For Queen & Country

Historian Walter Bagehot a century ago defined the English system as "government by discussion," and since his day, the teething ring of its rulers has been Oxford's debating society, the Oxford Union. In its hall, which is arranged along lines of the House of Commons, future Prime Ministers from William Ewart Gladstone to Harold Macmillan have honed their skills by debating everything from socialism to "Resolved: That in the opinion of this House, Columbus went too far." So respected is the Oxford Union that when in 1933 it resolved "That this House would not fight for King and Country," a storm of controversy swept Britain, and historians as authoritative as Winston Churchill have said that Hitler and Mussolini pursued their plans on the theory that all Britain was going pacifist.

Blimpish Bark. Last week the Union debated the same resolution (now, of course, "for Queen and Country"), and the storm was almost as violent. The man responsible was Tariq Ali, 21, a publicity-happy Pakistani studying at Oxford's Exeter College, who as president of the Union selects the topic of its weekly debates. His choice won him threats from Britain's fledgling Ku Klux Klan ("Watch out, you dirty wog"), four television appearances (worth $56), and 18 newspaper interviews. Letters poured in to editors, who responded with crisp editorials, and the BBC said it would televise the debate. Ali's cup ranneth over when two trustees of the Union resigned and a third, Sir David Lindsay Keir, 70, barked Blimpishly, "I have served my Queen and country [from 1915 to 1917], and I object to being told what to do by someone who comes from a country which has no allegiance to the Crown. We might have to take advice from Eskimos and Hottentots next."

Reversed Decision. The televised debate itself was an anticlimax. Matmaned lads and lasses who had come along to vote (some of them more than once) yelped cheerfully when Oxford Student Rip Bulkeley maintained that he opposed the defense of Britain but would be willing to bear arms "against the Rhodesians, South Africans or what have you." Guest Speaker Sir Richard Acland, 58, an ex-Labor M.P. who left the party because it was too conservative in 1955, sniffed that he considered Harold Wilson's administration capable of assessing the national peril "only if 50 million Siberian soldiers were climbing the cliffs of Dover in muffled boots."

Only one speaker made what could be described as sense. Guest Reginald Maudling, the Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary, argued in favor of standing by Britain and her allies, because "an individual cannot exist outside the complex of rights and duties that bind us all together. By fighting for Queen and country we fight for mankind." To his great astonishment, Maudling received a huge ovation, and the students defeated the resolution by a vote of 493 to 466.

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