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wool gilt-edged? The "brutal ingratitude" of Glubb's dismissal seems
to me comparatively easy to understand once the vital facts have slipped
out in the next sentence or two. For surely those facts are vital, not
only to the understanding of this event, but of the whole situation in
the Middle East. To me, at least, it was an illumination to read that
Jordan "depends for its very existence upon the subsidies it receives
from the British Treasury," and that General Glubb commanded both
the Arab Legion and the Jordanian police. To some degree, it seems
clear, he did assume "Ministerial powers." What is difficult to under–
stand about the abolition of such an institution as that? Its existence
seems much more bizarre to me. For its existence to go unacknowledged,
under our very noses, seems to me almost criminal. But we are told
about it, (1), in this pompous prize-day style-"equally difficult is it
to assess," and (2), after the event. Once the thing has become history
it is allowed to have color and personality. British history is full of
romance, says the
Times;
but as for the present-here is a short guide
to parliamentary procedure and the party system.
Two weeks later the
Times'
leading article dealt with Cyprus:
Secondly, the three-legged plan put forward by the Archbishop
of Canterbury deserves most careful study, coming from so wise a
leader of the Church, and in the course of a speech which had revealed
Archbishop Makarios in his true light, self-condemned; behind the
vestments of a prelate the calculations of a politician. . . . Finally,
the Archbishop of Canterbury pleaded that Archbishop Makarios should
be
informed that his exile would end as soon as public order had
been restored in Cyprus and that negotiations with him would be re–
sumed as soon as the Constitution had been drafted. This plea is
tempting but deceptive.
It involves several assumptions. The first is that as soon as "public
order had been restored," and the exile brought back, terrorism would
have ended for good. Past events offer no assurance whatever of this.
H Archbishop Makarios, however, really repents, and is prepared con–
sistently to oppose terrorism and disorder, a new situation will arise.
"So wise a leader of the Church"-this is about like referring to
her Majesty's "ardent interest" in literature or slum-clearance or soil–
erosion. And when Archbishop Makarios is revealed "in his true light,"
what do we see? "Behind the vestments of the prelate the calculations
of the politician." Come now! History canonizes prelates with political
calculations! One imagines there have been, and are, comparatively
few prelates without such calculations. "Self-condemned," indeed! But
it is the last sentence above all that seems to me so striking, both in
itself and as an echo of the earlier article. The
Sunday Times
speaks
to the world like a senior master to a school, of which the British gov-
