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A great deal of the anxiety about United States policy, of the jealousy of United States power, of the anger at Mr. Dulles's self-righteous sermons about colonialism was vented during this period. It did some harm, certainly. But from the standpoint of the honest expression of Conservative Party opinion and of American realism about the British attitude, it also did some good.

The alliance is an essential. Even when indignant Conservatives—and a number of Socialists, too—were thinking up pet names for Mr. Dulles, the leaders of the party were doing their best to mollify their followers. They were themselves anxious and angry, but they never suggested defection from the alliance.

It may be suggested that the British had nowhere else to go. This may be true, but even so it would be no bar to their departure. They are happy when they are on their own, and many on this little island would count the alliance well lost in exchange for a vigorous reassertion of independence.

In 1940 the cockney, the inevitable cockney, used to remark, for the edification of American correspondents: "Cor, we're alone. What of it, guv?" Now, I have always regarded this not as a piece of patriotic rhetoric but as a natural response to events by a brave people. Shakespeare, of course, said it better.