Islands in the cold
st governments begin by making their mistakes and end by making those of r civil servants. The conspicuous unpopu- ty of the present Government stems from unique ability. simultaneously to make The disgraceful affair of the Falkland ads provides yet another example of this. is a sordid story. This year began with George Brown, then Foreign Secretary, tiating secretly with the Argentine to sell islands outright. Unfortunately for Brown, the canny islanders (the vast ty of the 2,500 Falklanders are of h descent) got wind of this, and the government was forced to give assurances that no transfer of gnty would occur without the consent inhabitants—who are opposed to it tn. Thus foiled, and with Mr Brown r Wilson last week sent his favourite Lord Chalfont, on what is best de- as an tour of the islands, which joyed uninterrupted British rule for an a century and a quarter. Inspired bt by some of the recent speeches Enoch Powell, Lord Chalfont was ed to paint to the islanders such an edly gloomy picture of their future British rule that half of them would arily repatriate themselves to Scot- thus wrecking the islands' economy Dletely to the point where the remainder Id meekly acquiesce in becoming ab- d within the Argentine empire, ving faithfully carried out his instruc- Lord Chalfont then repaired to llos Aires, where be discussed the re- ng of communication links between the and the Argentine. Since it was the (which is not proven) the wool trade declines to the point where this is no longer true, and even if (which is also not proven) no new in- dustry emerges to take its place, the maxi- mum financial burden to this country would be insignificant in size. Moreover, it is hard to see why the Argentine economy should, in any case, be better placed to bear any such burden than is the British economy—even `. under Labour economic management there is surely no cause to be as pessimistic as that. And in any event, human beings are not nor- mally regarded as parts of a package of wast- ing assets. We wouldn't sell our old-age pen- sioners off to any old foreign gentlemen who wanted them. Or would we?
