State of Emergency

After much conversation on the "green line," the private telephone wire between the Prime Minister's residence and Balmoral Castle, Queen Elizabeth II last week proclaimed a "state of emergency" in Britain. Reason: the nationwide railway strike that had halted four out of five trains on the nationalized railway system. Close to 70,000 locomotive engineers and firemen struck May 29 for a wage increase that would add little to their weekly pay packets but would preserve the differential between their "skilled" wage rate and that of nearly 400,000 railroad workers including porters, signalmen and gandy dancers.

The walkout brought a creeping slowdown in British industry, already troubled by a strike of 20,000 dockers. Coal piled up at the pitheads, steel mills closed, trawlers were laid up for lack of fuel. Commuters, who took to buses, cars and bicycles by the thousands to get to their offices, involved London in a huge traffic snarl. With the nation's vital export trade and its own prestige at stake, Sir Anthony Eden's new Tory government stepped in vigorously. In the Queen's name, Eden:

P:Issued 25 emergency decrees empowering the Cabinet to ration food and fuel, requisition vehicles, arrest saboteurs without warrant;

P: Summoned Parliament to meet five days early--to approve his emergency powers;

P: Formed a Cabinet committee with himself as its head "to protect the nation."

Anxious to prove his patient negotiating skill in domestic as well as foreign difficulties, Sir Anthony hoped to settle the strike without using his full special powers. He had most of the nation with him: Labor leaders joined the Tory Cabinet in urging the striking union to return. "This country is run on the basis that people will be reasonable," wrote the Laborite Daily Herald. "We advise the strikers not to prolong the agony."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.