IT'S NOT DONE IN BRITAIN

How has Great Britain's public morality fared under the enormously increased temptations of the welfare state and government-in-business? Any mink coats? Any Bill Boyles? TIME Correspondent David Richardson cabled:

BRITAIN'S only comparable case in recent memory is the Stanley-Belcher scandal of 1948. John Belcher, a Labor M.P. and Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, was found to have accepted a gold cigarette case, a suit of clothes, unlimited hospitality, and a week's vacation at a seaside resort from one Sydney Stanley. In return, Belcher helped Stanley around the government, helped his friends get licenses for construction work on a resort hotel and helped quash prosecution of a Stanley client for alleged shady dealings in a gambling pool.

The story caused an angry and instant uproar. Press, public and politicians of both parties joined in the hue & cry. Belcher resigned from Parliament and has no prospect of a return to public life.

Cancer in the Body Politic. Sir Hartley Shawcross, then the Laborite Attorney General, eloquently voiced the uncompromising British attitude toward corruption in public office: "Our whole system of government rests upon public confidence in the honor and integrity of those whether as ministers or civil servants who are the officers of the crown . . . It was recognized from the first that the interests of the [Labor] government and of the country coincided in this: that this alleged cancer in the body politic should not be covered up but should be fully exposed, explored, and probed so that . . . it could be completely excised before it had in any way infected any general or major part of the body politic . . . If in the end some perhaps once-promising and once-worthy political or public career is ended and the bell tolls on it . . . let no one take it as the occasion for smug self-righteousness or partisan satisfaction. It is a matter which affects every political party and every citizen, and every party and citizen suffers for it."

Morality in public service is probably higher in Britain than anywhere else in the world. This is not for lack of opportunity. With much more power in the hands of the government than in the U.S., temptations are even greater. For example: all building of any kind--even a one-car garage--must be approved by the Ministry of Works. Opportunities for influence-peddling are everywhere. Yet down through the years, the instances of corruption in public office have been negligible.

The reasons are rooted in the British system, British tradition, and British character. First, as a legacy of the old British caste system (which the Socialists may have done much to erase in form, but not in substance), Britons hold public service and political office in higher esteem than people anywhere else in the world. This is a sharp contrast with the U.S., where Congressmen in the mass are still looked upon as rather comical blowhards, and civil servants as inferior drones who could not make a dime in competitive business life.

Second, Britons are not noted for optimism about human nature, and there is no "honor-system" tradition in British education or government. Britain's governmental services have developed a complex system of checks under which any grafter would probably be caught. Third, elections are held not every four years, but whenever the government loses the confidence of the House of Commons. And if Clement Attlee's government had been caught shielding influence peddlers, or if his secretary accepted a gift camera, neither his government nor any other government could survive a month.

Servants of the Crown. The reason that government could not survive a month is in the British character: a compound of discipline, fair play, political maturity, and a fierce pride in British institutions.

A case in point: when Hugh Dalton let slip news of the budget 40 minutes before its official presentation, he was compelled to resign instantly as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this case there was no hint of corrupt intent; no damage was done. But tradition, based on the danger that someone might profit by such information, demanded that he resign--and resign he did.

Britons are by no means white knights without moral blemish. Petty chiseling, by private individuals, for instance, is definitely on the increase here. But if many Britons condone sly practices of tax evasion or connivance with the butcher, they brook no deviation on the part of their public and political men. After all, they are servants of the Crown--and they watch one another like hawks.

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