THE TABLET, Marc/! 33et, l y s i
THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW
PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA
VOL. 197, No. 5784
LONDON, MARCH 31st, 1951
SIXPENCE
FOUNDED IN 1840
PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER
IRELAND AND THE ATLANTIC PACT
A Disingenuous Speech by Mr. Sean MacBride THE HEROISM OF THE CATHOLICS IN CHINA An Account o f their Steadfastness, by a Correspondent in the Far East
INTELLECTUAL LABOUR CAMPS The Universities o f Eastern Germany. By Donald Nicholl LETTERS FROM FRANCE, ITALY AND SPAIN
Political Surveys from Three Capitals THE COST OF THE CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
The Ministry of Education has to Think Again
“FOLIE DE GRANDEUR” “ ¥ NFLATION’S GALLOP” was a heading in the Economist
- I the other day, as the rapid progress o f a world-wide inflation raised a cry of alarm from the Council of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. The Economist wrote :
the reduced expenditures and the handsome budgetary surplus that we are told to expect on April 10th. Insulated Minds
“Among the experts as well as the general public, there seems as yet to be little understanding of either the probable size or the implications of an inflation that is now running strongly and cannot be quickly halted. In this country, especially, people seem to regard present price-increases as a once-for-all reaction to the Korean War, as just another turn of a screw that in the past ten years has grown familiar—a large turn, no doubt, and particularly unfortunate, but no more decisively damaging than many turns before.” Some o f the consequences could be observed by those who went for their Easter holidays to France, and found themselves greatly inconvenienced by strikes that were not the fruits of Communist machinations, however delighted the Communists may have been by the opportunities afforded, but were in fact what they claimed to be, which was the urgent expression of the need of a great many workers to have their wages increased to meet the increased prices they have to pay. The inflationary process has been successfully controlled in France for three years, but now it is under control no longer.
For the first time since the Bonn Government came into existence in 1949, the West German economy is undergoing grave difficulties, and the closest attention will be required to keep the inflation in check. The effects o f the Korean War and o f the rearmament in Britain and the United States are being felt in Germany also ; Marshall Aid is coming to an end ; and the present E.C.A. grant will be exhausted long before the end of the year. Professor Erhard will not find it easy to weather the storm, with the “ closed shop” attitude o f Britain and France, the artificially low price fixed by the Ruhr Authority for German coal exports, and, not least, the increased import requirements due to the loss of the East German grain and the presence of ten million refugees. Ex nihilo nihil f i t : Western Germany will have to face a programme of drastic cuts in expenditure on imports, of severe taxation, and of a careful adjustment o f prices and wages.
In this country the position is made worse than it need be by extravagant Government spending. Folie de grandeur is the affliction o f those who habitually spend too much, under the impression that they are rich when in fact they are not. The most recent examples come in the estimates published on Tuesday of what the Government expects to spend during the coming financial year on the social services. Here and there cuts have been made in the interests of economy, but it is not from parings of this nature that the Exchequer will produce
The insulated mind of the Government is shown by the way in which, when it wants to be really drastic, it turns to such a relatively small item in the national Budget as the Foreign Office grant for the Overseas Service of the BBC, and there slashes off a quarter of a million which could very well have been pruned away from the total of nearly £900 millions which the social services now absorb, and which will make the gravest difference to what ought to be regarded as a major element in the preparation o f defence—for if there is a war it will be of the highest importance to have an intimate system of contact with the populations held down by the Red Armies whose hopes are centred in the West. Another million can be lightly tossed to the Festival o f Britain, but European broadcasting must be axed, and this at a time when the American State Department has just asked Congress for another $974 millions for the “Voice of America” transmissions, to bring the total expenditure on that service during the present financial year to well over $200 millions. Whether or not there is a war, the day will come when the nations of Central and Eastern Europe are free again, and by that time, presumably, they will be convinced that the Americans are the only people who are interested in them. Far from making these niggling economies, the British Government ought, as the Economist suggested last week, to be urging the creation of a permanent machine for Western political warfare. Taken By Surprise
These estimates for the social services are not only remarkable because they read as though they had been drawn up by someone who had never heard o f any rearmament, whether political or military. They ought to be thought no less disconcerting because they are higher than they were expected to be, and higher than the corresponding figures a year ago, where there has been no important addition to the benefits which they provide.
But as good an illustration as any, and one which shows as well as any how painfully the Government has been taken by surprise, is given by the history of the obligation placed upon the Catholics of this country by the 1944 Education Act. In the House of Commons last Thursday the Member for Eccles asked whether the Minister of Education was able to estimate the total capital cost to the Catholic body, as well as to the Exchequer and the local education authorities, of implementing the requirements of that Act ; and we print on another page the reply made for the Ministry by Mr. Hardman, together with the comments o f the Catholic Education Council. It was indeed generous o f the Ministry
