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The Queen and a General Election
AS
S Mr Macmillan, calendar in front of him, weighs up the advantage of having the General Election on this date or that, one factor remains constant however much others may vary: the Royal Timetable for the year,
For the Queen, as she under- lined in her Christinas broad- cant, will be going away twice this year.
With Prince Philip. she will be out of the country for about 11 weeks in all..
In mid-June they set off for Canada and the opening of the grent St Lawrence Seaway. They are not due back unill the beginning of August,
Then, after the customary
hollday at Balmoral, they leave in the afddle of October for Went
Afries - Ghana, Sterra Leone, Garaula. This will be a journey of four weeks,
Many signs
Look again at these arranges ments.
If there were not already many signs that My Macmillan is bent on an early election, by June at the very intest, they might suggest one, Equally, however, they might suggest that he could wait until mid- Oziober.
| POCKET CARTOON
by OSBERT LANCASTER
BOOK ON THE YEAR
NORTCON
"Personally, remembering General Eisenhower, General de Gaulle, General Franco, General Abboud, General Salan, Brigadier Kachem, and Ca.onel Naster, I'm only teo thank. ful that British senior
officers do find fulfliment in memoir-ivriting."
Ful Jh all the available evidence points to the strat alternative, it is to this that I now and the implication of the Queen's imetable.
To sum up on dates:
The Queen's absence rules out the second half of June the whole of July. August and September Are also out-100 many people ure away from home.
alternative, It Mr Marinition Fast pausing on the second did settle for an autumn elge Hot, it would have to be the first fortnight of October, Other- wore he would be held up i the queen kot back in the
miculté of November,
But would really matter, some may ask, it the Queen did find herself abroad when a new Government was being formed?
Yes, woukti, And it seems inconceivable that events would be managed in such a way.
IL
Unfortunate
would be unfortunate enuugh if that were to happen. by accident, because of a snap election suddenly forced upta the
Minister. In any other efrcumstances it would
Prime
sarely be umpardonable,
The argument that a Counch
me
THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1959.
Cummings
Mr Sandys' Incredible Shrinking Army
Expected Some
The British Navy Dos
Please use magnifying.
Calots
The Great British 'H' Deterrent
Generalissima-Marshalissimo Admiral Mountbatten
"And it would be even more wonderful If I had some Armed Forcos to be Supromo over."
SUEZ
THE staggering and
THE
humiliating unpre- paredness of the British Armed Forces when Nasser seized the Suez Canal left Britain and France with no alterna- tive but to go along with
a series of diplomatic
of State might cfleinte on the Queen's behalf seems to quite unrealistic if not improper. moves. For two reasons: the unique im- portance, national and
inter-
These were marked by in- misunderstanding
national, of any General Elec-creasing
tion and the duty of Govern-between the British and
ments to ensure, to the best of
the ability, that the Sovereign's American Governments and
constitutional function
can be by two grave miscalcula-
discharged in the must complete tions in Britain.
woy
The election ahead of us will
The first was over
the
be one of the mest telling for many years, shaping the future matter of the Suez pilots.
of our country at o time of momentous change,
to manage the
PART TWO OF
-Lundon Express Service).
A REPORT TO THE NATION.
by
RANDOLPH CHURCHILL
TWO
major blunders
which
sank us
in New
available to the British and would have enabled them to American Journalists French Governments. But the vindicate their rights themselves, York, revealed that the calamity they had bacume involved in the *
of Suez was due to a "series of There was hope and ex- leading Ministers showed
remarkable reluctance to face international tolls which Mr glaring miscalculations." Who knows what will happen? [pectation in high allied cir- facts, and when an official of the Dulles had been at pains to ecn- Unlikely as it may seem, Mr eles that Nasser would not Suez Canal Company pointed trive for them. Once you start
The greatest had been in Galskell might wh
completely underestimating the be able to fulfil Egypt's out to Mcnsieur Treau that in talking, it is very hard to stop, Would the Queen wish to miss
reaction
the of
American the formation of the first Seck1- obligations under the 1888 his view Nassor would be able.
no Government. The British Gov- The Anglo-French case Canal, the ist Government in her zeign? 1 Convention in regard
had longer looked as good as it did ernment
that to French Foreign Minister merely
thought think noi. Nor would she keeping the Canal open and replied
the day Nasser nationalised the American opinion would vary choose to miss the formation effree. For on September 11
Canal. Experts in International from "benevolent neutrality" a new Tory Government,
Law had been Icboriously cx- to "hostile neutrality." plaining that it was really no, more peccant for Nasser to What they had never ox. In this nationalise the Conal than it pected was that America
to Canal wis for Mr Attlee have "would lead the pack against
nationalised the steel industry, us."
not be overlooked.
"Well, I hope you are wrong." The Queen's place in affairs the European pilots belong- Some shipping lines decided and her interest in affairs caning to the old Suez Canal not to risk their ships at all and
Mr Mecmillan will take them Company had been given to go round the Cape.
way trafe through the permission by the company wra temporarily reduced by 25 to withdraw..
per cent, much to the relief of Nesstr. who was thereby enabled to discharge is obligatiens.
fully into cescunt.
