the United Kingdom and the European common market . background to negotiations . by Roy Sherwood . with the exception only of matters of direct bearing on peace or early war , no issue of the present moment is of as far-reaching importance for Britain &apos;s , the commonwealth &apos;s , and the whole west &apos;s future as the question whether the United Kingdom will join the European common market . it is not a question to be decided on nationalistic or political party feelings , and no reasonably objective opinion , one way or the other , is likely to be arrived at without going through the process known to the writing world as beginning with Adam and Eve . what that means in this case is going back to the war years , when the governments of Belgium , Luxembourg and Holland were in exile in London and had every reason to be so concerned about the precariousness of their post-war prospects that they organised a careful experts &apos; study of the subject . the outcome , based on the realisation that their chance of economic recovery and their ability to make themselves heard in international politics was desperately poor if taken singly , and decidedly better if they could act in unison , was the agreement to join their three countries in a union to be called Benelux - in which we can now recognise the beginning of all endeavours to unify western Europe . and here we shall do well to note , as throwing a first sidelight on the much bigger problems connected with the European common market and the question whether the United Kingdom will be wise in joining it , that today , 16 years after the first measures were taken to establish Benelux , the complete union aimed at between Belgium , Luxembourg and Holland has not yet been fully achieved . but in spite of early and subsequent difficulties and complications , Benelux progress was sufficiently striking to activate the ideas on European unity long held by many economists and a number of politicians . even Winston Churchill , arch-priest of British commonwealth greatness and independence , spoke as early as in 1946 of the desirability of creating a kind of United States of Europe , of which it seems however reasonable to suppose that he envisaged them as an extension of the commonwealth under British leadership ; and in France General de Gaulle , then still deeply distrustful of Germany , also held views favourable to European unification . his , not unnaturally , differed however from Churchill &apos;s in two important points : the de Gaulle conception of that time was a western European community , largely defensive against the possibility of German resurgence , and therefore without German participation , and not under British but under French leadership . it can be seen from this that there were even at that time not only two but actually three different attitudes to unification - that of those who thought mainly in economics , of those who thought in politics , and of those who thought almost exclusively in military values . world events have forced the various proponents of these attitudes to modify their ideas and aims in a number of particulars , in addition to which there has occurred one vital change in the situation : the Franco-German rapprochement , which has resulted in Britain becoming an outsider to the extent of no longer being indispensable in plans for western European unification . while on this subject , it is of paramount importance for the people of the United Kingdom to realise that the dominant position held for centuries by this country in world affairs , due to the ability to throw its weight against whichever nation on the continent was growing too powerful for our comfort , is a thing of the past . the traditional balance of power policy is dead beyond hope of resurrection . in reviewing the various steps towards European unification it is useful to make passing reference to the failure of the European defence community ( EDC ) . at first fervently advocated by the French , who saw in it a means of making use of West Germany &apos;s potential military strength under strict external supervision , it was categorically rejected by them two years later , in 1952 . the point is of importance because it shows that unification must be on a wider than a purely military basis . nor can it be - and this is one of the difficulties - solely economic ; whether the contractants want it so or not , it must also become political . and this is the second , mainly psychological , point of difficulty in Britain &apos;s incorporation in European unification . turning to less abortive attempts towards European unity - which were , incidentally , inspired by growing fear of Russia - the first was the US-initiated organisation for European economic co-operation ( OEEC ) . it came into existence as early as 1948 in connection with the effort to make the best possible use of American Marshal aid ; and it led , in its turn , to the creation of the European payments union , the existence of which more than one western European country has to thank for successfully surviving periods of heavy excess of external payments over from-abroad revenues without coming to financial grief . next , and for the first time bringing the six countries together which now constitute the European common market , came the European coal and steel community , uniting the three Benelux nations , France and Italy with West Germany . the underlying motive in this case was the same which had prompted France &apos;s first enthusiasm for the subsequently rejected European defence community : fear of German resurgence , specifically of the high potential of the Ruhr area . with it , something new entered upon the political scene . control over the organisation was not vested in an international body subject to any of the participating countries &apos; veto , but to a supra-national authority entrusted with power to make and to enforce decisions . even during the two years while France was keen on the concept of the European defence community , Britain had disliked the implied necessity of a measure of surrender of sovereignty . although these feelings were not openly expressed , there is little doubt that the failure of this particular idea can be attributed in the main to British unwillingness