T H E T A B L E T , August 5th, 1930.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 196, No. 5750

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, AUGUST 5th, 1950

SIXPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

A TRIUMPH FOR VIOLENCE The Grave Significance o f the Belgian Crisis

THE UNWANTED

The Aged, Sick and Maimed Refugees Whom No Country Will Take

THE THEOLOGY OF MR. HOYLE

Insufficient Equipment. By Francis J . Ripley

A PAPAL SALAD The Story o f a Roman Proverb. By J . D . Utley THE ENCYCLICAL “ SUMMI MAERORIS ”

The Holy See and the Stockholm Manifesto

STRASBOURG AGAIN

T HE British Government’s Delegation to Strasbourg is headed by Dr. Dalton, and his second-in-command is Mr. Callaghan ; appointments which suggest that the Government Delegation is going to continue the reluctant and unconstructive attitude to Europe with which Dr. Dalton has particularly associated himself.

The Assembly will meet after the discussions on the Schuman Plan in Paris have made a good deal o f headway —sufficient to show that the a priori and theoretical objections advanced in Britain could be, and are being, met. Sovereignty is not an absolute idea which must be treated as something indivisible. It can be retained for some purposes and merged in a jo int body for others. Within a few days of making declarations against the Schuman Plan in the name of national sovereignty the British Cabinet was placing British forces under American command in the Far East. The ideas of “ reserved subjects” with which the iron and steel authority cannot deal, o f two layers o f authority, still require much working out ; but those sitting round the table in Paris have made good progress, and it is a pity Great Britain has been absent from that table, for the British representatives, had they been there, would have played a leading part, and would have had little difficulty in safeguarding whatever it was necessary to safeguard to prevent unemployment in particular parts o f Britain. We are today not only the largest, but the cheapest makers o f steel, and are in a very strong position.

We hope that the Government will not rest in a vaguely negative attitude ; that it will realize that there is on the Continent a long-standing suspicion that it is fundamental to British policy to keep the Continental powers divided, and that in the Foreign Office this mentality is not at all extinct. Far the most hopeful line the Government can now follow is to explain that the larger community for which they are enthusiastic is the Atlantic community, o f which Western Europe is but a part. There is no need to recapitulate for readers o f this journal the case for building the Atlantic community. It has been set out often enough, that, whether in terms o f military or o f economic strength, it is not Europe but the Atlantic community which is the adequate totality. Even with Britain and the Commonwealth, the peoples of Western Europe could not manage without the other side of the Atlantic.

In the current issue of Lloyd's Bank Review, Professor Lionel Robbins, in an article which deserves wide attention, sets out the case for the creation of the Atlantic Community, but proceeds to argue that European Union is not a step towards, but rather a step away from, the larger and only sufficient reality. He can adduce some serious economic arguments that, in proportion as Europe should become a

Free Trade area for its participating countries, it will discriminate against American and Canadian goods. But the American advocates o f European Union have considered this, and much prefer it to the continuance of a series of weak national economies, each driven to reduce its dollar imports as much as it can. The Americans, like the statesmen o f the British Dominions, rightly attach much more importance than Professor Robbins does to the psychological argument, that if the American public is to be brought to accept all the implications of an Atlantic Union—and it has accepted a good many already—it must have some confidence in its partners, in their moderation and good sense and ability to work together. For all too long the ordinary American has been given the impression that when Marshall Aid was extended to the European nations they came crowding and jostling, like dogs waiting to be fed, their eyes rivetted on what they individually might hope for, completely indifferent to what happened to the other hungry competitors. It was not a fair picture, but it had some truth. For this reason the Schuman Plan had a value in the United States of which too little account was taken in Britain. Spiking the Guns a t Lake Success

We are now confronted by the Gilbertian spectacle o f the United Nations’ executive body, the Security Council, being presided over by the representative o f the very Power which is the real instigator o f the Korean aggression, against which the United Nations are waging war. As early as June 29th the Russians rejected the United Nations’ resolution calling for help to the South Koreans, as a decision o f “no legal validity,” and the Russian Press consistently speaks o f the “excellent contribution to the cause o f peace” being made by the Government o f North Korea, and o f the American aggression being directed not only against the Koreans but also against the Chinese People’s Republic.

This attitude, which has already been officially expressed by M. Gromyko in Moscow, is now expounded at Lake Success by Russia’s representative, presiding over the Security Council. Once more the Council becomes for the Russians the platform for propaganda-rhetoric, and once more the world hears the familiar arguments : Dr. Tsiang, the delegate of Nationalist China, is a “private individual, representing nobody” ; the United States consider the United Nations as an instrument o f warfare, because their ruling circles are claiming world domination ; the Council’s resolution on Korea is unlawful ; and the Soviet Union has “consistently followed the policy of peace, and considered the United Nations as an instrument of peace.”

Thus the old propaganda-warfare goes on, together with wrangling for position and long arguments on procedure.