T H E T A B L E T , J u l y 21st, 1951

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 198, No. 5800

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, JULY 21st, 1951

SIXPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE NEW REIGN IN BELGIUM The Ominous Unreasonableness of Belgian Socialism

A TRIBUTE TO JOHN LINGARD Who Died on July 17th, 1851. By Christopher Hollis RECLAIMING DELINQUENT YOUTH A Catholic Looks at the Borstal System. By Illtud Evans, O .P .

A LETTER FROM SPAIN The Recent “ Collective Instruction” o f the Spanish Archbishops

ESCAPE FROM KATYN WOOD Memories Prompted by a Recent Book. By S . Lubodziecki

THE AMERICANS AND SPAIN T HE visit o f Admiral N ewman, American Chief o f N aval operations, to General Franco, fo llow in g that o f the American Senators with special powers, is an indication that the Americans have made very substantial progress with General Franco for the lo n g over-due participation o f Spain in Western defence. We hope the American Government will not . lend any very attentive ear to the voices o f political bigotry com ing from L ondon and Paris, and w ill recognize that the British Governm ent’s views in this matter are dictated by the Labour Party, are an old and bad inheritance, and are in large part for hom e consumption.

fare best who succeed most fully in entering the stream o f world trade. Foreign investors are n o t unreasonable people ; they are quite ready to recognize that they have special obligations to the country which admits them , to the Government whose laws protect them , to the local workers whose econom ic activities they organize. But, from their side, they expect that the terms o f the bargain w ill be kept, that they w ill n o t have to face unpredictable bureaucratic interference, or closely blocked exchanges, or arbitrary taxation. From all these things a strong and w ise Government can protect them. “ The Twilight o f Our Enemies” ?

It is a psychological truth that men find it very hard to forgive those whom they have injured : and it is found unforgivable in General Franco that he has n o t only survived the abuse showered on him , but that, as the light o f history reaches back through the years o f the European War and before that o f the Spanish C ivil War, it is the Left-W ing propaganda that disintegrates under the light o f the historian’s lamp. Thus the volum e o f captured German Foreign Office documents lately published by the Stationery Office1 demonstrates how completely the outbreak o f the Civil War to ok Hitler and his Government by surprise, how there was n o deep or sustained German policy, while the Führer himself, as he learnt about the character o f the N a tion a list movement, and the large part which the Catholic religion played in it, disliked it very much, and declared in his table-talk how he would much rather be assisting the other side, as representing a revolutionary break w ith all the past much nearer in spirit to his own.

Today the serious objection which is raised by the British and French Governments is the effect on the Socialist parties o f any approach to Spain, and the opening that would be given to the Communists, and som e weight must be accorded to this. So the Americans have continually pressed for changes in the com position o f the Spanish Government, to make the pill less bitter. General Franco is going som e way towards meeting them , and a redressing o f the Government is n ow confidently .anticipated.

It w ill n o t only be a change o f personalities, but will reflect a certain shift in econom ic policy, to make Spain a more attractive field for foreign— that is , for American— investment. The Spaniards are by no means the first or the last o f the nationalist movements to have cultivated a closelyplanned econom y, who have sought to reduce the role o f foreign capital and enterprise to a minimum, only to discover that, while any people and any Government can indulge itself in this philosophy, it is an expensive luxury, and those peoples

1. Documents on German Foreign Policy : 1918-1945. Series D, Volume III : The Spanish Civil War. H.M. Stationery Office. 25s.

We hope, for our part, that Cabinet changes may be accompanied by a relaxation o f the debilitating Press censorship, and som e new arrangements tried by which the Press, through a council o f newspaper proprietors, draws up and enforces its own standards o f in form ed and moderate but open criticism . General Franco, who has shown h im self an adept politician, skilled in the art o f balancing one force against another, has shown little appreciation o f how useful the Press could be as a check on the misuse o f official privileges and powers by public servants under the regime.

Whether any definite agreements have been reached on the military level is n o t known, but the Minister o f A ir, General Eduardo Gallarza, has just returned from an extensive tour in the United States, whither he is said to have discussed the possibility o f sending Spanish airmen for training. (Incidentally, he is the first Spanish Minister to visit America since the Civil War). American military material is reported to have begun to arrive in Spain, and it may be taken as certain that the American Government is not likely to underestimate the value o f Spanish co-operation.

A ll things considered, General Franco can afford to be reasonably satisfied w ith the turn which affairs have taken in his country’s favour^ and his satisfaction may have been mingled with som e amusement at the news that the Committee o f un-American Activities had found that som e thirty-three Spanish Communist and émigré organizations and newspapers in America were o f a subversive nature, while the French authorities had evicted the Basque Separatist organization from its Headquarters in- Paris and handed the building over to the Spanish Government whose property it is. Arriba refers to these events as “The tw ilight o f our enem ies.” The Approach to Russia in 1939 ,

Meanwhile, Mr. Herbert Morrison m ight cast his mind back to the summer o f 1939, and recall how strongly his Party supported the sending o f a British m ission to M oscow , and how little anybody minded that the Kremlin notoriously