Macridis Supports British Govt. Purge

"Britain's Conservative Party was greatly strengthened by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's recent Cabinet shake-up," Roy Macridis, visiting professor of Government from Washington University, said last week.

"It is now very probable that the Conservatives will win the next general election," Macridis declared, for the Cabinet changes should "turn the tide" of public support in favor of Macmillan's Party.

Increasing public criticism of Cabinet policies has led to severe Conservative losses to the Labor and resurgent Liberal Parties in recent by-elections, Macridis pointed out.

He stressed the unpopular "austerity program" of former Chancellor of the Exchequer Selwyn Lloyd, which imposed a "deflationary policy of tight money and high interest" on Great Britain.

"Some of the officials had been in office too long," Macridis declared, "and had gotten too tired to do an efficient job." In the shakeup, one-third of the high Cabinet officials and many junior secretaries were replaced.

"The changes in the Cabinet have no relation to the problem of Britain's entry into the Common Market," Macridis asserted, since the shakeup resulted from the Fovernment's "internal" problems.

The Conservative leadership's commitment to enter the Market remains unchanged," he explained, noting that neither Lord Home (British Foreign Secretary) nor Edward Heath (Britain's Common Market negotiator) was replaced. There is only "a 50/50 chance that Britain will enter the Common Market," Macridis declared, and the probability of this happening decreases as more and more time passes without a definite settlement.

"As the weeks go by, sentiment in England against joining the Common Market grows, and the opposition's strength mounts," Macridis said.

It becomes more and more difficult for Britain to fulfill the conditions of joining the Common Market since Common Market countries are continually progressing toward unity, and making it harder for any new member to catch up with their progress.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Pres. Charles de Gaulle were playing for time," Macridis asserted. The French President's "reluctance grows all the time, because De Gaulle fears that England's entry into the Common Market may diminish his own power within it and hamper its development."

Commonwealth nations may also prevent Britain's entry into the Market, Macridis declared. Now the Commonwealth nations receive "preferential treatment for the agricultural products they export to Britain," and thus do not pay any tariffs. If Britain joins the Common Market, she "will have to abandon preferential treatment for the Commonwealth nations" and give it instead to the other members of the Common Market. Macridis declared that this sort of competition would be impossible for the economics of the Commonwealth nations to bear