The Idle Fleet

Britain's life line is its merchant navy. Last week the life line snapped. For the first time in 55 years, Britain's seamen went out on strike.

It would take at least three weeks for all of Britain's 2,500 merchant ships, the world's largest trading fleet, to return to British ports (British seamen are prohibited by law from striking their ship in a foreign port or at sea). But already at least 500 ships and 12,000 of Britain's 65,000 seamen were idled, and the strike was having severe effects on Britain's economy. Despite Prime Minister Harold Wilson's warnings, some grocers hiked food prices about 10%. The government forbade the export of meat to conserve the domestic supply. Britain's big automakers may be forced to cut back production and lay off workers because of interrupted exports. Slowdowns were ahead for other British manufacturers, as stocks of imported raw materials diminished. The loss in sales abroad was certain to hurt Britain's balance of payments. The prospect reduced the pound sterling at one point to $2.79 1/16, the lowest mark in 13 months.

On the surface, the strike seemed simply a matter of money. The seamen, who now earn about $56 for working 56 hours a week, want the same wage for a 40-hour week, plus overtime pay for the additional 16 hours. The raise would be far above the 3 1/2% annual wage increase Wilson has laid down as the cornerstone of his policy of economic restraint.

Extreme Positions. The dispute might never have come to a strike except for the internal tensions within Britain's National Union of Seamen. The present crisis dates back to 1960, when a group of Communist renegades from the union succeeded in pulling off several wildcat strikes against British shipping. Figuring that it would be better to have the Communists back in his union where he could keep an eye on them, Union Chief William Hogarth invited the troublemakers into his union's inner council. They have pushed him into increasingly extreme positions. To the Labor government's appeals to the seamen not to strike, Hogarth replied: "If we were thinking of the country first and foremost, naturally there would be no strike. But charity begins at home."

Britain has food enough to last about eight weeks, and foreign ships could easily keep the supply above the danger level. The trouble is that the idled British ships so jam Britain's ports that soon foreign vessels may be unable to find room to unload. So Wilson is considering calling on Royal Navy crews to board the freighters and move them away from docks. But the dockers and railworkers have warned that if he brings the navy into the strike, they, too, may walk off their jobs.

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