One day last week, Clement Attlee quietly picked up the morning paper. A minute later he found himself in the most embarrassing how-de-do a British Prime Minister had faced in a long time—the kind of situation that a Socialist would hardly wish even on his worst capitalist enemy.
It was the eve of the Paris conference on the Schuman Plan (see above), and the paper reported on a pamphlet entitled European Unity, put out by the Labor Party's National Executive Committee. The day the pamphlet reached the public, Attlee was slated to explain to the House of Commons that despite Britain's aloof attitude, the British government really wanted to cooperate in the Schuman Plan —at least in considering it. Yet the sweeping, truculent pamphlet seemed to proclaim to all the world that the British Labor Party wanted to do nothing more than blow the Schuman Plan to smithereens.
Surprise. The brown-covered, 15-page booklet (price: 3d.) violently rejected not only the Schuman Plan but the whole idea of an integrated Western Europe based on a free economy. The only way Western Europe could be saved, said the Labor Party's little book, was through Socialist planning and public ownership of industry. Britain must not surrender any of its sovereignty to a supranational body, since such a body would be dominated by non-Socialists who would interfere with Britain's domestic planning. The pamphlet also came out flatly against a Council of Europe with any real legislative power.
In the works long before Schuman made his dramatic proposal, the pamphlet had originally been intended to clarify the policy of the Labor Party, which had been divided on the issue of Western European federation. By the time the drafting committee got through with it, the small group favoring federation had been silenced. The finished document bore the arrogant, doctrinaire mark of its chief author, Minister of Town & Country Planning Hugh Dalton, whose bumbling indiscretions had gotten him and his government into trouble before.
Attlee had seen an early draft of the pamphlet, made some marginal notes on it, then forgot all about it.
European Unity went to the printers last month without Attlee's knowledge; Labor Party headquarters forgot to tell him the publication date.
Silence. The pamphlet hit the world like a slap in the face. Cried ECA's Paul Hoffman: "Deplorable isolationism! . . ." France's Robert Schuman said with Gallic politeness: "I am surprised." It was, he added, "a brutal decision."
Attlee tried valiantly to repair some of the damage. First, he effectively silenced Dalton, who had been trumpeting his views at press conferences. At week's end, under Dalton's chairmanship, Socialist delegates from nine countries assembled in London to consider the
Schuman Plan (the French Socialists, who support the plan, were so annoyed with their British comrades that they sent only one delegate). Dalton was unusually quiet. The conference broke up a day early, issued a polite communique which carefully skirted the real issues.