THE TABLET, June 2nd, 1951

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 197, No. 5793

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, JUNE 2nd, 1951

SIXPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE BLESSED POPE PIUS X

I : Instaurare Omnia in Christo II : An Evaluation in 1914. By Hilaire Belloc III : A Pontificate in Retrospect. By Humphrey J . T . Johnson

IV : The Testimony of a Convert. By F . R. Hoare

BONITATE ET AMORE PLENUM PREOCCUPATIONS IN SPAIN

By John P . Murphy

H : The Significance o f the Recent Strikes

THE FIFTH COLUMN

S ELDOM is any real advantage gained by pretending th a t matters are better than, in fact, they are. There is plenty o f solid ground fo r reassurance in Western Europe, including th e resolution o f the Americans, whose occupation tro ops in Germany were considerably reinforced last week, and it is a m istake to seek to ta lk about “Democratic G a in s” in the first o f the polling days in the Ita l ian local elections, o r about “ Many Victories for Democratic G ro u p ”—these being the headlines from two leading London dailies on Wednesday—• when the more im portant fact is th a t, despite the greatest efforts on the p a r t o f Catholics to prevent people from voting fo r the Communists and their allies, and despite all th a t has happened to dispel the illusions about Communism for which excuses could still be found a few years ago, the number of votes given to the Communists and their allies has not declined since 1948 but has, on the contrary, increased. This happened on the same day as what was to a large extent a Communist success in the presidential election in Austria ; and th e consequences o f the new electoral system used in Italy should no t be too complacently welcomed.

D r. K orner, who is seventy-eight, will have plenty to do to guard himself against his unwelcome friends. H e regards himself as a Catholic, but Austrians feel th a t he has no t so far actively shown himself as such. P art o f the Communist propaganda in his support was a visit to Vienna by F a th e r Joseph Plojhar, the excommunicated priest and Czechoslovak M inister o f Health, in o rder to bring the Austrian electors “ the best wishes o f the People’s Democracies.” Uneasy Weeks at Westminster

Parliam ent has reassembled fo r a fu rther two months, and if Mr. Attlee and his colleagues can get th rough the next eight or ten weeks they will have the respite, always so welcome to Ministers but never more welcome to any Ministers than to these, o f a long vacation w ithout parliam entary duties. I t is adm ittedly a thoroughly unsatisfactory position : the Government is tired, uncertain, and staying in office in the hope th a t something may tu rn up which will improve its 'e lectoral chances. I t inevitably lacks authority, although it can maintain sufficient discipline to escape serious defeat in parliam entary divisions. There is only too much likelihood

The lesson o f the A ustrian presidential election is one which the non-Communist parties elsewhere in Europe might do well to take to heart. D r. Theodore Kôrner, the Socialist m ayor o f Vienna, won the election because the Austrian Communist Party, changing its policy a t the last minute, ordered all its members to support the Socialist candidate. Whether the Austrian Socialists like it o r not, their victory is entirely due to the Communists, for whom all along they had professed such a strong dislike.

But the Volkspartei, to o—which the BBC news-bulletins have been wrongly describing as a right-wing party—will have reason for heart-searchings. I t made two mistakes, first in identifying Socialists and Communists, fo r whatever justification this policy may have found in the actual results, there can be no doubt th a t the Communists only made a characteristic tactical manœuvre, and had no alliance with the Austrian Socialists. Secondly, th e success in the previous elections of D r. Breitner’s Independents seemed to inspire the Volkspartei with hopes o f recruiting its voters from them, and laid it open to the infiltration from th a t nebulous right-wing quarter o f A ustrian politics. To be regarded as allies o f men who as yet have not made up their minds whether they want to be Liberals, Democrats, pan-G erm ans o r National-Socialists was a trem endous liability for the moderate and Catholic core o f the Austrian State. The “ Independents,” wooed by D r . Gleissner’s supporters and bullied in to opposition by the Socialists, made matters worse by advising their voters to abstain, and the 188,000 blank ballot papers, as well as the 170,000 Austrians who did n o t vote a t all, gave the Socialist candidate his required 52 per cent majority.

th a t the decisions a t the highest levels will be opportunist improvisations ; and th a t in foreign affairs the Government will be thinking too much how to steer a course which will no t look like weakness, bu t will also no t involve any great exertions o r run any great risks.

N o great Empire in history, no great State, ever tried to conduct its most im portant business with fewer constitutional organs or less reliance on experience. We have no Senate or G rand Segnory o r Council o f Elders to take responsibility and make decisions ; only the two or three party politicians who form the inner Cabinet. When historians come to analyse the reasons for the rapid dissipation o f so much of what was a great inheritance, they will find one o f the principal causes in the jealousy which has made the Party leaders keep all decisions for the Cabinet, which has meant, in effect, keeping them in a few ephemeral hands. The East India Company, in partnership with the Crown in its second phase, provided more continuity o f purpose th an have the successive Secretaries o f State for India, in consultation with their principal colleagues, in this century. F rom the days o f Lord Morley to those o f L o rd M ountbatten’s liqu idator’s Viceroyalty, short views and improvisations continually weakened a relationship which, because o f its great im portance, should have been the special and whole-time interest o f some particula r continuing constitutional body, its members detached from electoral considerations and charged with the business o f presiding over the gradual evolution o f the appropriate constitutional developments through the Indian sub-continent. I t has been the same story in defence and armaments all