THE TABLET, March ¿oth, 1950

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 195, No. 5731

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, MARCH 25th, 1950

SIXPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE DEFENCE OF WESTERN EUROPE

The Problem o f Securing the Essentials o f Liberty ISLAM, THE ORTHODOX AND ROME The Development o f a New Harmony in Egypt and the Middle East

INDEPENDENCE AND PARTY IN PARLIAMENT The Necessity for More Freedom for Members. By Christopher Hollis, M .P .

TOLERANCE AND INTOLERANCE IN SPAIN The Protestants and the Censorship. From a Madrid Correspondent

DR. GARBETT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT The Archbishop o f York’s Recent Book. By Philip Hughes

NO CONFLICT OF LOYALTIES M R. BEVIN, when he discussed British participation in European unity with the Commonwealth Ministers at Colombo, met a general feeling that there is no real difficulty involved in Britain uniting much more closely with Europe while keeping the full structure of the Commonwealth. This has always been the position, and the truth is that the Commonwealth relationship has become more and more a relationship of feeling, not o f juridical obligations. This is not for one moment to belittle it, for nothing is more decisive than feeling ; and the National Fund now being opened, by a gesture worthy o f the country, to give tangible expression to Great Britain’s gratitude for all the immense help received from the Dominions, as well as from the United States, will commemorate, in the form of hostels for overseas students, a remarkable and sustained demonstration of solidarity. But it does follow that membership of the Commonwealth today does not involve precise obligations. More and more the member States, led by the white Dominions, responsive to national electorates and jealous for their sovereignty, are moving away from and not towards common institutions.

but nevertheless carried on. “Our position is such,” we say to Europe, “ that we cannot become part o f EPU on quite the same terms as you. So many people hold sterling all over the world, and we have such formidable creditors from the war years, that we should be swamped if all the people who hold or came to hold sterling were free to exchange it for other currencies, and, in particular, could demand the scarce currencies, the dollars or gold ; so we must be allowed a more limited participation in the Payments Union, with less than full convertibility, even for current transaction. But if you will recognize our special difficulties, we are very anxious to come in .”

When the Foreign Minister o f India talks about the Colombo Conference, it is to emphasize that the members merely acquainted each other with their points o f view, as they do also a t the United Nations ; and the price o f creating the Asiatic Dominions of India, Pakistan and Ceylon is to attenuate the conception o f the Commonwealth, so that there must not even be talk o f a foreign policy concerted in common, because the Indians, in particular, want it made plain that they are in no way committed to any bloc, and that their association with Britain does not involve an association with the United States and America’s Asiatic policy. The converse o f this is that, just as the Commonwealth must not ask for a common attitude, it must not itself act as a whole in any way calculated to offend any o f its members. It must have no view on the rights or wrongs o f the Kashmir dispute. I f it takes a line, the offended party will walk out, just as offended countries did a t Geneva. This being the position, it will be quite intolerable and absurd if, in the name of the Commonwealth, Great Britain thought of herself, and acted, as if she was not quite free to pursue an effective European policy. Sterling and the E .P .U .

Matters are coming to a head, as they have a way of doing, in public as in private affairs, over money, with the creation of the European Payments Union, inside which the national currencies o f the European countries participating will be freely interchangeable. No one is denying that sterling is not like other currencies ; that it is, in spite o f all the close governmental control o f foreign exchange, a world-wide currency in which a third o f the world’s international trade s carried on—painfully, with misgivings, under compulsion,

The great strength of sterling in the world is the clearest indication that it was always a mistake to inflict the injuries upon it that have been inflicted in the last five years. Some of the exchange control was inevitable in consequence o f the war, but other things were done which could have played an immense international role, which were unnecessary, like the deposition of the Bank o f England, and the excessive expenditure on which the Government has embarked. Sir Stafford Cripps has proved a lath painted to look like iron, after all his strong talk a t the outset o f his Chancellorship against the continuing expenditure on inessentials. The tide rises and this Canute does not even talk against it any more. The Budget next month will have to be estimated a t another £200 millions above last year. The public by now understands that it pays for extravagances like the health scheme out o f taxation, but it does not yet understand how it is this kind o f finance and this mentality which led remorselessly to the devaluation of the pound abroad, and will do so again if there is no change, and that the nation which already pays stupendous taxes pays again in proportion as the pound buys less. Nothing is more expensive than that which is announced as free. The Two Belgiums

The royal question in Belgium was the arbitrary and mischievous work o f the politicians o f the left in the summer of 1945, and by raising the question, which cannot be settled by a compromise and must end in the victory o f one side and defeat o f the other, they have struck a very severe, and perhaps a mortal, blow at the unity o f the nation. Anything short o f the king’s return without conditions will be a defeat for Flemish Belgium, and for much more than the Catholic Party. His return will be a defeat for the Walloons, as well as for the Socialists and Communists. Each token strike makes matters worse, for neither Baudouin nor anyone else could sustain the royal office if the previous king had been forced to abdicate by strikes. No one can rule who is there by favour o f political trade unions.

One of the Liberals who has rallied to the king’s side,