to accept French leadership ( while France advocated the creation of the community ) and to French unwillingness to go on with it when it became obvious that the community would come into existence only if France accepted to play second fiddle . coal and steel production being not directly military matters , and France being moreover the biggest of the six contracting parties , acceptance of a supra-national authority did not in this case offend French susceptibilities . on the contrary , Paris was right in seeing in the creation of the community the welcome gain of control over German coal and steel production . as for Britain , she had cold-shouldered the plan from the first days of its conception by M Jean Monnet . the cold-shouldering was done by a labour government , but the conservatives were all in favour of it and of a generally welcoming attitude to European integration - as long as they were the opposition party . another dividing factor between this country and its continental wartime allies and associates was atomic research . so , while the United Kingdom , having become an atomic power , pursued its own version of European unification endeavour through the western European union - a substitute for the rejected European defence community created rather in haste under the threat of an American re-appraisal of Washington policy with regard to the wartime allies - and by means of the Maudling committee , the six nations of the coal and steel community drew closer together . they combined their atomic efforts in EURATOM and signed the Rome treaty , thereby laying down the principles of the European common market . in self defence , Britain took the lead in creating EFTA , the European free trade association . this completed the split , and whether looked at from the viewpoint of that time or of the present , it can be seen to have been inevitable . none of the continental countries had its freedom of action limited by the kind of obligations imposed on Britain by the British commonwealth , and the United Kingdom could not disregard them . with 378 pages in the English text , the treaty governing the common market is obviously too long for detailed study here . it is divided into six chapters the last two of which , concerned with organisational matters , protocol , etc , are of little interest to this study . the first chapter states the aim of establishing harmonious development and a common market , and of progressively approximating the economic policies of the member states . part 2 provides for a customs union , the abolition of internal tariffs and quotas , a common agricultural policy , freedom of movement for persons , services and capital , and a harmonised transport system . the third chapter lays down common rules of competition , deals with the co-ordination of economic policies , harmonised features of social policy and the establishment of a European investment bank . chapter 4 associates former and present colonial territories of the six parties with the community . no further explanations are needed to realise the closeness of the association and to gain a first impression of the difficulty of fitting the United Kingdom into it . for the benefit of those who are not studious readers of international developments it may be useful to begin by recalling the names of the countries composing the EFTA . they are : the United Kingdom , Sweden , Norway , Denmark , Austria , Portugal and Switzerland . and we may also note that from the first day onwards of talk about western European unification British thinking always went along the lines of trying to create a great area of unrestricted trading ; but this conception did not include agriculture nor any of the other harmonisations of internal policies aimed at by the nations which finalised their decisions in the Rome treaty . in spite of the fact that the British attitude has become modified to some extent on the subject of agriculture , it is not difficult to see that the difference between the two conceptions remains very great . and if there were room here for a detailed consideration of all that is implied in the provisions of parts 2 and 3 of the Rome treaty , it would quickly become evident that the difficulties of bringing the two conceptions together are even greater than appears at first sight . part 4 makes matters even worse . the United Kingdom , even if it wanted to , has no power or authority to commit the countries of the commonwealth to anything ; and the mere mention of internal commonwealth differences in wages and living standards , levels of productivity , of educational and technological attainment , and of the problems involved in the provisions of the second chapter of the Rome treaty is sufficient to show that those who declare British membership of the European common market to be incompatible with continuance of the British commonwealth are not completely mad . yet a solution must somehow be found if western Europe is not to be split into two competitive camps , with every prospect of growing rivalry . after protracted endeavours to find one or another kind of basis of negotiation , the present situation is that the common market and the free trade association - though neither of them as yet fully operative - face one another as not too friendly strangers . many people even in Britain think that this is largely our own fault , because we have never at any time been decisive or one-minded in our attitude , vacillating between come and tempt me and only on my special terms . on the continental side , as was and is to be expected , France attaches least , and Holland most , importance to bringing the common market and the free trade association together in one unit . with productivity rising faster in the common market countries than in Britain , and Britain &apos;s prospects for the future , moreover , adversely influenced as the provisions of the Rome treaty will become effective , it has recently become necessary for the United Kingdom to take the initiative towards unambiguous negotiation with the six , the first step in this direction being , as circumstances will have it , a plain application for membership . this , let it be recalled , was made at Brussels on August 10 , and on the same day Denmark also applied . 