"Resign! Resign!"

Sir Anthony Eden's Conservative government trembled under heavy new blows. In past months the Prime Minister had been attacked for failing to take decisive and effective control over Britain's worsening domestic economy. Last week in the House of Commons the subject was foreign affairs--presumably the Prime Minister's specialty. Eden came under the strongest parliamentary attack he has ever faced, and his authority sank to its lowest level in his eleven months as Prime Minister.

It was Hugh Gaitskell, Attlee's successor as head of the Socialists, who led the Opposition assault. His voice ringing out with assurance, Gaitskell took charge of the House with what a veteran member called "possibly the best speech he has given in Parliament." He summed up, as government debaters had not bothered to, the grave consequences of General Glubb's expulsion from command of Jordan's British-paid army: "It increases the danger of war. It is a very serious setback to the policy of the Baghdad Pact. It accordingly becomes clear, surely, that we must have a reassessment of our whole policy in the Middle East."

After developing his case on the mishandling of the Baghdad Pact and the attempt to rush Jordan into signing it, Gaitskell gripped the dispatch box before him and roared out his indictment of "this ill-judged, ill-informed and badly carried-out attempt to continue what is in essence a paternalistic policy." Urging that Britain should now consider matching its Jordanian alliance with an Israeli treaty, Gaitskell spoke for many Tory as well as Labor members: "We must allow Israel the arms to balance those received by Egypt from Czechoslovakia."

Call for Action. Gaitskell might have broken Conservative unity if he had been willing to echo the demands of 30 or 35 back bench Tory rebels of the "Suez group," who smolder at the British retreat from the Suez, and accuse Eden of weakly appeasing the Arabs. Sitting behind Eden, they too wanted a new Middle Eastern approach: toughness and force. But Gaitskell refused to "go their way," and closed with a rousing peroration--"There is a desperate need at the moment for a lead which will both rally democratic forces and restore unity ... I hope the government will give that lead or else make way for one that can and will"--that earned Hugh Gaitskell a minute-long roar of approval from the Labor benches and unusually respectful silence from the Conservatives.

When Eden rose to reply after dinner, the Tories boosted him on his way with a sustained, vehement "Hear, hear." But the Prime Minister began badly. Discomfited by Labor heckling from the front bench opposite, Eden lost his usual urbanity. His voice was almost shrill as he complained that Labor was not giving him time to speak. Shouting that he had spoken "for 30 years in this House." Eden had to appeal to the Speaker to quiet the ridicule. A Churchill would have met the hecklers with confident abuse.

Dividing the House. Near the end of Eden's disjointed, defensive speech he made the mistake of calling Gait-skell's criticism of the Baghdad Pact "a milder echo of the Moscow radio," and had to take his words back. Having risen to Tory cheers, he sat down to a Labor thunder of "Resign! resign!" Gaitskell, shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard, cried: "In view of the totally unsatisfactory nature of the Prime Minister's reply, we shall divide the House."

Eden won, by the usual 60-vote majority. But the vote could not make up for the government's loss of prestige. Said the Tory Daily Telegraph of Eden's humiliation: "It was a storm that will echo long and hard." When, two days later, the government went on to arrest and deport the Greek patriarchal leader on Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, many Britons took it as Eden's desperate attempt to placate critics within his own party, who wanted the government to do something--do anything--bold.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.