Unity often has restored the balance between Britain and her enemies. To many of us who were in Britain in 1940 the miracle of that memorable year was not the evacuation of Dunkirk or victory in the Battle of Britain or the defiance under bombing of the poor in London, Coventry, and Birmingham, but the national unity of purpose which developed at the moment when all the social upheavals of the thirties pointed to division, faltering, and defeat.
Ability to achieve a national unity remains a factor in Britain's world position. And it is the lack of this unity which makes Britain's position so perilous today.
The country must make, and it must sell abroad. It must retain access to the oil of the Middle East or it will have nothing to make or to sell. It must be able to compete on even terms with the exports of Germany and Japan. These are the ABC's of the British position.
The leaders of the present Conservative government recognize the country's situation; so do the Labor Party and the Trades Union Congress, although each has its own interpretation of the causes. But there is still an unwillingness or an inability on the part of the general public to grasp the realities of the situation.
Yet such a grasp is essential. The people of Britain must adjust themselves to a condition of permanent economic pressure if they are to meet the economic challenge of the times. Such an adjustment will involve re-creation of the sort of national unity which produced the miracles of 1940. Otherwise, John Bull, better paid, better housed, and with more money (which has less value) than ever before, can follow the road to inflation which led to disaster in Germany and France in the thirties.
This return to unity is a factor in answering the question of where the British go from here. But it is only one of many factors. Before we can arrive at an adequate answer we must know more about the British, about their institutions and who runs them today, about what the people have been doing since 1945, and about how they face and fail to face the problems of the second half of the century.
Repeatedly in the course of this inquiry we shall encounter a national characteristic not easily measurable in commercial and industrial values but deeply established and enormously important. This is the ability of the British to adapt themselves to a changing world and to rule themselves with a minimum of serious friction. Stability and continuity are essential in politics if Britain is to meet and answer the challenge of the times. The British enjoy these essentials now. Their demonstrated ability to change with the times is the best of omens for national success and survival as a great power in the tumultuous years that lie ahead.
