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advance
news
in the wake of today's WORLD EVENTS
•
Britain at the Brink
"The long slow decline of this natíon ís accelerating into
a collapse," editorialized London's
Daily Mail,
gravely. "The
sick man of Europe is fading fast."
The stunning coHapse of Rolls-Royce is but one mani–
festation of Britain's fading economic power and prestige.
On February 22, Ford of Britain advised its American
parent company against establishing a
$70
million engine
plant in Britain because of a continuing plague of labor prob–
lems, including a current long strike costing the company
over $3 million a day.
West Germany, which also has a Ford subsidiary, now
will probably be selected. The plant is to supply new types of
engines around the world. The tragic decision will cost the
sluggish British economy thousands of much-needed new
jobs. A disappoioted Henry Ford
IJ
said, moreover, that his
company plans to reduce its operations in Britaín. The coun–
try, he said ruefully, ís becorning "very unproductive." He
later added: "There is nothiog wrong witb Ford of Britaio -
but with the country."
Britain's economic doldrums cxtend far beyond Ford
and Rolls-Royce. Other disheartening signs are these:
- Worst strike climate sínce 1926: In January
alone nearly 2 million working days were lost.
- The maddening clamor for pay raises: Uoion
after union is demanding 15 to 25 percent pay
raises, sorne much more.
- lnflation is galloping along at a 9% clip while
the economy is growing only about 1% a year.
- Worst unemployment in 31 years: More than
700,000 Britons are now out of work - 70,000
of them executives.
- Nearly 5,000 firms went bankrupt in 1970
compared with 2,800 a decade ago.
- The country's second largest auto insurance
firm has followed Rolls-Roycc into bankruptcy,
leaving 10% of British drivers without coverage.
- lnvestment in new plants and machínery is way
clown, reflecting lack of confidence in the future.
- In 1950, 25 percent of the world's cxports
were British. This figure has now shrunk to 13
percent.
- At the beginnmg
of
1970 Britain was still the
world's third largest trading nation. She has since
been passcd by Japan and is threatened to be ovcr–
taken soon by Francc and Canada.
"The list could go on forever," said the
Daily Mail.
"But this
naJional dance of death
cannot. We are not exag–
gerating. Britain has reached a point of crisis."
Will the lesson of Ford and Rolls-Royce sínk home? Or
will
a far more serious debacle - perhaps even an economic
depression - be frightfully necessary?
"That still is our choice,"
Daily Mflil
editors said in a
final Battle-of-Britain-style plea for econornic sanity. "We
still have a chance to see sense.
Ambossodor
College
Pltoto
"But we shall have to make a
colossa! effort of the wi!!,
greater than anything ever done in peace-time.
"The Government cannot do it for us. For a nation is
only as strong as the hearts and wills of its people.
"Of course we can do it. But will we?"
•
Eilat and Oil
No looger is Mideast oil the virtual prívate domain of
the Arab states.
Although almost devoid of oil reserves of its own, tiny
Israel is becoming daily an increasingly important oil–
handling nation.
Israel's new Mideast role is based primarily on its strate–
gic deepwater port at Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba. It is from
here that a 150-mile-long, 42-inch oil pipeline stretches across
to the Israeli port at Ashkelon on the Mediterranean.
The oil short-cut, in effcct, is a substitute for the closed