Mother Complex

Ever since Homer called it "the navel of the sea," Malta has been an island in search of an umbilical cord. 'Alone and vulnerable in the Mediterranean, 150 miles south of Italy, the rock (9 by 17 miles) has no economic value. But a fine deep harbor on its northeast shore has brought it the "protection" of a succession of great seafaring peoples, Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, and for nearly 300 years, the crusading Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. Napoleon cut that tie. Then came Nelson, and the island, at the request of the Maltese themselves, became a crown colony.

The British proved to be the most casual of mothers. They set up a dockyard at Valletta harbor, and for more than a century, the Navy Estimates were the most exciting thing that happened in Malta, as well as the chief source of livelihood of its 320,000 inhabitants. But the island hardly interested the British until, in World War II, it became the center of bitter struggle with the Italians and the Germans for control of the Mediterranean. Then, as a British air and naval base, with the Maltese dug into its golden limestone, the island held out against one of the most intense and blistering air bombardments of all times.

When it was over, with some 1,500 Maltese killed and 30,000 homes lost, the British awarded the island a George Cross, voted $90 million for repair, forgot about Malta again.

In 1953, without consulting the Maltese, NATO made the island its Mediterranean headquarters, but the very existence of NATO was a reminder that the days of British naval supremacy, and possibly dockyards, were over. Politically-minded Maltese talked of revolution and self-government, but a better idea came up: Why not put a clove hitch in the British umbilical? Last week Maltese Prime Minister Dom Mintoff and a delegation of Maltese went to London for a round-table conference with a group from the Mother of Parliaments, and put the idea to the British M.P.s in specific terms: make Malta an integral part of the United Kingdom (like Northern Ireland).

Mintoff proposed that Malta have elected representatives in the British Parliament, pay taxes on the British scale and share welfare state benefits. He also wanted economic integration--but this to come gradually over 15 or 20 years. With Mintoff sat a delegation of his political opposition, who also had come to the conference to lobby for a closer tie 'to Britain ; they preferred complete self-government within the Commonwealth.

The British, accustomed for years now to passionate, often violent, demands for severing or diminishing relations with them, listened with expressions of gratified incredulity, agreed to give the Maltese desires full consideration. After all, they reasoned, it is the least a mother country should do.

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