Crossing the Rubicon

For ten days Commonwealth leaders battled Britain's government with every wile and weapon. But for all their threats that Britain's admission to the European Common Market will irrevocably weaken -- if not destroy -- the 15-nation partnership, the Commonwealth Prime Ministers wound up their conference in London last week by conceding that "the final decision would rest with the British government." Prime Minister Harold Macmillan announced jubilantly: "I am very pleased. Everything is fine."

Until the closing hours of the conference. Commonwealth leaders had threatened to sign dissenting communiques embodying the dire strictures they had delivered at Marlborough House; an even greater danger was that they would demand concessions to accommodate all their special trading interests that the Six could not possibly grant.

In the end, they issued a brief 2,000-word statement that almost apologetically mentioned their reservations about the possible economic consequences of Britain's realignment with Europe--but nonetheless endorsed the Common Market's aims.

Fading Fiction. What swayed the Commonwealth Prime Ministers was a blunt 50-minute speech by Harold Macmillan. Though Britain's membership in the Common Market will end special tariff concessions to Commonwealth imports, Macmillan pointed out that these are in any case a fading fiction which Britain can no longer afford; Commonwealth nations--and several have better living standards than Britain--raise ever higher tariff walls against British goods. On the other hand, argued Macmillan, as a member of the European Community, a prosperous Britain will be able to invest in less developed Commonwealth countries and help formulate worldwide commodity agreements, already promised by the Six, that would ultimately go far toward guaranteeing the Old Dominions a fair market for their foodstuffs.

Out-Blimping Blimps. British entry is now more certain than ever, but a few battles remain to be fought. Whitehall mimeograph machines were still clanking out the communique when Ted Heath plunged into a two-week round of conferences with European ministers before formal negotiations with the Six reopen next month. However, the government's biggest battle may not take place in Brussels, but in Britain itself. Opinion polls have shown that opposition to Macmillan's "grand design" is rising steadily at home. The Commonwealth leaders' warnings reinforced an improbable but disturbing alliance between the Tory Party's own jingo fringe and Commonwealth Firsters in the Labor Party.

Both at home and in Brussels, Macmillan's case was damaged by Labor's Hugh Gaitskell; out-Blimping the Blimps, he harrumphed that Britain's admission to Europe would mean "the end of the Commonwealth and 1,000 years of history." Gaitskell's call to arms was partly offset by a Europe-minded group of Laborites who claimed the support of 80 Socialist M.P.s--almost one-third of the party's membership in Parliament. Almost unanimously, the resurgent Liberal Party (see following story) also ranged itself behind the bidding in Brussels.

Defeated in his original aim to damp down debate until he could present Parliament and public with an accomplished fact, Macmillan finally joined the fray. With greater confidence than he has shown the nation in months--and looking, in the Daily Mirror's words, "like a genial bloodhound"--Macmillan took to TV to warn that a Britain excluded from Europe would become a pygmy "in a world of giants." In fact, his government has already crossed the Rubicon. Macmillan admitted as much by declaring that Britain will ultimately have to act in its own best interests--not the Commonwealth's. "After all," said he, "we're independent too."

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