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Questions then followed:
Questioner: Should we be unfortunate enough to go in, how would it affect our position East of Suez if we go into the Common Market from the defence point of view. Will the Common Market countries help us in that role or will they tell us to get on and do the dirty work out there on their behalf?
Mr. Stewart: Well, I do not in the first place accept the implication of the question that it will be unfortunate if we get in, I reject that altogether. But on the question of defence is it not recognised that one of the problems that Europe has got to face is that she has got to be prepared to make increasingly effective contribution to her own defence? Not that we have any reason whatever, particularly in view of President Nixon's recent statement, to expect any disengagement of America from Europe; but it will be expected (it is now 20 years or more since the war ended) that Europe will play a larger part in the common defence of NATO. Now I would have thought the increasing opportunities for common counsel that will come from membership of the EEC will mean that joint work together on defence matters by European countries will be facilitated by membership of the European Economic Community. As to East of Suez, it is, of course, in any case the Government's policy to withdraw an actual permanent military presence from East of Suez. I do not think anyone ought to deceive themselves. Whether you agree with the Government's decision to do that by the end of 1971 or not. I think everyone knows it would have been done sooner or later anyhow and not so very much later, and that no other country in the world of our population and resources would continue to bear the defence responsibilities we were bearing. Now I do not know if I could prophesy about what would be the attitude of a United Western Europe as a whole to the problems of East of Suez, but one thing I am quite certain of is this: that the attitude which you described-a little unkindly I think of their saying to us: "You get on and do it yourself" is exactly, of course, the attitude they do take now and have taken for a long time. They are rather more likely, I would have thought, to be interested in world problems that greatly concern us if we are in the Community than if we remain outside.
The next questioner asked whether Britain's joining Europe might be dangerous if it increased the chances of a recession in America.
Mr. Stewart: No, I really can't accept that. In the first place although there have been some anxieties expressed about recession in America, I think this can be very greatly exaggerated and the world does know, having learnt by experience, a good deal more about how to anticipate and combat recession than it used to. But what I would particularly reject, I think, is the idea that if, as a result and I think it will be the result, of our entering the Community, the Community itself becomes more prosperous, that that would necessarily be at the expense of the United States. Surely all the experience of the years since the war is this, that there is not a limited amount of world trade and world markets and that therefore if one group of mankind gets more, another must get less? And that, broadly speaking there are a few exceptions to this--the more you liberalise trade, the more likely you are to produce a result in which every part of the world is employing its resources most effectively. I do not believe that a more prosperous and united Europe will damage America. In the end, it will be to the advantage of America that Europe should be increasingly prosperous and, of course, the reverse is true.
After the First World War, the world made the disastrous error of thinking that there was only a limited amount of world trade and each country must try
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