GREAT BRITAIN: Shouts & Second Thoughts

THE BIG SELLOUT . . . THE FULL EXPOSURE OF BRITAIN'S PERIL. So read the headlines in the London Daily Express, run by crusty old (77) Lord Beaverbrook, last of the imperialists. And what was the Express so vexed about—Cyprus, Singapore, Suez? No, the deadly peril to Empire, the "mortifying and shameful act of surrender" was the British Cabinet's decision to permit The Texas Co. to buy the British-owned Trinidad Oil Co.

In London financial circles the sale terms were regarded as highly favorable to Britain. Texaco would pay Britain in badly needed dollars. Its $176 million offer was twice the value of the shares. Under the conditions laid down by the Cabinet, Texaco must operate the refinery at full capacity and step up oil exploration on the island. Trinidad Oil produces about 8,000,000 bbls. of crude annually but is a midget in the international oil industry. Yet no British firm was in shape to buy it, or provide the funds to expand it. In the long run, Texaco's expansion plans would mean increased U.S. dollar investment both in Britain and in underdeveloped Trinidad. Said Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan: "If we use our powers to prevent the transaction, we run the risk of denying great material benefits to the island . . ."

Despite Macmillan's explanations, the Cabinet decision provoked a storm of protest in Parliament. Spearhead of the attack were Tory backbenchers, chief among them Toronto-born Sir Beverley Baxter, a onetime piano salesman who rose to the eminence of editor in chief of

Beaverbrook's Express. He had learned from a Canadian Cabinet Minister, said Sir Beverley, that "the policy of the big oil interests of the U.S. is to achieve a monopolistic control of the natural oil in the English-speaking world."

At week's end, however, as more and more of the facts came out, Lord Beaverbrook was left to cry shame alone. The rival Daily Mail, which had originally urged the government to "turn it down," after thinking it over a few days, concluded: "On the face of it there is much to be said for the Trinidad oil deal."