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BRITAIN
TODAY
The SlnwJ Soft SlideDownhill
T
HIRTY YEARS
ago an
American friend com–
plimented me on the
wisdom of my country's
government.
He waxed eloquent: The new
policy of decolonization , he
believed, was the finest thing
that had happened in Britain's
history for centuries- perhaps
in her entire history. A new and
more. powerful. realm, he
thought, would arise, based on
freedom and mutual respect. A
new clutch of nations would be
hatched, harbingers of an era of
coherent and cohesive world
development.
And Britain would be the greatest
beneficiary of all. For her creative
talents and calm commonsense, 1
was told, would be concentrated
essentially on her own needs. Britain
would be the workshop, trader,
banker of the world and, more than
all that, a beacon of intellectual
life- another, greater Athens.
1 had my doubts. 1 bad lived
through the futile, fickle thirties
and had made my own, juvenile
contribution to tbat most irrespon–
sible decade-only pulling myself
together and joining the army when
the Municb Agreement was signed.
1 became painfully aware of the
utter unpreparedness of the British
army to fight a war, of the lack of
planning and purpose, and the vain
hope that the threat
df
Hitler and
the Nazis would somehow fade
Aprll 1982
by
T.C.F. Prittie
away. Britain' s moral decline would
have been less apparent to me, had
not my mother launched into a
series of letters and newspaper
articles on this subject.
Britain's defenselessness in 1940
was a nightmare to someone taken
prisoner on the sands of Calais,
with the sun shining down on the
white cliffs of Dover aod Germao
soldiers pointing derisively across
the narrow belt of water that short–
ly they expected to cross. Britain,
as it happened, was saved- more
by the sea than the gallant young
meo of the Royal Air Force.
A New Elizabethan Age?
My main doubt about a "new Eliz–
abethan Age" in Britain's history
rested on the thought that the loss
of the Empire would not bring a
surge of British imagioation and
initiative within the narrow con–
fines of the United Kingdom, but
would dispirit and diminish nation–
al morale and national effort.
Britain, historically, has been at
her best when faced with a real
cballenge, as in her "finest hour" in
World War 11. But British response
to challenge began to fade by the
1950s.
One British newspaper,
The Dai-
We hove asked the Honourable T .C.F. Prit–
tie lo give readers a personal
e~~a/uation
on
the state ofBritain today. Mr. Prillie was a
corresponden/ with
rheGua,rdian
(Manches–
ter) from /945 lo 1970. and was dip/omatic
corresponden/ between 1961 and /970. He
has written a number of
books
including
Germany Oividcd
(1960) ;
Israel. Miracle
in
the
Oesert
( 1967);
A
Bi~hy
of Konrad
Adenauer
(1972);
Willy Brandt
(1971); and
Whose Jerusalem?
(198/).
/y
Express,
believed that the spirit
of the first "Elizabethan Age"
could be revived. A whole series of
articles acclaimed the ••new Eliza–
bethans," introducing each in turn
with
••¡•n
give you ..." The roll of
honor was impressive, but the
names themselves had much to do
with the past, and little with the
future. The past was still a fine,
colorful canvas, with an over-heavy
emphasis on the 1940-41 Battle of
Britain, when the country stood
alone against the might of Nazi
Germany . In sad contrast, the
future was beginning to look like a
gray twilight. ·
Fifteen years ago, as guest of the
government of Yugoslavia, 1 paid a
visit to the lovely little port of Du–
brovnik. Its history, especially from
Venetian times onward, has had to
do with the sea, and a link with
Britain was predictable. Dubrov–
nik's Maritime Museum contains,
among much else, models of every
ship built for the merchant marine
of Yugoslavia from 1919 onward–
for Yugoslavia was successor to a
landlocked Serbia, which never
possessed a ship to its name.
There, in a single room in Du–
brovnik's Maritime Museum, were
tbe models of ships from Tyneside,
Teesside, Merseyside, Humberside,
Clydeside, the Fir-th . of Forth,
Southampton Water, Belfast
Lough and the shipyards of a score
of lesser-known waterways. Every
detail ·of every sbip, as to dimen–
sions, tonnage, date of delivery and
lengt~
of service, was meticulously
recorded.
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