Westminster Commentary
Three Card Trick
By BERNARD LEVIN
What this sort of situation needs, from the Government's point of view, is either the Prime Minister, who would pour drivel on the troubled Waters, or Mr. Butler, who would wrap the Whole thing up in yards of his own special brand of doublc-talk, or Mr. Heath (more of him later), Who would read out every word of what had been put into his hand, beating his breast the While, for all the world as if it was true. But Mr. Orr-Ewing simply will not do. It is not just that he was up against Mr. Paget, who could outgun twelve Orr-Ewings laid end to end, and who appeals to the more and more every time I see him in action. The simple truth is that the case Mr. Orr-Ewing was put up to defend was humbug, and he is 'just not a clever enough man to maintain the ddiltrary with any hope of being taken seriously.
This case (doubtless you were wondering just when I was going to get to it) was that the seven sailors with black faces who were taken off HMS Victorious before she sailed for South Africa because Dr. Verwoerd doesn't like people with black faces, not even when they are tastefully set off by white jackets and blue trousers, were really taken off HMS Victorious for their own good and in the interests of goodwill all round. What is more, added Mr. Orr-Ewing, energetic- ally stuffing foot after foot into his mouth, this practice has been going on for some years now—the latter point enabling Mr. Paget, with that uniquely imitable delivery, to ask of the Minister : `Is he awAnE (pause) that when a nuitolar is charged (pause) it is not Nonmally considered a very good deFuNcE (pause) if he says, "I have been at it for some years, but this is the FIRST TIME (pause) I (pause) HAVE BEEN (pause) CAUGHT"?' Mr. Orr-Ewing replied, 'The practice is followed because when Her Majesty's ships visit any country we must comply with that country's laws and social conditions.'
I trust my view that Mr Orr-Ewing was rather more out of his depth than HMS Victorious is beginning to prevail. If it is not, Mr. Orr-wing (I mistyped him Orr-wing that time, an emenda- tion which somehow looks so convincing that I would have liked so to call him for the remainder of this article) has more fuel for the stokeholds. Asked by Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: 'If the price that this country has to pay for visiting South African ports is the application of Dr. Verwoerd's racial policies on board our ships, is not the price too high, and would it not be better to maintain our principles and forgo the visit?', Mr. Orr-Ewing replied that the Prime Minister had been advised not to go to South Africa, but had nevertheless done good when he got there. (The Prime Minister, cully, isn't black and if it comes to that, naval ratings are not commonly invited to address a joint session of both Houses of the South African Parliament.) This pathetic point, I may say, Mr. Orr-Ewing had clearly thought of for himself, and was even proud of, for he clung desperately to it, like an old sea-dog lashing him- self to the mast in a hurricane, as the waves lapped more and more angrily around him.
Nor was this high tide in Mr. Orr-Ewing's Odyssey. Speaking of the black-faced ratings left on board—the ones who have families in South Africa—he said blandly, 'I have no reason to believe that they will not be treated very fairly and will not be discriminated against.' In which case perhaps Mr. Orr-Ewing would be so kind, for a moment or two, as to wonder why, if this is true, the other ones would be discriminated against, or how, if it is not, it came to form part of his answer. He might also try dipping a bit of litmus-paper into remarks such as, 'We dis- agree much more profoundly with the funda- mental policies of some other countries, yet we still pay visits to those countries,' and seeing what colour it turns; I shave yet to learn that any ratings are taken off ships going to, say, Russia, because Khrushchev might not like them.
No, on the whole I think that Mr. Orr-Ewing (whose own side, I may say, was clearly very disturbed by this unsavoury business, Vice- Admiral Hughes-Hallet in particular opening up from behind the Minister with a broadside that near as a toucher blew his head off) had bet- ter have a bad dose of diplomatic mal-de-mer the next time the British Government is doing any- thing quite as shameful as it was on this occasion, and leave one of the big boys to handle it.
When it comes to Bahrain, after all, it is Mr. Heath in person who is to be seen backing shyly into the limelight. Mr. Heath, as the world must know by now, has actually been to Bahrain, and therefore knows all about it. Two points he was particularly anxious on Monday to impress upon the House, and presumably, though his gaze never wandered from a point eighteen inches in front of him, upon me : the first was that Bahrain is an absolutely independent State, whose Ruler in no way does what Britain tells him—which I suggest that Mr. Heath tells to the Royal Bahraini Marines—and the second was that conditions on Jidda Island, where the men now illegally detained by Britain on St. Helena would prob- ably (there is no guarantee whatever) be put if they were to be returned to Bahrain, are what Mr. Wodehouse's heroes were wont to describe as absolutely oejah-cum-spiff.
Now here, of course, Mr. Heath can no longer pretend that he is missing the point by accident. If Mr. Heath were to be sent illegally even to the best gaol for thirteen years after a trial of which the verdict was announced before it took place, Mr. Heath tvtild feel put upon. And that is the point in the case of the Bahrainis. The Colonial Office has now admitted that the three men were taken aboard the ship Wore the Act under which the transfer could alone be legal in British law came into force: this is, of course, a point quite separate from that of the illegality of their original 'trial' before the Bahraini 'court.' Yet when Mr. Woodrow Wyatt attempted to press Mr. Heath on this point Mr. Heath replied: 'As the point to which the hon. Gentleman refers,' he said, 'is contained in the information given to the solicitors, as a result of which they have informed us that their clients are in a position to bring proceedings forthwith, he will not expect me to comment on it.' I really do not see why; if the Colonial Office can admit that the British action was illegal, it is not clear why the Foreign Office cannot.
But it is quite clear that, just as the Govern- ment knew that its action over HMS Victorious was indefensible, and almost everybody on both sides of the House shared this knowledge, so the Government knows now that its action in this case is indefensible, and many people on both sides of the House are coming to know that too.
However, although the prisoners are still on St. Helena, and although the black ratings have been taken off HMS Victorious, both discussions marked a signal advance for the forces of light. First because it was quite clear that anxiety was coming from both sides of the House, and second because the Government made it clear in the manner of its handling of the cases that it was thoroughly uncomfortable about them; I liked particularly the way in which Mr. Heath coolly slipped in the information (which directly con- on- tradicts everything he has been saying about the case hitherto) that the Ruler of Bahrain has asked for the return of the men because the British Government told him to.
So we need not despair of democracy after all; particularly since the old girl scored one further —and this time almost unqualified—victory be- fore Monday was done. That was over the case I wrote about a fortnight ago—the one that threatened to develop into the War of Vance's Passport. Here Mr. Heath climbed gracefully down; in future British passport photographs will only be sent abroad in cases where extraditable crime is alleged. Of course, that still leaves a lot of loose ends lying about; it still leaves Mr. Vance out of pocket by some £800, it still leaves un- explained Scotland Yard's assurance to him that. be needn't send a photogriph if he did not want to, and that they would protect him in any event. But it did mark a significant retreat on the part of the Government from a position it had taken up in advance, and for that we must be grateful; perhaps it even brought nearer the glad day when the thundering lie printed right at the bottom of the inside back cover of everybody's passport is removed from it, and the bureaucrat who, dreamed it up removed from office.
In a single hour, then, three cracks had appeared in the orchard walls. They remain high and hard to climb; but they are not impregnable.
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