George Hutchinson
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Recruits
For three days it was touch and go to to whether the ships could be brought through by Nasser's scratch team of pilots These pilots worked non-sto day and night. On Septembe 10, 42 ships (against the normal dally average of 38)
The withdrawal of the pilots might in fact have closed the Canul in August, but a month later, when it was decided to call out the pilots, the position brought through the Canal with changed considerably. It out mishap. And on that day 15 had become clear that the Russian pilots arrived. Greek and the non-European
had
pilots on
the Canal would stay on with the nationalised company.
Meanwhile, Nasser had gone on a recruiting cam- paign and had succeeded in enrolling quite considerable numbers of able pilots from Russia, Greece, Germany, and Yugoslavia.
On top of this, there was the mystique about the in- tricacy of the pilots' job which had been carefully fostered by old Suez hands,
but which was not borne out by the facts.
All this wrs known to the experts, and should have been
HARRY ODELL
PRESENTS
Involved
were
Nasser had wou this round. He had shown that he could run
the Canal without British and French help.
As the prezidential election epproached, the Americans were showing day, by day less ca- the thusiasm for the cause of
Westorn illes. The nearer they got to the elections the less likely it was that the State De-
partment would brand Nasser as an aggressor. For President campaign mana- Elsenhower's gers were fighting for his re- on the basis that he
election was the Prince of Peace.
It is fantastic that the British Government failed to pprehend this elementary fact about the American domestic
scene.
Indeed, there are strong grounds for supposing that they entirely misread the situation.
Overruled
It was in these circumstances that Sir Anthony overruled his French partners and the decision was made to take the problem to the Security Council of the United Nations.
cript of the conference was Inter amended to refer to the "so called problems" of colonialism in Asia and Africa, where "the United States plays a somewhat Independent role", somehow only served to underline the diver- gence.
Meanwhile Mr Selwyn Lloyd was Introducing
Anglo- French resolution asking the Security Council to recommend that Egypt should join 11 for a new Canal negotiations agreement.
There was a great deal of cordiality among the delegater, though relations between Lloyd and Dulles remained strained after the latter's PresS con- ference of October 2,
Whispers
L
Some acecunt
at those dis- cussing arrived in whispers
at
Llandudno on October 11, where the Tory Party conference in session. It was learned that Britain and France had accepted
1923
Yet outside the conference chamber Mr Butler, the apparent No. 2 In the Government, boasting freely that he and some of his friends In the Cabinet had restrained Eden from taking military action in July, and again in mid-September. And that if Eden were to be equally reckless In the future, he and his friends avere standing by with a political straitjacket.
Yet Buller was not restrained by these considerations from going to the trouble of inter- polating in his prepared speech to the conference on October 11
the
statement that, having served under Ave Prime Minis- tes, there was none who could vie with Sir Anthony Eten in "dair, courage, and integrity."
A veto
While the Tory delegates were entrained for London the Secur ity Council in New Yoric met for the last time to bring its mine
days of endeavour to a conclusion. But when it came to the meat of the Anglo-French resolution, calling on Egypt to join la negotiations, Russia and Yugo- slavia voled against it.' And Russia's vote reted as a vato,
Negative
Security from the
It had taken the Council three weeks. time a special session was first requested, to ocme
to
this
En amendment to their Security negative conclusion. Mr Dulles Council resolution, which rather "understood the Security Coun- diluted the force of the original terms. It seemed to many of the. ell remained seized of the Suez problem." But as far as the delegates at the conference that British and French Governments the Government was preparing were concarried, all that remain
ed seized was the Canal itself, talk now no amount of and seemed likely to wrest it from Nasser.
to back down.
· But in the course of the debate Mr Anthony Nutting On October 2, just three days one of the Ministers of State at before the opening of the the Foreign Omce, who WIZ Security Council meeting. Dulles speaking from the brief of Lord talk, the British and French held a press conference of a Salsbury, who was 11, made a argument singularly unhelpful character.
strongly-worded speech. To begin with, he admitted
"Britain and France、、 that there
were fundament mean business and will stand differences between the United Arm. It the United Nations States and her Europan ailies does not do its duty, we must in their approach to the Suez do curs." problem. Inquestions of colonial-
echoed there
JAK AT THE BOAT SHOW
ism he said, the United States The following day Sir Not for the 4rst and last In mid-November Mr Selwyn must play in Independent role. Anthony Eden time in
Eden Lloyd, at a small gathering of The fact that the official trans- strong words, this unlucky period, the British Government misinformed about the facts Ecems not only to have been of life, but very ready to consale itself and the British public with delusive aspirations.
Policy
founded
upon hope is always fore-doomed wrong information and vain to failure, if not disaster.
The second murcalculation was over the allude to America. By the time Britain and France were in a military posture which
LE THEATRE D'ART DU BALLET
KING'S THEATRE
AT 9.30 P.M.
TO-NIGHT
AND
BOAT SHO
BAILY
WAWEZ
JAKES IT
The longer the delay and the
now ran, the more diffelt it wruld prove to dis- lodge Nasser.
SATURDAY:
The facts about collusion.
WEDNESDAY, 14th JANUARY, THURSDAY,
15th JANUARY
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“He was just telling me about his D-Day landing experiences--when his face turned ail greenf