GREAT BRITAIN: Disappointing Change

After eight months in office, Sir Anthony Eden was plainly a disappointment. Succeeding 80-year-old Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, he had won a thumping victory at the polls. He had formed his new government in an atmosphere full of the promise of change, of new enterprises launched, of fresh young blood reaching power. But so far, the Eden government has proved itself incapable of coming to grips with any major problems. Among his colleagues, Eden used to be praised as a compromiser. More and more, the most common word in Britain for Eden is ditherer.

For months Sir Anthony had dithered about replacing the Cabinet he inherited from Churchill with a new team of his own. Last week Eden announced his new team. Unhappily, it pleased no one entirely, and some not at all. And it struck nobody as the race of eager young shock troops needed for a fresh assault on Britain's mounting problems.

The major changes:

¶ Rab Butler, 53, unquestioned No. 2 Tory, was moved out of his job as Chancellor of the Exchequer (and therefore from direct responsibility for the nation's economy) and sent on to wider but also vaguer general responsibilities, becoming, in effect but not in title, Deputy Prime Minister. His official titles and duties: Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons.

¶ Harold Macmillan, 61. after only eight months as Foreign Secretary, became Chancellor of the Exchequer.

¶ Selwyn Lloyd, 51, the Tories' fastest-rising star, moved over from the Defense Ministry to replace Macmillan at the Foreign Office.

Weary Man. Keystone of the change was the shift of Butler from the Treasury. For most of the Tories' four years in power, Rab Butler's management of the Treasury marked the party's greatest single success. His transfer—just when Britain's vaunted prosperity was faltering under the pressure of inflation at home and a deteriorating balance of trade abroad, when his emergency budget was under fire both from Labor (for being too hard) and from financial circles (for being too soft)—could only be considered politically as a retreat and a comedown for the able man who only recently was being called "the next Tory Prime Minister."

The recent death of Butler's wife was a blow that seemed to drain him of much of his energy and ambition. He confided to friends that he was tired, and would welcome a less arduous job than the Treasury. Furthermore, he had run into disagreement with Eden. Butler had concluded that drastic measures would soon be needed to shake British labor and management out of their traditional spin-out-the-work habits, and was talking of a showdown. Eden wanted no showdowns.

In his new job, Butler will preside over the Cabinet in Eden's absence, take charge of the formulation of long-range Tory policy, and, as Leader of the House, will plan and present the government's legislative program in the House. But he will not even have an "overlordship" of general economic policy. Macmillan, the new Treasury head, understandably refused to accept such supervision.