their roots should ye know them; but by their friends also. 'There were six scheduled

speakers and a number of impromptu speeches from the League of Empire Loyalists.' So, laconically, the Times reported after Sunday's meeting. It could be simply comic; but it is in fact worth emphasising that the campaign against the Common Market is touching these violent but useless fringes. There are two main bodies en- gaged in the campaign, the Anti-Common Market League and the Anti-Common Market Union, but with not a figure of any weight amongst their sponsors. Mr. John Paul, chairman of the League, I have already mentioned. The chairman of the Union is a Mr. Norman Smythe. 1 hope it is a name which fills his followers with confidence.

Around these two bodies—and one would very much like to know where their money conies from—gather the discredited League of Empire Loyalists, the True Tories and the Forward Britain Movement. One would hardly believe that people could form bodies with such titles if they were not there: indeed, I see no reason why I should not form a Whither Britain League, col- lect a few pounds and have myself reported on a Monday morning in the quality press. .

The chairman of the True Tories was one of the scheduled speakers on Sunday. (When he was introduced as such by Mr. Oliver Smedley— heavens! what a crew of eager nonentities they are—a bearded Empire Loyalist shouted : 'All two of them.') His name is Major-General Richard Hilton. He is sixty-eight; he was edu- cated at Malvern; he served in the Indian Moun- tain Artillery for two spells, from 1924 to 1930, and from 1934 to 1938, and he ended the 1939-45 war as Brigadier-General Staff to the Allied Liberation Forces in Norway. His last public appointment was as Military Attache in Moscow, and he retired in 1948. He has, he records, been a contributor to Blackwoods, Nineteenth Cen- tury- and After (it has become the Twentieth Cen- tury since he last wrote for it), and Service journals. His club is the Royal Artillery Yacht.

There, then, are the True Tories, all one of them. What of the Forward Britain Movement? Its chairman is a little more interesting. It turns out to he Mr. Richard Briginshaw, general sec- rotary of NATSOPA, the general printers' union. Unions are entitled to look after their own and their members' interests—the two do not always coincide—either for the short or the long term. The printing industry in this country is so riddled with restrictive practices that it is one of the few industries which would certainly suffer heavily if it had to meet real competition from the Con- tinent. (As was proved at the time of the Last printers' strike, it is not difficult to produce a weekly journal in Europe as quickly and as

cheaply as here and still have it on the bookstalls at Kinloch Rannoch at the usual time on a Fri- day.)

In the short term, therefore, NATSOPA is right to resist any development which would

imply genuine competition with, say, Dutch, Ger- man or Swiss printers. But in the long term? When the New York Times already sends its copY for its European edition to Paris by Telstar- with all the implications for future printing de- velopments that this means? The Forward Britain Movement it is called—forward, not into space, but into a void.

These, as I say, are fringe bodies, and Mr. Richard Marsh, the most active Labour MP In the campaign against the Common Market, is a fringe politician. What, then, of their arguments? I have already pointed to their latent and petty xenophobia. But the rest is just as hysterical. 'Mr. Ted Heath and his band of little European twisters'—thus Mr. Oliver Smedley who, by the way, is chairman of the Keep Britain Out Cam- paign. (Yes, it is actually called that.) 'Even jolly

Jack Kennedy is not going to help us out of our economic difficulties'—thus Mr. Richard Marsh. More and more people are turning out 00 guard'—thus, appropriately enough, the Admiral of the Narrow Seas himself.

It is illuminating, sober, cogent stuff, is it not? I do not think it adds up to a serious political movement at all, and, in the end, I am sure that the solid centre of the I.abour Party will never allow itself to be associated with such nonsense.

As for the solid centre of the Conservative Party,

it is worth recalling the speech which Sir Edwin —we used to know him, much more comfortably,

as Ted—Leather, MP, made at Batheaston On

Saturday. He spoke with growling force: 'The British people should know that the vast majority

of Tory MPs are getting heartily sick of a tiny

minority who are apparently prepared to say any- thing in the interests of self-publicity. What I find particularly galling is that they are usually called the pro-Commonwealth group. They ought to be called the anti-Commonwealth group. Most t of them know nothing of the Commonwealth history or the views of other members.'

One of the most encouraging pieces of news during the past week has been the demise of the

nasty, violent Anti-Violence League. This move- ment was meant to bring together the vast num- ber of people supposed to want the return of

flogging, birching and indiscriminate capital punishment. It has died within a year because of lack of support. We should recognise and wel-

come the way in which such ugly fringe move- ments fail to take root in this country today, and we should recognise the Empire Loyalists, the True Tories, the Forward Britain Movement and the Keep Britain Out Campaign as bodies of the same species.