The Big Brothers

Television cameras, never before allowed inside 10 Downing Street, last week boldly stared at Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the distinguished guests assembled in his white-pillared drawing room. When the public show was over, the representatives of eight Commonwealth countries shifted to Attlee's small businesslike cabinet room, where--out of the world's sight and hearing--they began their fourth conference since the war. They would talk for ten days, discuss every aspect of global strategy affecting the Commonwealth's 570 million people.

Said one conferee: "The atmosphere is that of a bunch of big brothers returning home from abroad and swapping ideas around the table."

One big brother, however, was missing --Pakistan's burly Liaquat Ali Khan. Liaquat had refused to come to London unless he got a promise that the conference would formally consider the long-smoldering dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, where, after two years of futile attempts at negotiation, Indian and Pakistani troops still face each other belligerently across an uneasy U.N. cease-fire line. By tradition, Commonwealth conferences do not concern themselves with disputes among members, but all the ministers were eager to bring the ninth brother into the fold. Attlee fired off messages to Liaquat offering informal discussion of Kashmir, followed up with an offer of "complete consideration" and possible mediation. At week's end, after several days of cabled quibbling, Liaquat accepted the compromise, took off for London.

Most important questions on the ministers' agenda:

&182; China, with Britain's Attlee and India's Nehru still advocating admission of the Red Chinese to the U.N.

P: Japanese rearmament, with Australia and New Zealand reluctantly in favor, if adequate security guarantees can be devised.

P: Malaya, where the British hope other Commonwealth nations will take over some of Britain's heavy burden of fighting the Communists.

P: A Pacific pact of free nations, tentatively proposed by Australia and New Zealand.

P: The defense of the Middle East, whose Moslem populations may, Britain hopes, be rallied with the help of Moslem Pakistan--if Brother Liaquat and Brother Nehru can be induced to make peace.

Wrote London's Time & Tide: "The British Commonwealth, which stretches into every geographical division of the world and can fire the loyalty of millions of free men of all colors and many races, is a force that can, in alliance with America, face the Russian Leviathan undaunted." Whether it would gladly follow the U.S., if the U.S. took firm and specific action against the Leviathan and the Leviathan's warmaking Chinese offspring, was another question.

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