THF TABLET, AprU MM. 1<*31

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 197, No. 5786

LONDON, APRIL 14th, 1951

SIXPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE RECALL OF GENERAL MACARTHUR The D angerous N ebu lo s ity o f U n ited N a t io n s Leadership

BRITAIN’S FINANCIAL PREDICAMENT R e f le c t io n s on M r . G a itsk e ll’s B u d g e t : I . By D ouglas Jerrold

WOMEN BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

The Equality o f the S e x e s . B y Judith L is tow e l

THE PROBLEMS OF MALTA The N e ed for Overseas S e t t lem en t . B y John Eppstein

THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE A NATION’S BREASTPLATE

By E . F . Caldin

B y D an ie l-R ops

THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH W HILE the Deputies in Paris make no progress, the propaganda to sap and confuse the non-Communist world continues with an ever gathering intensity ; and, as it does so, it changes emphasis very significantly. Nothing is being said today about the inevitable breakdown of the capitalist world, and the disappointed predictions of a few years back are quietly buried. Instead, the whole theme is that the Fascist Imperialists possess vast resources and power for aggression, so that the hope of mankind must rest in the refusal of the proletariats everywhere to play their allotted sacrificial roles in the plans of their capitalist masters. Very unwillingly, in the light o f strong theoretical preconceptions, the Kremlin is facing some of those realities of the modern world which do not fit their sacred text books, and, in particular, the overriding fact of the continued buoyancy of the American economy.

behind it ; and this is a thing which Americans in Europe and Asia have been lamentably slow to understand, so that they have not appeared in either Continent to understand the real secret of their own success, and have been prompt to espouse and support, in the name of democracy and the under-dog, the men whose respect for property is non-existent and whose theory of democracy makes it right for majorities to do what they like with the property of minorities. Indecisiveness in the Middle East

The first of the quarterly Reports of the Washington Office of Defence Mobilization shows civilian production in the States to be still increasing, although the Defence programme is so well launched that contracts were being placed at the rate of 1,000 million dollars every week in the first three months of this year. The Army has been doubled, and there is a certain problem in finding the new workers for the defence contracts, of whom four million are needed. But the expectation is that production, both military and civilian, will confinue to rise, and so vast-is the civilian production today that the Defence Programme in its entirety is and will be only a fifth of the production for other purposes.

As in every country, there is in the United States a continual danger of prices getting out of hand. But the general picture is one which deserves to be more widely known and appreciated throughout the world. It has a double importance for the upholders of the free and open society, that it demonstrates that they will have the decisive superiority over their enemies in the immediate crisis, and that it demonstrates that the basic principles of their society are the right ones for securing an, ever rising material standard for mankind. It has been part of the demoralization and fatigue of Europe that so many Europeans have lost faith in a free economic order which, seen in its proper perspective of history, remains demonstrably so vastly superior to the authoritarian alternative. The United States is the achievement of men from Europe fortunately starting off with the right ideas and achieving in a short time incomparably more than the monarchies had ever come near to achieving, because they limited and frustrated themselves by their over-eagerness to plan and control the economic life of their possessions in the new world as at home.

The American achievement has only been possible because property has been secure, with not only law but public opinion

Today in the Middle East the Americans, like the British, want to impress upon a number of Governments and political movements there that the realities of human progress are very different from the slogans and cat-calls of Progress and Freedom ; that invested capital in oil, for example, has an essential role to play, and a habit of moderation and respect for past agreements an even more important role in making possible that confidence which is the first requisite before men will work to make the desert blossom twenty years hence.

Nowhere has American policy been more at fault over this respect for property than in the all too uncritical and unconditional support given to the Jews, who imposed by force a new State on the map and rode roughshod over Arab rights to do so. This makes it very difficult for the United States to exact from Arab States the high standards of respect for property and accrued and prescriptive rights which the defence and property of the Middle East alike require.

One new illustration may suffice. The Huleh marshes in Galilee are a desolate hundred and fifty square miles of swampland near the Syrian border, parts of which lie in a special “ demilitarized zone” of Israel, previously occupied by Syria, which was set up by the Armistice Agreement of 1949. The Syrians then withdrew their troops on condition that Israel also kept out her troops, so that “ the gradual restoration of normal civilian life” could be effected. Some months ago Israel began digging operations in the area to drain the Huleh swamps and reclaim land for agriculture. Syria complained to the United Nations that this project constituted a violation of the “normal life” provision ; the Israelis stated that "to them “normal life” meant all-out development. Two weeks ago Jewish workers were fired on from across the border, and, after a further incident in which seven Jewish policemen were killed, Israeli planes retaliated by bombing the village in the de-militarized zone which had been occupied by Syrian troops. The United Nations officers asked that reclamation work be suspended, but the Israeli Government refused, and the daily Heruth went so far as to write that “ the time had come when international bodies should be told no longer to interfere in Israel-Arab relations, and when the Israel Army should take action.” By taking