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Before crowded galleries, Sir Anthony Eden rose in the House of Commons last week to move the approval of the London and Paris accords on German rearmament. "The only real alternative," he said, "would be to plunge the West into confusion and despair. Is anybody seriously going to contend we should be better able to negotiate with Soviet Russia if we were in that particular condition?"

Eden had high hopes that the accords would go through unanimously. Herbert Morrison pledged Labor's official support. The Bevanites, voted down in party caucus before the debate, were under threat of party discipline. Attlee, like Eden, hoped to avoid trouble by avoiding a formal vote in the House.

Then, from his place on the back bench beside Bevan, Bevanite Richard Crossman briskly shattered Labor's show of unanimity. If some Laborites abstain, said Grossman bluntly, "the reason will not be any change of conviction, but the fact that if one wants to survive in our party to fight another day, one has to accept a majority decision, however unpleasant . . . Let us be clear what we are about.

We passionately oppose this agreement." On the front bench, Morrison jerked around to glare. Loyal Laborites jeered. That night Attlee decided to put party unity above his convictions. The order went out to every Laborite: if there was a division, abstain.

Next day Bevan addressed the House. As always, the House listened with fascination to the Welsh lilt and the demagogic half-truth. He was not against German rearmament, Bevan insisted, but "the pace and altitude of that armament."

"What is the hurry about all this?" he demanded. "The international situation today is more favorable than it has been for some time . . . Does anybody think that the people of this country will feel safer against the prospect of war if German armies with Nazi officers have atom bombs? Really, it seems to me a piece of wanton frivolity to bring forward a proposal of this kind and discuss it as a diplomatic triumph." Eden was "squeezed into submission by Mendes-France and Foster Dulles. So far from it being a triumph, it was the most ignominious surrender in British history."

When the Speaker of the House, calling for a voice vote, heard a thin scattertering of noes, he ordered a formal vote. As Eden watched glumly, 263 Tories trooped into the voting lobby, trailed by one Socialist. Four pacifist Socialists made their lonely way to the other lobby to vote no; the rest of the Laborites kept their places. Attlee sat slumped on the front bench, doodling and looking unhappy. He had prevented a larger rebellion in Labor's ranks, but had left his party in the craven position of refusing to vote for agreements it had publicly supported.

When the House of Lords adds its pro-forma approval this week, Britain will become the first major nation to ratify the Paris accords.

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