GREAT BRITAIN: The Apple Cart

Winston Churchill puffed home from America last week. Waiting for him was a debate in the House of Commons on 1) the campaign in Italy; 2) the “escape” of Mussolini; 3) relations of the U.S. and Britain with Russia; 4) home-front use of manpower.

There is a subject of greater concern to Britons and the world, but it may not be discussed: the hope Winston Churchill expressed at Harvard University that one day there might be common U.S.-British citizenship (TIME, Sept. 13). *Two weeks had passed and the Prime Minister’s country had shown a notable lack of enthusiasm for the proposal.

Faced with the enormous portent of Anglo-U.S. alliance in a postwar world of fewer great powers, Britons had also to face the immensely strong position of the U.S. in such an alliance. Many a Briton might recall that, back in 1929, prescient old George Bernard Shaw had written a play called The Apple Cart. In that play U.S. Ambassador Vanhattan calls on Britain’s King Magnus:

Vanhattan: The Declaration of Independence is canceled. The treaties which endorsed it are torn up. We have decided to rejoin the British Empire. We shall of course enjoy Dominion Home Rule under the Presidency of Mr. Bossfield. . . .

Magnus (collapsing into his chair): The devil you will! . . .

Vanhattan: Why shouldn’t we. After all, we are at home here. . . . We find here everything we are accustomed to: our industrial products; our books; our plays; our sports; our Christian Science churches; our osteopaths; our movies and talkies. Put it in a small parcel and say our goods and our ideas. A political union with us will be just the official recognition of an already accomplished fact. A union of hearts, you might call it.

The Queen: You forget, Mr. Vanhattan. We have a great national tradition.

Vanhattan: The United States, Ma’am, have absorbed all the great national traditions, and blended them with their own glorious tradition of Freedom into something that is unique and universal. . . .

Magnus: . . . This may be a great idea.

Vanhattan: Surely, surely.

Magnus: It may also be a trap in which England will perish.

Churchill’s mother was American, his father British.