GREAT BRITAIN: Bloc Builder

The proposal for a Western Bloc, which many Britons want but do not want to talk about, bounced up onto the floor of the House of Commons last week. It was tossed there by candid, portly Leslie Hore-Belisha, former Secretary of State for War, who urged the House to consider “an offer by Belgium to give us some kind of strategic outposts and economic outposts as well, similar to those we give the United States in the West Indies.”

He said: “We must have regard to our flank on the Continent. It is sometimes suggested that any advocacy of economic, political or strategic unity in western Europe is a threat to Russia. There should be no such thought in our minds, and if that thought exists in the minds of the Russians, it can easily be removed. There is nothing more challenging in our desire to organize the strength of the nations on our flanks than there is in Russia’s organizing the nations on her flanks.”