BRITAIN: Harold Wilson: 'A Sense of Timing'

"The Englishman's truly distinctive disease is his cherished habit of waiting until the 13th hour," wrote British Historian Arnold Toynbee last November. Events have since proved him right. It took a serious pound scare and a disastrous inflation rate of 26% to prod Britain's Labor government into coming up with what Prime Minister Harold Wilson called "a plan to save our country" from a "general economic catastrophe of incalculable proportions" (TIME, July 21). Last Tuesday, after two days of passionate, often bitter debate, the House of Commons approved the government's emergency package by a vote of 264 to 54, with all but five Tories abstaining The plan limits pay increases to a maximum of $13.20 a week, blocks the use of government funds to finance excessive wage settlements by the nationalized industries, and uses the price code to prevent private employers from passing on the cost of high settlements to the consumer. It also proposes strict cash limits on public spending.

The day after the vote, Prime Minister Wilson granted TIME London Bureau Chief Herman Nickel the first comprehensive, on-the-record press interview he has given since his February 1974 election. Meerschaum pipe in hand, Wilson sat in a pink velvet easy chair in his comfortable and attractive third-floor office at No. 10 Downing Street. Through the curtained bay window, the breeze carried in the strains of a military band playing in nearby St James Park. The Prime Minister had the relaxed self-confidence of a man who was realizing the rare joy of action decisively taken as he talked optimistically of Britain and the world.

ON THE WORLD ECONOMY

We believe, in common with all our European partners, that the time has come for a substantial reflation by those countries whose economic position enables them to do it. Germany and France have already said that they are preparing such measures, and we are pressing very strongly for further reflationary action by the United States and Japan. The world is at a turning point where such reflation could galvanize world trade because it is a slump in world trade, unprecedented since the 1930s, which has created the worst industrial depression since the '30s. I shall certainly be discussing this with President Ford when we meet together in Helsinki next week. As a big trading nation, we have set ourselves very strongly against physical import controls. But we are not going to sit back and watch a remorseless increase in British unemployment. If the slump doesn't begin to improve quickly, we obviously reserve our rights to protect our balance of payments by various means.

ON FIGHTING INFLATION