Backs to the Wall

To wrestle with Britain's worsening financial plight, the conference of Commonwealth finance ministers met last week. An official later described the cheerless scene in Room D of the British Cabinet Offices: "They sat at blue-black, baize-covered tables in a hollow square, all looking inward and all with their backs to the wall." At one morning session, scheduled to begin at 10:30, a Commonwealth representative arrived ten minutes late. "Good evening," said Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps, with a frosty smile. "Good afternoon," was the reply.

There was some plainer speaking. Earlier in the week, Cripps had told the House of Commons that Britain would cut her imports from the dollar area by 25% to help stop the drain on her dollar supply. Now, Cripps wanted the Commonwealth to cut its own dollar area imports by 25%.

One finance minister objected hotly on the grounds that this might entail breaking contracts with U.S. businessmen. "Do you prefer to break contracts or break the sterling area?" Cripps demanded.

Canadian Finance Minister Douglas Abbott sat in as a Commonwealth member who is also one of the sterling area's chief creditors. He provided what one official later described as "a lot of good dollar area horse sense," breaking into the discussion from time to time with such admonitions as, "You don't imagine Mr. Snyder would listen to that!"

Britain's Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones also sat in on the meeting, to represent the interests of dollar-earning Malaya. Explained one Whitehaller: "That mumbling sound you hear is Creech Jones as representative of the British government trying to persuade himself as representative of Malaya that Malaya should cut its imports. It will."

Current London jargon divides crisis solutions into "short-term," "middle-term" and "long-term." The finance ministers' meeting sought results in only the first two categories. The short-term program called for a -L-60 to -L-100 million cut in imports by the rest of the Commonwealth (excluding Canada) from the dollar area. The middle-term scheme was a new pattern of trade and production so that the sterling area could produce more of the supplies now being imported for dollars. What Whitehall calls "the multilateral stuff" (longterm) will be left for further talks in Washington this September.

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