GREAT BRITAIN: For the Defense

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London's wise, brilliant Economist has long been one of the Labor government's most relentless gadflies. It has mercilessly told the British people that they must work even harder, and give up some of Labor's expensive social achievements, in order to export and live. But last week, amid thicker & thicker criticism of Britain's Labor regime, the Economist, with wrath flashing and statistics flying, lined up with His Majesty's government.

Said the Economist in an article called "Britain in the Pillory":

"They, say (the American critics in particular) that Britain's woes have a simple origin in the socialist doctrines of the Labor Government—which is untrue. They say (the European critics in particular) that the British people are making less effort to get out of their troubles than the other peoples of Western Europe—which is not only untrue, but unfair and grossly insulting."

The Economist was not sure what the long-run effect of nationalization would be on the British economy; but it was quite sure that the government had not been running the nationalized industries long enough to have single-handedly created the dollar shortage.

In reply to charges that Britain's bilateral trade policies were due to "doctrinaire socialism," the Economist wrote: "British commercial policies, with a few exceptions, are imposed by the facts of the case . . . When the United States Government comes up against comparable problems, as in Germany and Austria, it reacts in much the same way."

As for the welfare state, everybody wants it—Laborites, Conservatives and, to some degree, even Americans. But the Economist concedes that Britain tried to build its welfare state a little too soon.

Concludes the Economist: "Britain's present difficulties are not due to anything that can properly be called socialism . . . The change in the relationship between the old industrial nations of Europe and the new industrial giant in the New World has been on the way for the last 30 years . . . Now, in 1949, the underlying maladjustment between Europe and America is emerging like a reef hidden for a time under a spring tide."