Oxford Atones

A vote for Queen and country

The motion before the Oxford Union, the university's prestigious 160-year-old debating society, had a familiar ring: "This house would not fight for Queen and country." Exactly 50 years earlier, on Feb. 9, 1933, the Union debated the same subject in the same wood-paneled hall. On that occasion, memories of World War I trench warfare were still vivid, and the motion was carried, 275 to 153. Only a few people seemed concerned that Adolf Hitler had just come to power in Germany. Even so, the pacifists' victory stirred an outcry. The Daily Express ranted against the "woozy-minded Communists, practical jokers and sexual indeterminates of Oxford," while Winston Churchill deplored "this abject, squalid, shameless avowal."

Last week the Union resoundingly reversed that pacifist stand. After 3 1/2 hrs. of impassioned speeches from undergraduate and guest speakers, the motion was defeated 416 to 187. YES! cried a Daily Mail headline, THIS TIME THEY WILL FIGHT. It was, in fact, the third Oxford vote to do battle. In 1965, and again in 1981, similar debates were held, and the no votes won, though by narrow margins.

There were some connecting threads between last week's debate and its 1933 counterpart. The Oxford Union's treasurer back then was Labor Party Leader Michael Foot, who did not speak on that famous first occasion but today advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament for Britain. One of the featured speakers last week was Member of Parliament Douglas Hogg, who, like his father before him, argued the case for fighting. Another was Historian Max Beloff, 69, who as an Oxford undergraduate 50 years ago supported the pacifist line. This time Beloff, a lord, was on the other side. Said he: "Those of us who voted for the first motion have a duty to atone. Most of those who in this house said that they would not fight did, in fact, fight in the war."

Coming as it did at the height of the nuclear-missile controversy in Western Europe, the debate played to a packed house. Spectators listened politely as Pacifist Leader Helen John warned, "If there's a war, we won't be able to debate again in 50 years." But they jeered when she called Britain "an occupied country" because of the U.S. military bases there. Conversely, they applauded when former Prime Minister Lord Alec Douglas-Home said, "I am fearful when I see unilateralists sending out signals to a dictatorship that is mobilized with enormous armed forces and practices its doctrine in Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and Poland." Home and Beloff carried the day. showing that, at Oxford at least, pacifism is non-U. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.