THE TABLET, May 124/», 1931

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA VOL. 197, No. 5790 LONDON, MAY 12th, 1951 SIXPENCE FOUNDED IN 1840 PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH Whitsuntide 1951 and Human Preoccupations THE APOSTLESHIP OF THE LAITY The Fullness o f their Catholic Vocation. By Mgr. H . F. Davis

THE PERSIAN OIL CRISIS

By R. C. Zaehner

HINDU CONVERT UNTOUCHABLES

By Archbishop Roberts, S .J .

THE ROYAL ACADEMY

By Peter Watts

SOVIET COMMENTARY

By Victor S . Frank

ALL EYES ON WASHINGTON W H EN a few days ago the U .S . Third Air D iv is ion in Britain was transformed into the Third A ir Force, the change marked a new and advanced state o f preparedness. The N ew Y o rk T im es gives the numbers o f the Third Air Force at over 20,000, and the force could be in action in a matter o f hours, with forty-five bombers and an equal number o f jet escort fighters, together with refuelling planes. The increase in American strength and the com p le tion o f runways and other ground facilities now releases British men and resources. The American forces flew in to Iceland last week. These developm ents are part o f the background for General Marshall’s testim ony to the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee, on the advanced state o f Soviet preparedness, able to strike east or south or west.

game, to whisper that in American eyes the European peoples were regarded as expendable. It is this propaganda that offsets the very real achievements which the building up o f the North A tlantic Treaty Organization can poin t to in giving Europeans the sense that, not only are they in the great alliance, som ething larger and stronger in every way than their enemy, but that they individually can hope to survive to the final victory.

Time, properly used, is on the side o f the West ; but we wish those in charge o f the defence arrangements would more publicly appreciate the great importance for the morale o f Western populations in the provision o f small arms for home guard formations, for it is an entirely different military problem to over-run and occupy armed and unarmed populations.

American democracy lives by free and even violent discussion. The Americans are materially equipped with newspapers which are fully adequate for the most exhaustive discussion and reporting, and with homes equipped with television, now the ch ie f medium o f political education. Constitution and custom alike make elaborate provision for exhaustive and public enquiry, and already a great deal o f clarification has been achieved. General MacArthur began with an immense popular support, and a considerable fo llow ing among responsible and instructed Americans. He has since gained, not only by the modesty and moderation o f his answers, but by the inadequacy o f what he calls “ the accordion policy,” by which the United N a tio n s forces will move indefinitely up and down the Korean peninsula, needing continual reinforcement ; a policy which, while it is not surrender, is equally not victory, and cannot be called a vindication o f either the power or the authority o f the United Nations. It is already clear that som ething more has got to be done.

There are great deterrent considerations for the Kremlin, which had a vivid illustration o f what happens when men, who have lived all their life in the Soviet U n io n , see Europe for the first tim e and discover that it is very different and vastly more attractive than they had been taught ; even in the comparatively impoverished countries o f Central Europe, the contrast is very marked, and the Red Army troops needed re-education and re-indoctrination. There would be very great danger in the West o f a Red flood really being a flood, seeping away, losing its coherence and its discipline. And the alternative is one in which Asiatic history is particularly rich, o f successful conquering generals setting at defiance a remote civilian authority. In the defensive war against the German invaders, Stalin, by making him self a Marshal in supreme charge o f the war, prevented the emergence o f any dangerous military leaders. But it would be a different, and much more difficult business, with the commanders o f successful invading armies.

But it is primarily the state o f American opinion, and not any particular belief in the econom ic sanctions proposed, which w ill make the other allies agree to such sanctions. Seen in the light o f the Kremlin’s over-riding purpose to divide the Americans from their European allies, the Chinese tactics o f silent and persistent aggression are having a dangerous amount o f success. President Truman puts the issues before his people in the largest setting o f the fate o f the whole world, that Asiatic policy has to be considered with abiding reference to European and M iddle Eastern policy. It is his strongest point that General MacArthur might be quite right about the Far East, considered by itself, but that it cannot be so considered. A strong American policy in Asia can only be entertained i f it does not weaken the front in Europe, and, in the present early stage o f preparedness, it could easily do so , enabling the Communists, and the neutralists who play their

A s it is, by remaining, in President Truman’s expression, poised to sw oop on Europe, the Russians are successfully entangling the Western Governments in the contradiction between what the electorates expect, which is that civilian consum ption, if it does not rise, at least shall not decline, and what military preparedness exacts, which is inevitably som e decline in current consumption. New Categories for Old

What the Western Powers can do, and are beginning to do, is to adapt them selves to the reality o f a situation which is neither war nor peace in the old senses o f those words. It is today a positive disadvantage to belong to an older and better time and to have had long years o f diplom atic experience, which makes it very difficult not to think o f countries having certain diplomatic and juridical rights unless we are