"How Can We Do This Thing?"

Seldom in this century has legislation so disturbed Britain as the government's bill to restrict immigration from Commonwealth countries. Opponents of the measure range from the left-wing New Statesman, which has damned its "contemptuous" disregard of Commonwealth citizens' traditional right of free entry into Britain, to the Tory Times, which feared for the already fragile fabric of the Commonwealth. Last week, when the bill came up for a two-day debate in Parliament, the staid old House of Commons was plunged into such violent turmoil that the chair had to suspend a session for the first time since the Suez dispute in 1956.

By its handling of the bill, the government has confirmed British suspicions that its primary aim is to cut the flow of colored immigrants. Since it was hastily introduced at a time when Britain is preparing to enter the European Common Market--which permits free movement of workers from one country to another--some of its critics suspect that the bill was drawn up at the urging of other European nations that are reluctant to open their doors to the Commonwealth's 600 million colored citizens. The measure, which stipulates that Commonwealth citizens may in the future enter the mother country only if they can prove that they have jobs to go to, has stirred deep resentment from Ireland to India, where it is being called "British apartheid." Sir Grantley Adams, federal prime minister of the British West Indies, said bitterly last week: "I was consulted about as much as a father consults his son whether he should be flogged."

Black Irish. Though the government originally defended itself against charges of color bias by announcing that the curb would apply equally to Irish citizens, even this pretense was dropped last week with the lame explanation that the right to restrict Irish immigration would be used only if "absolutely necessary.'' The government's aim is to keep out what one critic of the bill called ''black Irish" immigrants: West Indians who try to enter the country via Ireland. Defending the bill, Home Secretary "Rab" Butler stumbled through an inept speech.

Though many Englishmen piously insist that they have no racial problem, the government's bill is an admission, in the Spectator's words, that "the British people are no more resistant to color prejudice than the people of, say, Chicago.'' Though Britain has only 400,000 colored residents (less than 1% of the population), a recent survey reported that 90% of Englishmen interviewed believe that immigration should be restricted. Industrialists welcome the newcomers, since they are more mobile, industrious, and willing to "work dirty." Yet a widespread prejudice, expressed by Tory M.P. Sir Cyril Osborne, is that the West Indies, which sends Britain up to 80% of its colored migrants, are "exporting their unemployment to us."

White V.D. More serious arguments against unrestricted immigration are that colored migrants aggravate Britain's severe housing shortage, have a higher disease rate than most whites, and in some cases, come to Britain solely to get free medical treatment. In industrial Birmingham, health officials hold migrants responsible for an increase in tuberculosis, venereal disease (which, said one, "they seem to catch from white girls") and illegitimacy.* But the great majority nevertheless are healthy, law-abiding citizens.

By tacking more than 140 amendments onto the immigration bill, the opponents of the measure hoped to filibuster it to death by debating them one by one. Instead, the government insisted that the amendments had to be voted as a package, and in the ensuing uproar the session was suspended. There was no doubt that the government would ram through its bill with a majority of 100. But an increasing number of Britons, many Tories included, felt that it was unworthy of a nation that has long prided itself on its hospitality to immigrants.

In a ringing speech, Labor Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell recalled that the West Indies were forcibly populated by British planters and traders who needed African slave labor for their plantations. Said Gaitskell: "Some of these islands have been British for over 300 years. We made them. We brought them up in our own traditions. They've no other language. If people like that feel they're British, how can we keep them out of Britain? How can we do this thing?"

*On the other hand, a Congregational minister in London last week blamed immorality on scarce housing, high interest rates, explaining that the credit squeeze makes it difficult for young couples to afford a house of their own. Said the Rev. Clifford S. Hill: "Is it any wonder that we are fast becoming a morally bankrupt, spiritually barren, decadent nation, with a rising illegitimacy, an enormous crime rate and a terrifying number of broken homes?"

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