BELGIUM: From Palace to Tram Top

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Belgium's Christian Socialists maneuvered doggedly for a cabinet that would restore exiled Leopold III to the throne. The anti-Leopoldists, led by the Socialists' Paul-Henri Spaak, blustered, brawled and blocked just as doggedly to keep the King away.

Christian Socialist Leader Gaston Eyskens failed to put together a government. The Liberals, holding the balance of power between Christian Socialists and Socialists, stood tenaciously against the Kingon the ground that his popular majority (57.68%) in the recent referendum had not been large enough to insure an orderly restoration.

"Morning Coat to Shirtsleeves. All week the Socialists tried to prove that the Liberal fears were justified; in so doing, they showed the world another, little-known side of the Belgian temper. At times, stolid sensible Brussels seemed more like the "Red belt" of Paris or a riot-torn Italian piazza.

Students and strikers massed at Socialist headquarters, chanted "Ab -di -ca -tion!" and "Leopold to the gallows!" Paul-Henri Spaak doffed the morning coat of a continental diplomat for the shirtsleeves of pavement politics. He appeared at a third-floor window and cried: "We ask the gendarmes to retire. This is a legal demonstration. Gendarmes have no business here." Coatless and bareheaded, Spaak led a parade of his belligerent followers through the city. The crowd noticed a repairman on top of a tram whose guide rope had been torn down by demonstrators. "Come down off that tram and we'll take care of you, you lousy scab!" yelled a red-scarved striker. Another scrambled to the tram top. While thousands watched, the Leopoldist and anti-Leopoldist squared off, pummeled each other, the proletarian champions of the factions splitting Belgium.

Indefatigable Paul-Henri Spaak next hurried to Liege to join a parade of 20,000. Everywhere he warned: "What we are doing today is a prelude. If Leopold comes back, that's when the real trouble will start."

The Little Corporal. This week the Christian Socialists stepped back for a Liberal try at the royal question. Leopold's younger brother, the Regent Prince Charles, asked the Liberals' Albert Devèze to form a government. Short, sprightly, a politician to the tips of his grey mustache, Devèze has been a Deputy Premier and Defense Minister since August 1949. Dubbed "le petit caporal" because he likes to prance on horseback in uniform, the new Premier-designate was said to be hopeful of a three-party agreement to recall Leopold on condition that the King abdicate immediately in favor of his son

Crown Prince Baudouin. What made Devèze believe the stubborn factions were ready for harmony? "That's my secret," chirped the little corporal, then added brightly: "Have pity on the pianist!"