Suchergebnisse

Perhaps it is the absence of a substantial communist opposition in Great Britain that has caused Americans to be less concerned about the reactions of our British allies than of the continental nations to the recent foreign policy of the United States. However, if Americans assumed an almost universal British acceptance of the foreign policy adopted by the United States and formally adhered to by the British Government, the Bevanite revolt of early 1951 administered a sharp jolt. First, in April there were the resignations from the Government of Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Labour, former Minister of Health, and one of Labour's strongest and most popular leaders, Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade and one of the Government's young intellectuals, and John Freeman, a lesser figure but in the significant position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply. Their resignation speeches made it clear that, while the immediate cause of their departure was a new budgetary provision requiring a health service charge for dentures and spectacles, the root of their dissatisfaction lay in the burden of rearmament expenditures accepted by the Government in accordance with the main lines of U. S. policy.

The party structure in Belgium has always reflected not merely the graduation of opinions from the extreme right to the extreme left, but also the linguistic and religious differences of a nation divided into French and Flemish speaking people, and into Catholic believers and freethinkers. The latter distinction still remains the most important one. Thus, the parties continue, as during the nineteenth century, to be classified into "right" and "left" according to whether they have a religious or an agnostic character. The "right" is considered identical with the Catholic Party, and the "left" with the Liberal, Socialist, and Communist Parties. It is also true that the Catholic Party is considered politically conservative, and the "left," taken as a whole, progressive. And since the "right" has an absolute majority in Flanders and the "left" in Wallonia (the French speaking region), it can be said that, very broadly, the religious, political, and linguistic groupings tend to place Catholics, conservatives, and Flemings against freethinkers, progressives, and Walloons.