Common Market: Crossing the Channel

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that it is no longer enough to stay as they are. Sir William Haley, editor of the Times, put it this way: 'The mood of Britain is once again energetic, eager, prepared for the next expectant voyage—wherever it may lead.' "

Old Forms for New. Expectancy and adventure have always flowed from the commingled races from which the English are sprung. Whether handed down from Iberians or Celts, bloodthirsty Vikings or prudent Normans, or from the blend of their strains, the urge to cross oceans and found new societies has been the island nation's most compelling characteristic from the days of the Crusades and European adventure through three centuries of expansion that planted Britain's flag in the New World, through Asia and across Africa.

In turning an empire into a commonwealth, the British showed unparalleled genius for adapting old forms to new needs and alien peoples. Every other empire in history has either crumbled from within, exploded or been razed by invaders. By temperament and experience, Britain should be uniquely capable of making the successful passage from Commonwealth to Common Market—and in so doing, bring about that mingling of the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin spirit that Historian André Siegfried saw as the genius of Europe. As Edward Heath said to the House of Commons last month, "What we are dealing with is not tariffs or trade. We are dealing with fundamental human values. They affect the future of millions of people here, in Europe, in the Commonwealth and right across the world. That is what gives us the inspiration to on."

* "I am neither a lord, nor a privy, nor a seal," Heath quipped recently. The 900-year-old office, so named because its holder was once custodian of the monarch's private signet, today is a ministry without portfolio used for special assignments.

* West German wage rates, for example, have risen 33% since 1958, compared with an increase of only 16% in Britain. In cash wages, industrial workers in Britain average 77¢ an hour, more than in any Common Market country except little Luxembourg. But fatter fringe benefits in Europe make actual labor costs higher—3¢ an hour more in France, 15¢ in Germany—than Britain's 87¢ average.

* Though no Prime Minister in modern times has been a bachelor. Of 43 men who have held the office, 26 (unlike Heath) went to Eton or Harrow; 34, like Heath, went to Oxford.