Boost from Britain

From the British cruisers Devonshire and Sheffield, marines and troops of the Gloucestershire Regiment fanned out through British Honduras' malaria swamps and forests. They prepared to repel the "irresponsible elements" that were threatening, the British Foreign Office said, to invade from Guatemala (TIME, March 8).

In Guatemala City, President Juan Jose Arevalo watched with delight. Congress had been growing restive, and people had criticized his suspension of civil liberties. Now, as the result of British action, they backed him as never before.

In ringing tones, Arevalo reaffirmed Guatemala's century-old claim to British Honduras. Between notes to London, he composed a resolution to be submitted to the Bogota conference "calling for the disappearance of all colonies on American territory." Then, while his police watched to see that things did not go too far, 2,500 students paraded, ran up the Guatemalan flag on the British Legation flagstaff, plastered the building with stickers proclaiming "Pirates in Tuxedos!"--"Death to John Bull!"

In London, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin defended the dispatch of the cruisers as necessary "to insure the protection of life and property," and urged again that the question of title be left up to the International Court of Justice. When an M.P. reminded him that the Guatemalans had threatened to quit buying Scotch whiskey, Bevin boomed that it was all right with him. "I have already suggested," he said, "that it should come to London." (Unfortunately for M.P.s, Guatemala buys but .002% of Britain's Scotch exports.)

London editors headlined the story, printed helpful maps to show Britons where Belize is. The Manchester Guardian deadpanned: "The Devonshire has left Belize for the time being. Admiral Tennant, commander-in-chief of the West Indies Station, and Sir Edward Hawkes-worth, governor of British Honduras, have been out together on a fishing trip."

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