T H E T A B L E T , A p r i l 38th, 1951

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 197, No. 5788

LONDON, APRIL 28th, 1951

SIXPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

“THE MORAL LEADERS OF MANKIND”

A Mild Delusion of British Socialists THE BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY A Sea o f Troubles. By G. C. Norman RE-EDUCATING THE ‘CLERCS’ Mr. Charles Morgan on Liberty. By Arnold Lunn

IS STALIN A MARXIAN ?

Some Doubts about Mr. Edward Crankshaw’s Thesis. By Christopher Hollis, M .P .

ST. JOHN BAPTIST DE LA SALLE, 1651-1951

A Tercentenary Tribute. By W . J . Battersby, F .S .C .

T H E G A IN F R O M SW IF T R E A R M A M E N T W ITH a recklessly callous contempt for human life, the Pekin Communists are hurling Chinese by the hundreds of thousands against the United Nations forces in Korea, in a battle which General Ridgway declared may well be decisive. However much the Americans and their allies talk of limiting and localising the struggle, such is not the language nor the tactics in Pekin.

The Chinese Communists are continuing their campaign in support of the Overseas Chinese in Malaya, Burma and Indonesia.

“ Now standing on their own feet,” declared the Pekin radio last week, “ the Chinese people can never ignore the persecution of Overseas Chinese by the British. Sooner or later the British will get the punishment they deserve.” And the speaker appealed to the Chinese in Malaya “who are now in hell fire” to unite more closely and fight against the British “ together with the local inhabitants.” People's China, the Communist newspaper, in its last issue wrote that “ it is not surprising that Attlee has not replied to the request that a Chinese ‘relief’ mission should investigate the position of Chinese in Malaya for the British imperialists know that the case against them is unanswerable.” Fostering terrorist activities is one part of this propaganda ; another is to elicit support for the “ volunteers” and the Korean People’s Army. Chinese merchants in Indonesia, Women’s organizations in East Sumatra have collected money and pledged their support in the campaign against U.S. aggression. This is intended to make it difficult for the Chinese, however law-abiding and industrious, to convince the authorities of their reliability.

There is the deepest calculation in all this, for the exports of Malaya play a vital role in the sterling area’s economy : and there is no sort of semblance o f justification for the pretence that the Communists in Pekin can be won by concessions, and that Korea can be treated in isolation. Mr. Dean Acheson recognized this, speaking in Washington last week, saying he believed Americans “have increasingly come to understand the aggression in Korea for what it, in truth, was—war by satellite—the first step in a larger plan which, if not checked at the start, would have engulfed all Asia.” He claimed that the plan of aggression has been thrown badly out of gear by the vigorous reaction of the United Nations. “The exposures at Lake Success have torn the veil from the shabby pretence of aggression by a satellite. I f this device has not already run its course and lost its usefulness, it has become a most dangerous method for those who employ it.” Having said so much, Mr. Acheson analyzed the next question, what is American policy to be against the Cominform, who “hide their intentions in deceptive talk, and when the victims ask, like little Red Riding Hood,

‘what big armies you have ? ’ they reply, ‘All the better to protect you with, from those aggressive Capitalists.’ As preposterous as these deceptions appear to us, we cannot let ourselves lose sight of this constant effort on the part of the whole Soviet apparatus to tear down our moral position before the world, to create misunderstandings as to our motives, to magnify differences between ourselves and our allies, and to put us in the position of seeming to be against peace ! ” And, yet more pertinently, he added, “We usually talk about the rulers of the Soviet Union as though they were always well-informed, cool-headed and calculating. But this may not always be the case. Soviet agents may report back what they think their superiors would like to hear. Soviet leaders may deceive not only their people but themselves by the very intensity of their propaganda. They may be blinded to actual conditions in the outside world by the rigidity of their theory.” Then he added, what is also relevant. “And, what is even more dangerous, as men who are playing a desperate game of power and of fear, they are subject to becoming rattled.” M r. Wilson Points His Finger

Mr. Wilson’s resignation speech was better received, because done with more modesty and good will than Mr. Bevan’s. It was also more illuminating. He has resigned not against his colleagues but against the Government o f the United States, in protest against inadequate allocations of essential materials to Britain. He said “We have not had our rightful share. I hope we may still get it, but today British industry stands disorganized and threatened by partial paralysis. The American Government and people have got to choose between their partner’s defence programme on the one hand and their own stockpiles and the level of their own unrestricted civilian consumption on the other. Until the right choice is made our defence programme remains an illusion.”

Mr. Wilson anticipating bad developments has by the same gesture stepped to one side and pointed the blame across the Atlantic. His speech on the Budget and the Economic Survey a week ago had been in notable contrast with Mr. Gaitskell’s much greater optimism. He dwelt on the great increase in what we have to pay for food and raw materials that we must import, and it is going to be very difficult to increase exports. In the first three months of this year our imports have cost £200 millions more, while our exports have only brought in £50 millions more than the same period a year ago. Many of the exports that have done well cannot continue to be as useful. A fifth of all our exports, and a third of exports to North America, were semi-manu'factures, yarns or semi-manufactured metals, which have