Europe a Nation
Machine of Government
Modernise Britain
Wage-Price Mechanism
Frontiers
Guerrilla Warfare
Spheres of Influence
Labour Crisis
Cheap Labour
Unemployment
Balance of Payments
Coming Crisis
Law and Order
Higher Forms
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Policies for Present and Future - Overview
AFTER the war my policies were deliberately in advance of the time, and I did not for a moment deceive myself that they could all
immediately be implemented. The reader at this stage of the story may be willing to credit me with a residue of realism behind
all my intransigence; in the end there must always be a considerable element of compromise to get practical things done.
Moreover, in my experience of British politics there have always been several ways of doing what was necessary. The trouble so
far has been the resistance to getting anything done in time. These policies therefore are a sign of direction, not a final
encampment. At this point it was indicated that someone should try to see a glimpse of light through the surrounding gloom of
passion and confusion. My key policies were :-
- Europe a Nation
- The Wage-Price Mechanism, and
- The linking of science with an effective machine of government.
It may be convenient in a review of these ideas to consider external policy before the home policy, on whose success all else
depends.
I was the first to use the phrase Europe a Nation, in 1948, and it was preceded by my advocacy of an 'extension of patriotism'
(1946). I wrote in Europe: Faith and Plan (1958): 'Europe a Nation is an idea which anyone can understand. It is simple, but
should not on that account be rejected; most decisive, root ideas are simple. Ask any child: what is a nation? He will probably
reply, "a nation has a government!'" This is the right answer, for a nation consists of a people or of peoples who have decided
to have the same government. I believed and I still believe this is the way in which Europe will be made; no lesser idea will
arouse the enthusiasm of the peoples to make changes so far-reaching. Yet it is probable that neither this nor any other idea
will awaken the will to bold reform until the urge of economic necessity is felt. At a moment of supreme crisis the will to
Europe a Nation can arise everywhere from the soil of Europe, like a primeval fire. First must come the idea.
The tragic paradox of our existing situation is that the fear of losing our individual cultures is the main impediment to a true
union of Europe, while in practice nothing less than the power of united Europe can protect and maintain our present national
civilisations. Not only are the industries of our relatively impotent and divided nations taken over by the power of the dollar,
but the culture of the large and the powerful tends to absorb the small and the weak. This is the inevitable penalty of being a
dependent of America as the only alternative to being the victim of Russia. A union of equal peoples within Europe a Nation would
save us by an adequate power of economy and defence from all necessity of dependence, and would expose us to no more imposition
of each other's cultures than we can freely enjoy or reject at present.
The desire for this independence is felt in varying degree by the peoples of Europe at present; they will the end but reject the
means. Independence from America or the other large external power can come only from a near equality of strength. Otherwise we
can have much posture of independence, but no reality. It is impossible to deploy the policy of Europe without the means of
Europe. An attempt by any of our relatively small European countries to pursue a policy for which alone the power of a united
Europe is adequate must fail because the strength and substance are lacking. No man can play the part of a giant with the muscles
of a pigmy. All European countries are doomed to ultimate ineffectiveness until Europe is made.
It has been to me a tragedy that my own country was for years the main impediment to the making of Europe. We have passed beyond
the days when British policy tried to straddle the world between America, Europe and the Commonwealth, with an end as inevitable
as it was ignoble of falling between three stools. We have evolved beyond the point when a future Prime Minister could say he
knew in his bones we should not enter Europe, with more than full support from the ardent obscurantism of the Labour leaders,
headed in the past by their most admired Foreign Secretary, Bevin. The British Government now stands at the end of a queue of
humble applicants to enter Europe. I begged my fellow countrymen to take a decision and to persist in the initiative to enter and
to make Europe in 1948, nine years before the Common Market began and ten years before General de Gaulle came to power.
Even today Europe, with good reason, puts to Britain the simple but still unanswered question: 'Do you enter as Europeans or as
American agents?' I believe as a dedicated, some may say fanatical, European, there is good ground to postpone the real making of
Europe until this question is clearly answered. It is true that neither France nor any other of our divided nations can play the
role of Europe in the world until the power of Europe is available; consequently we are all doomed to relative impotence until
Europe is made. On the other hand, to turn Europe from a collection of small American satellites into one large transatlantic
satellite would make things worse rather than better. At present, it is open to France or to any other European country to offer
some resistance to that process, thus preserving some national and European identity. But as mere cogs in an international
machine—seeking the best and getting the worst of all worlds—Britain, France, Germany, Italy— Europe itself—could be
irretrievably lost.
The full development of Europe is halted at present before the dilemma that without Britain Europe cannot entirely function, and
with Britain Europe might cease to exist. The answer is for Britain to become truly European, and then to take the foot off the
brake and tread on the accelerator in a hard drive for complete union. Such things have happened in our history before; the
British people are sadly slow to start—no one has been more frustrated and infuriated by this characteristic than I have been—but
once they begin, they can be among the foremost in speed and action.
My insistence on the making of a united and independent Europe may suggest an attitude hostile to America. On the contrary, I
have a long and consistent record of advocating fidelity to our American alliance and friendship with the American people. The
desire to be a man's friend but not his dependent is surely a right and proper attitude. America has more to gain from a strong
partner than a weak satellite, and to do it justice, it has always sought to promote rather than to hinder the union of Europe;
an attitude unique in its generosity, because history shows no other example of a great power trying deliberately to create
another great power. This should be remembered, together with the assistance Europe received in days of adversity, when we no
longer require either American assistance or protection.
Our alliances should be for purposes of mutual defence and not for the sharing or support of unnecessary adventures. If the soil
or vital interests of Europe or America were assailed by the communist powers, we should rally immediately to each other's
support without question, but neither Britain nor Europe should be dragged at the heels of American adventures in regions remote
as southern Asia, which are in no way our business, and this should be made crystal-clear. It is desirable and possible that the
making of a great European power will enable the restraining hand of a strong and experienced friend to replace the helpless
bleep of the accompanying satellite.
When European power is fully developed the American presence in Europe will be unnecessary, and this will facilitate the
achievement of many objectives of European policy. Inevitably, the emergence of Europe as a great power will create a third force
in the world. I have always been an ardent protagonist of that idea. This does not mean that we would then desert America in face
of aggression, or refuse common arrangements to meet that contingency, but that Europe as a great power should deliberately try
to hold the balance of the world, and our vast experience in foreign affairs will enable us to do it, once power reinforces
knowledge. We have deeper roots in historical experience and far wider and more tested contacts than America, and they can be of
service to us both when we exchange the position of a camp follower for that of a colleague.
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