COMPUTER GAMBIT FOR BRITAIN IN CRASHING COMMON MARKET?
The Economist suggests in its October 22 issue that the Wilson government should have another try at getting into the Common Market. The influential British magazine feels that de Gaulle might not exercize a veto as he did in 1963.
Among the reasons advanced by The Economist is the need for European capital to close ranks against the U.S., particularly in the development of the new technological industry. Britain has something to offer, being almost equal to the Six as a whole in this field. ; ;
The attractiveness of bringing in Britain is strengthened by the latest signs that the Soviet Union and the other East European countries are turning toward the West, mainly Europe, for “co-operation in setting up their new industries."
"The feeling is strengthened further by the plight outside America of the new industry which may become the most important of them all. This is the computer industry," declares the magazine. "Computers look more and more likely to pervade the whole industrial and economic society of the future; and the European market -(which up to now has lagged) should grow faster than the American market in the coming years. But American companies control 95 per cent of the world market, and two-thirds of western Europe's. If the European governments fail to devise research and development and, above all, procurement policies to keep some European firms effectively in the business, many Frenchmen (and others) fear that the flow of brains to America will widen into a broad’ stream, and Europe will become industrially a province. That thought in itself may not be enough to make General de Gaulle accept Britain's suit. But it does suggest another technological gambit that might be tried."