THE TABLET, AprÜ 8tk, 1950

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 195, No. 5733

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, APRIL 8th, 1950

SIXPENCE PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

ON THE THIRD DAY The Eternal Resurrection. By T. S . Gregory

THE UNCERTAIN TRUMPETS The Secret of so much Ineffectualness THE PATTERN OF PERSECUTION Why the Lands of the Church have been Seized in Poland

THE OUTLOOK FOR M.P.s

By Christopher Hollis, M .P .

THE END OF A CHAPTER

An Evaluation of Léon Blum

THE SOUL OF CULTURE Christopher Dawson’s Gifford Lectures. By Philip Hughes

THE PIECEMEAL APPROACH B EFORE a large assembly o f Congressmen and others in Washington, General Marshall spoke gravely o f the implacable foe who today confronts and works ceaselessly against us all. With this categorical phrase half way through the Marshall Aid Programme, we can register the completeness o f intellectual conviction as it has settled, slowly and reluctantly, to the facing o f exceedingly ugly truth.

tion in all discussions o f what armed force the Germans should have—that there must not be a vacuum ; and in p ro portion as Britons or Americans or Frenchmen want to reduce their occupation force, they must arrange for a German Government to command ultimate force.

The piecemeal approach to European unity was much the easiest to follow, but its anomalies are becoming more and more striking, and rather absurd. American arms are beginning to arrive and are being made a controversial issue wherever the Communists are strong enough. After the meeting a t The Hague o f the North Atlantic Pact Committee very confident statements were made that with these arms Western Europe can feel secure ; but the historical inheritance presents us today with an assemblage o f armies and potential armies with such vague relationship to one another that, if they were looked a t as a coalition, their ineffectiveness would be confidently anticipated.

Recent articles in Le Monde, th a t most sober and unsensational o f French papers, give a vivid picture o f the weakness o f the French Army, largely because the military career has become such a dangerous one. The officer who serves the wrong Government, which may be no more than the unsuccessful Government, now feels that he faces a serious risk o f being implicated and tried. He risks losing his profession, prospects and pension, even if he is not sent to prison, because his judges will be political judges, and will start from the assumption that there was a moment when he could have refused, and should have refused, to serve his political superiors. The writer o f these articles concluded that he could see no future for the French Army if it is no more than a French Army, wholly dependent upon a French Government ; that the risk o f being branded and perhaps tried as a Fascist, or alternatively as a Red, has become too serious, and nothing in the career now outweighs the deterrents. Beyond a certain point o f division, a country cannot have a national army ; thus the political factions have their own armies. The higher the service rank a man holds in many lands, the more necessary has it become for him to be a politician, to interest himself in the composition and the policy o f the Government, and the more useless is it for him to defend himself as purely professional.

These dilemmas are most real in the very countries which most need strong armies. Where there is not a strong professional force available for internal duties as policemen, the political movements are naturally tempted to train their own strong-arm squads, their para-military formations, their youths trained in street fighting. This is a relevant considera

The future for the French Army is seen by the writer in Le Monde as part o f a European Army, because this, and only this, will give its officers and men the sense that, while they are preserving the soil and national life o f France, they are doing so with adequate backing and with a sense o f security, both physical and moral ; th a t the resources fo r victory are all there, and th a t the moral standards are clear, known and unshakable. The Untouched Imagination

It is here that we touch the chief drawback to the piecemeal approach to Europe, that all the various agencies and committees lack moral authority, cannot strike the imagination, give the appearance o f being merely technical ; and it continues to be left to private statesmen, and primarily to Mr. Churchill, to give focus and clear outline to the vision o f a united Europe—united in the few essentials, but otherwise still a group o f national communities. I t is almost impossible for the same man to embody and express the large general aspiration and to watch, as a British Foreign Secretary, each concrete step ; but Mr. Bevin has given the impression o f being too much in the hands o f Foreign Office advisers whose training and outlook both render it very difficult for them to appreciate the magnitude o f what is now necessary, and who, anyway, do not feel it is the business o f permanent officials to indulge in daring statesmanship. There are plenty o f reasonable enough explanations, and yet the total result remains, that Great Britain gives no impression to the world o f taking the lead, apart from Mr. Churchill’s personal contribution. Anomalies in French Policy

French policy is largely, in consequence, spasmodic and illogical. Not only M. Robert Schumann but General de Gaulle alternate between talking in European terms and talking and acting in French national terms. The whole treatm ent o f the Saar is a capital instance o f the inconsistency. Everything the French want from the Saar could have been secured inside a European structure, instead o f being done in a way only too reminiscent o f M. Raymond Poincare in 1919. But the French will follow a European line only in the measure that they feel th a t the British are really with them. British public opinion, conscious o f its good intentions, is very slow to understand how foreign peoples regard us as particularly inclined to treat them as means and not as ends ; to use them in the pursuit o f our own national policy, to encourage them