Letter from London: England Still Stands—Mostly

First, we are still here. “A prophet,” said Mr. Dooley, “is a man who foresees trouble.” But when trouble comes, I would add, it can still look remarkably like yesterday. The land swarms with prophets of doom. “Repent-for-the-Last-Hour-Is-atHand” men lie exhausted on every sidewalk or pavement. The Rosicrucians hope that finally the bishops will open Joanna Southcott’s sealed boxes—if they have not lost them centuries ago. Half the Tribune group suddenly becomes converted to belief in the existence and iniquity of inflation and the other half cries “Ha Ha among the trumpets” that the walls of capitalism are at last collapsing—again—and that revolution will come without really trying.

But there will be time for a good many more such David Savarine television shows and magazine special reports on the final end of Great Britain. Like many a final, farewell performance, it threatens to be a spring-and-summer twi...