Jubilee: silver cloak on mediocrity

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 5

Jubilee: silver cloak on mediocrity

Bv ANTHONY LEWIS, of, the “New York Times,” : through NZPA-Reuter London Monarchy in Britain fulfills a public need for ritual: so the writers say, and every royal ceremony proves their point. Only a profession sceptic could fail to be moved a little by the medieval uniforms, the golden' coach, the staffs and swords and heraldry. But there is more than rit-i ual in the relationship be-: tween this Queen and her country. Or so one thought, watching the contented faces, of the men and women who' lined the streets of London., many of them having keot their places through a wet night, to see Elizabeth II celebrate her silver jubilee. When she walked from St. Paul’s and stopped to talk with people in the crowd.; they showed a curious mixture of deference and ease. I: was as if she were ai queen to them, but not the' kind from a fairy tale: a

I,familiar figure, rather, reas-ll 'i suring and sympathetic, a comfortable queen. The British psyche has; I been pretty well worked' . over in recent years, espe- i cially by visiting Americans, and any generality must be : faulty, but there is reason to! i ; think that for some Britons,” at least. Queen Elizabeth i ~ represents values that do] not find adequate expression;: elsewhere in Britain’s politi- : .‘cal system. She does her job — and it J .(is often tiresome — without] ,icomplaint. She is never self-j< -(important, she really be- i lieves in the simple old;’ ;] things: duty, home, country. I < 11 She doss not try to appear! I . clever. There are no tricks J ' in her. and no surprises. AH of that inevitably begs I' comparison with the Prime l Ministers who have served, 1 during her reign. Of course. I : it is unfair to compare them < to a monarch: they have to] I get down in the pit. in the i . mud of politics. But even by'i i political standards they have;! ■ not been a notably straighti forward lot. And their guile t

(has been singularly inept. , Success is the real differ-! ence. Whatever it means to! ;be a successful queen,] (Elizabeth is that. Her sys-i item visibly works: the cere-' mony glitters, a simple: -speech brings tears to the; (eyes. And so much else in! Britain, political and economic. does not work. Gloomy 'prophets notwith- ■ j standing, Britain is not! about to collapse into po-j 'verty or anarchy. People are; much better off than they; | were 25 years ago. Real in-; (come is nearly double what I it was for the average, I worker when Elizabeth be-i I came Queen. The number of' (households with cars and 1 ' telephones has quadrupled, i But Britain’s relative econ-| iomic decline is a reality,' too: from near the top in! Western Europe to near the! bottom. With that both; cause and effect, there has' been a falling-off in the internal discipline that! makes societies prosper. I Strikes are the inescapable; symbol — wildcat strikes! that make production plan-(

I ning a nightmare for automobile companies and; I newspapers and others. I The very day of the ju]bilee a labour dispute shut down the national domestic news service, the Press Association, and another kept ! commercial television from covering the ceremonies. ; Government has proved | singularly incapable of ! changing the pattern or 'stopping the slide. As a reisult. confidence in politi-l icians is depressingly low. (Americans, who have been through Vietnam and Water-, (gate, know that the de-i Jmocratic system can be ' extraordinarily resilient. But no turning point — nor re-: , covery of belief in governiment — is in sight. Walter Bagehot. the great .nineteenth century writer on- ! British politics, said that the (secret of the unwritten Eng-, ' lish Constitution lay in hav-, ing two kinds of in-i i stitutions: the dignified andi [the efficient. The dignified,] [ such as the Monarch, held i !everyone’s respect, while the] iefficient, such as the House'

•; of Commons, did the real' 1] work. The “Economist,” writing -[on the jubilee last week, t. made a devastating point on :; what has happened to Bage- -' hot’s analysis. The dignified !'institution of the Monarchy i: is now also the only efficient one. Parliament, the ii Cabinet, the Civil Service — f all the old machines of e.ffir.ciency are creaking. The ■ I “Economist” sadly concluded; • I that "the very restraint and! . dignity with which the; i Queen . . . has exercised her --job have provided a golden. -Icloak to cover up the me-! ■ diocrity” elsewhere. To a distressing degree,; -;the people of Britain have I trained themselves .in recent: years to lower their ex-1 : pectations. The happiness on! lithe faces at the jubilee: ■ ‘showed that something could' • be wonderful — could live up to dreams. But the real; I question in Britain is now, , Ij as it has been for years, ,]whether the institutions of: II government can be stripped : i of their Victorian myths and J made to work again.