THE T A B L E T , January 21st, 1950.

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 195, No. 5722

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, JANUARY 21st, 1950

SIXPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

A CRUCIAL MATTER The Future of Savings, and so o f Economic Progress

EUROPE AND THE SAAR Lessons o f the Controversy that Arose Again last Week

INSIDE TIBET

A Missionary Meets the Dalai Lama. By Père Matthias Hermanns

THE PARADOX OF MR. PRIESTLEY

Reflections on his Broadcast Last Saturday

AT A LOSS

M R. BEVIN cannot like so constantly sending instructions to Sir Alexander Cadogan th a t G reat Britain is to abstain from voting in the United Nations, for it is an attitu de quite unworthy o f one o f the G reat Powers and one o f the founder-m embers o f the organization. The latest abstention is a direct consequence, bu t one which surely must have been foreseen, o f the precipitate recognition o f the Chinese Communists, fo r the Soviet Union is now naturally determined th a t the Chinese N a tionalist Government should go the way the Polish Government went, and ju s t disappear, and th a t no Chinese N a tionalist representative should continue to hover like a ghost a t the United Nations. There is a logic in this ; but, equally, the Americans have no t recognized the Communists, and the British delegates find them selves once more in a dilemma, which would have been avoided if, instead o f full diplom atic recognition, they had contented themselves with a functional contact.

The Chinese disaster really goes back to General Marshall’s tim e as Ambassador in China, when, as a high-m inded p ro fessional soldier, he was deeply shocked a t things he found on the N ationalist side. But they were things which do no t particularly shock the Chinese, o r the Europeans with long residence in China, o r who are versed in Chinese history, and it was in fact a very great mistake to let them play the p a r t they did in deciding American policy on so vital a matter.

Now the Americans have to decide whether to support anti-Communist China still, o r whether to rely upon Japan, which will soon present a very grave problem . F o r a generation the Japanese sought the solution to their need for expansion on the mainland o f China, o f which they were taking over more and more between 1931 and 1945. The policy went right back to the first years o f the Chinese R epublic, and to the Russo-Japanese war before that. I t may be said th a t since the modernization o f Japan, in 1867, the Japanese have had two great policies : to expand in to China, and to industrialize their country and export. As they emerge from defeat it is to find Asia closed to them fo r settlement, and it is still quite uncertain what markets will be opened to them, and whether the new Governments in non-Communist Asia will no t be highly protectionist.

The Japanese have one immense weakness under modern conditions, th a t, like G reat Britain, they are crowded on a small and vulnerable island. They have been the first victims o f atomic bombs, and could no longer envisage fighting the Soviet Union for a foothold on the Asiatic mainland. As far as American policy has crystallized, it does no t seem to go much beyond building an Anglo-American co-prosperity sphere in non-Communist Asia, promising the native populations, as the Japanese were doing eight years ago, a new quick era o f better living, and in p roportion as the purchasing power o f these countries can be increased they may offer possibilities for Japanese exports.

But the Colombo Conference has not been able to do much more th an focus atten tion fo r a few days on the seriousness and difficulty o f the whole position in Asia. I t h ad to leave alone the dispute between India and Pakistan, in a way th a t showed very clearly th a t these countries are n o t underpinned in any larger structure, th a t their only stability is what they possess in themselves, in the authority o f today’s leaders and in the ability o f those men to build up durable State machinery. A large element o f risk attaches to all capital investment in these Asian countries, very much larger than there was in the days o f the British raj. Men are easily misled by the Central and South American parallel, because the Generals and o ther politicians who used to govern Central and South America had much less independence o f mind towards foreign investment. They accepted the orthodoxy o f their time, even i f they lapsed in to personal defalcations. The nationalist movements o f this century are quite different and have a much more deterrent effect on foreign investment. The Pattern o f Insecurity

All over the world we are confronted with a similar pattern. The Egyptian elections have returned the Wafdists, who, though less extreme in their nationalism than some o f their opponents, are quite extreme enough, and place all their emphasis on separateness from G re a t Britain, no t on closer union fo r jo in t advantage. Nationalist statesm en first o f all isolate themselves as a matter o f pride, and then, finding themselves w ithout the revenues fo r all the expenses attendant on a wholly self-sufficient policy, bear increasingly heavily on the wealth which is under their political control.

Immense advantages came to Egypt when British and F rench capital was sunk in the country, but the work had only really been begun when the political movement cut across it. Today, even in what a few years ago were the secure colonies o f Nigeria and the Gold Coast, the same element o f political uncertainty has come in, and movements partly nationalist, partly Communist, exploit the field. I t was a good sign when last week the Western European countries with African dependencies announced their in tention o f collaborating much more closely for African development, for it is only by large organizations th a t confidence can be inspired, and w ithout confidence there will be no economic growth.

What happens in Asia and Africa, like what happens in Europe, is o f immense importance for the British people and their standard o f living. The old distinction which men used to make between domestic and foreign affairs, like th a t between political and economic issues, has less and less actual relevance for a people which only grew prosperous through the growth o f in te rnational o r world trade in the last century, and will only be prosperous in the fu tu re in proportion as there is a measure o f political stability and great economic activity in the rest o f the world. Then we ought to do very well, provided our costs a re no t too high; but there are