• U.S.

GREAT BRITAIN: Push Ahead

3 minute read
TIME

Resolutely, Britain’s Harold Macmillan began to turn his countrymen’s gaze away from the last humiliating weeks. In his first broadcast as Prime Minister last week, Macmillan passed rapidly over the Suez war (“I believe history will justify what we did”), and briskly informed those who saw the imminent end of the American alliance: “We do not intend to part from the Americans and we do not intend to be satellites.”

The Prime Minister’s chief object was clearly to put the “great” back into Great Britain. “Britain,” he reminded Little Englanders, “is not alone. Think of the Commonwealth and all that this means … As for courage and character, I know the British people have this in full measure. All we need is confidence in ourselves and our country. So do not let us have any more defeated talk of second-class powers and dreadful things to come. Britain has been great, is great and will stay great.”

In Macmillan’s appointments, as in his oratory, the pattern was “No regrets abroad—push ahead at home.” To offset the retention of Selwyn Lloyd as Foreign Minister—”Mr. Lloyd returns to the Foreign Office down a long, cold arch of raised eyebrows,” observed The Economist—Macmillan had solace for Suez critics. Rab Butler, who lost out to Macmillan as Prime Minister but stayed on as Lord Privy Seal, he identified as “my chief partner in this new enterprise.” Two other appointments got widespread attention. One was Macmillan’s reaching outside Parliament to make harddriving, self-made Birmingham Industrialist Sir Percy Mills, 67, Minister of Power (Mills was simultaneously made a baron to give him a seat in the House of Lords). With Mills’s help, Macmillan hopes to forge ahead with industrial atomic energy, as one way to create “ample opportunity not drab equality.”

The other key appointment was the promotion of Peter Thorneycroft, 47, to Macmillan’s old job as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thorneycroft comes from a family of Staffordshire ironmasters which made its fortune in the Industrial Revolution. His second wife is an Italian countess who was once fashion editor of the British Vogue. As President of the Board of Trade, Thorneycroft earned a reputation for courage and clarity, for economic liberalism and opposition to monopolies. He, like Macmillan, is eager for closer economic ties to Europe.

At London’s Royal Albert Dock a drawn and ailing man, with his wife at his side, boarded the 16,000-ton cargo liner Rangitata. Sir Anthony Eden and his wife Clarissa were New Zealand-bound. Earlier Eden had postponed an official trip there; upon his resignation, the New Zealand government warmly renewed the invitation on a personal basis. “Godspeed to you all,” said Eden to assembled well-wishers as his ship sailed off.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com