GREAT BRITAIN: Austerity Again

“History alone,” Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan told the House of Commons last week, “will prove whether what we did was right or wrong,” and, he added, “I believe that history will show that we have chosen aright.” But as keeper of the national purse strings, it was doughty Harold’s unpleasant duty to point out to his countrymen that whatever the verdict of history might be, it was bound to prove expensive.

Sir Anthony Eden’s summary action in Egypt had already cost his nation from £35 million to £50 million. It had put the Suez Canal itself out of operation for perhaps six months, and reduced Britain’s supply of vital Middle Eastern oil to a trickle. Valuable dollar reserves must be spent to buy oil elsewhere. “Whatever happens,” said Harold Macmillan, “it is quite clear that there must be—I do not wish either to minimize it or exaggerate it —that there will be, a serious temporary effect upon our economy . . .”

To many a Briton, and to the Laborite Opposition in particular, the words meant a gloomy return to an all-too-familiar picture of belt tightening and austerity—soaring prices, short supplies, rationing, unemployment and inflation. The Ministry of Fuel and Power already has a complete supply of new ration books on hand, and is drafting an army of clerks to pass them out. Gas rationing seems a certainty by Christmas time, with the private motorist the first to suffer from it. Some industries dependent on oil are making plans to convert to coal, which will in turn bring up the problem of getting more coal. Steet production and its offspring, shipbuilding, will soon feel the pinch. Supplies of tin, rubber, wool and tea, all normally shipped through Suez, will inevitably decline.

Though Anthony Eden seems to be coming safely through his political crisis over Suez, Britain’s economic day of reckoning is still to come. “It’s easy enough to rally the roast-beef opinion of the country,” said one disillusioned Tory last week, “but the fact is, we’re in a helluva mess. We haven’t a shred left in the Middle East, and not much anywhere else.”