Welcome to Ruritania

The chiming bells and blaring trumpets that hailed London's royal wedding (see story page 50) were perhaps the only happy notes sounded in Britain last week. On the eve of the wedding, the government proclaimed a state of emergency to deal with a potential energy shortage caused by the refusal of coal miners and electrical engineers to work overtime. The Department of Trade and Industry announced that in October Britain suffered a trade deficit of at least $715 million, the worst ever. To prevent a potentially ruinous run on the pound, the Bank of England hiked its lending rate to an unprecedented 13%. The London stock exchange responded by slid ing to its lowest level in two years.

As the emergency took hold, the bright lights of Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square were dimmed in order to conserve electricity. TIME asked British Satirist and Author Auberon Waugh (son of Novelist Evelyn Waugh) to comment on the mood of the nation in the midst of its latest eco nomic crises. His acerbic reflections, which represent a sig nificant minority opinion in Britain:

The most significant thing about the present crisis is that the English people no longer even pretend to take the slight est interest in it. Monetary collapse seems a thoroughly suit able way to celebrate the first anniversary of joining the Common Market, we feel. Our European entry was another event that excited our political leaders and the "heavy" newspapers -- this tune to raptures of optimism -- but which left the nation bored and mildly skeptical.

As a people, we appear to have lost our illusions more rapidly than our leaders and responsible commentators have. The great gulf between rulers and ruled is that one group cares about the balance of payments, growth, unemployment and the pound, while the other does not. With the decline of belief in religion, national destiny and the rest of that package, the country has simply refused to accept industrial growth as a substitute; it possesses some moral force which is stronger than the extremely doubtful material benefits growth seems to offer. While Prime Ministers and responsible commentators peddle these absurd nostrums, the nation can only laugh.

The true secret of Britain's new role, which is something between that of Nkrumah's Ghana and Anthony Hope's Ruritania, was best revealed in last week's royal wedding, when Princess Anne was joined to her bridegroom, the semiarticulate Captain Mark Phillips, in Westminster Abbey. Outside observers might not have spotted the true significance of the event. They noted the depraved sentimentality and obsequiousness of newspaper and television coverage. On top of this, they heard the ribald comments of any English friends who happened to be around. They might have decided that the nation was suffering from a mild attack of schizophrenia. Actually, the nation is as united as any nation can ever be--in a gigantic effort to be entertained. That is the essence of the new Britain: the show goes on, but now it is played as farce. We are citizens of the world's first satirical Ruritania.

Whether seeing themselves (according to age) as old-age pensioners or as the carefree children of rich, indulgent parents, the English feel that the world owes them a living. More surprisingly, the rest of the world seems to agree. The Englishman's role, then, is simply to relax and enjoy himself while this happy situation lasts, preserving a little corner of civilization and repose in a frenzied world which seems beset by intractable problems.

National recreations take many forms--some, perhaps, a trifle bizarre for staid transatlantic tastes. There are those like the Times's star columnist, Bernard Levin, who enjoy worrying about the state of the nation and fearing for the future: "Day by day, the currency rots ... day by day, cost-pull and wage-push combine in their dreadful work." Others enjoy reading him, or plotting to overthrow the constitution, or cultivating silkworms. A few, like Mr. Heath and his colleagues, enjoy all the delicious trappings of a political power that has long since disappeared, telephoning each other from enormous distances at the public expense and making three or four momentous decisions every day to which nobody pays the slightest bit of attention.

The deepening oil crisis in the Middle East seems unlikely to affect us, as we have resisted the temptation to invade Egypt on this occasion. So that is worth a quiet smile. Our politicians are furious at not being consulted by America about the third World War, apparently planned for three weeks ago. Any humiliation of our political leaders is always good for a giggle. They do so enjoy being consulted, you see, and nobody really believes it would make any difference whether they wanted a world war or whether they didn't.

This month a huge and very ugly statue of Sir Winston Churchill was unveiled in Parliament Square, London, nearly nine years after his death. The brass band of the Royal Marines played martial music, the newspapers dutifully described the effigy as looking resolute and defiant as ever. A scattering of old people turned up to cry about the war. But it was not an enjoyable occasion, reminding everybody of the scruffy days before we found a role, when there was only nostalgia to keep everyone happy.

We have recovered from that, and we have recovered from the neurotic, uncontemplative hedonism that gave rise to the legend of swinging London, when it was fashionable among serious folk to talk about England in terms of the Weimar Republic. It is quite true that few people in England do much work. Many of us here are more or less permanently on strike; we are all paid far too much and expect to be paid much more. It is true that the public services in London are breaking down even while Mr. Heath pursues his grandiose schemes to build supersonic airliners and dig railway tunnels under the Channel to France. It is true that electricity sup plies are more or less permanently threatened by industrial action, and urban violence is just beginning.

Yet the English, for the most part, are entirely pleased with themselves. We seem to be the only country that has tamed the technological revolution and its accompanying wealth rush. Happier than the Swedes, richer than the Africans, freer than the Russians, safer than the Americans, pret tier than the Germans, healthier than the French, the Eng lish are just recovering from the spectacle of two totally absurd young people being driven around London in a glass coach. Who, looking at the world today, really wants a more fulfilling role in it than that?

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