TBE T A B L E T , Augutl l l i h , 1961

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA „

VOL. 198, No. 5803

LONDON, AUGUST 11th, 1951

SIXPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE GREAT TEMPTATION The Constant Dilemma of Labour Ministers TRANSITION IN YUGOSLAVIA An Enquiry into the Present Position of Marshal Tito’s Regime : I

A CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT STOCKTAKING The Recent Reconstruction of the Italian Cabinet. By Giorgio Asinari

TAUNTON AND LISIEUX Catholic Participation in a Civic Link. By John M . Todd

THE CASTLE OF THE SOUL

A Newly-Translated Sermon for the Assumption by St. Aelred of Rievaulx

THE STOKES MISSION T HE mission o f Mr. Stokes, the Lord Privy Seal, to Teheran symbolises one o f the great issues now before the world, for the Anglo-lranian Oil Company personifies the Western capital in technical and managerial skill which Asia and Africa alike need, while the Persian Government, the prisoner o f local public opinion, o f the aspirations o f very poor native populations in whom national feeling and material hopes blend in acquisitive xenophobia, represents the new Asia. The great question is whether there will be sufficient in telligence and m oderation in these Asiatic countries for partnership with the West. I f there can be such a partnership, it will do more th an anything else to give both a sense of security to countries otherwise very weak, and the reality of steady and increasing material betterm ent.

This was one o f the issues precipitating the Boer War— whether farm ing pioneers, pastoral Boers, o r nomadic African herdsmen, by appearing first in an unoccupied country, acquired thereby absolute legal and moral rights over the gold o r diamonds o r coal which lurked under their unsuspecting feet. Broadly speaking, the answer is th a t people who do not develop wealth themselves can have no right to impose an indefinite veto on the rest o f mankind, though they have a right to benefit, and to com pensation for disturbance. The Prerequisites of Wealth

It is part o f the Persian case against the oil company that it has not done nearly enough welfare work in Persia. But no one can deny th a t it has done much, and the international Labour office paid last year a special trib u te to “ the vast number o f houses and amenities which the Company has been able to provide in a comparatively short tim e in spite o f exceptionally unfavourable circum stances.” Writing o f the health and medical services provided, the I.L .O . noted the great strain throw n upon them by their being used by a great many Persians with little o r no connection with the Company. It is true th a t in the direct paym ent o f royalties and taxes, the Persian Government’s royalties have am ounted to about half the British Governm ent’s receipts from taxation, apart altogether from the fact th a t the British Government is also a majority share-holder, with 56 per cent o f the shares. But it is relevant th a t this huge enterprise does no t derive all its wealth from the oil draw n up from under the soil o f Persia ; that it is a network o f Companies and activities, o f fleets and refineries, and th a t much o f its capital wealth is outside the Persian frontiers. I t is in every way a modern enterprise, representative in its complexity o f the elaborate technical apparatus which is th e secret o f modern productivity.

The British Labour Government is in a very paradoxical position, for it is in Persia very much as a capitalist. Yet the Persians are in a position no t less paradoxical, for they are landlords claiming royalties for which they do nothing, and their position is exactly th a t o f the owners o f mineral rights whom it has long been the stock-in-trade o f Socialist oratory to abuse, on the ground th a t they did no t create the wealth under the soil, and th a t it belongs rightfully to those who undertake the labour o f extracting it. The owner o f mineral rights in England has never been allowed by Socialists to plead the good purposes to which he may be putting his wealth. T hat is not the point, they answer ; the point is that you have no moral right to anything, and it was the merest legal accident that the ownership o f land was construed as extending indefinitely downwards to the centre o f the earth.

Too much o f the Persian talk to-day proceeds on the wholly false assum ption th a t the oil was there for anybody to take w ithout trouble, with all too little recognition that, while it has always been there, it has only been through the progress o f Western technology, trad e and finance, th a t it has become possible and profitable to exploit it. When Whistler was asked in the witness-box how long it had taken him to paint a picture, he replied quite truly th a t it had taken him a lifetime ; and the Western world is entitled to say to these excited Asiatic populations th a t it has been a vast labour to build Western industrial technology, o f which Asians can share the benefit merely by displaying certain passive virtues, like respect for agreements, which, when they stipulate a particular term o f years, must be respected till those years have expired, and the maintenance o f an atm osphere o f cooperation so th a t the Europeans o r Americans working in these countries shall enjoy civilised amenities.

The British Governm ent is in Persia as a capitalist, and it is pre-eminently fitting th a t the Cabinet Minister heading the special mission should be himself an industrialist already acquainted with the Middle East, and a man who has never disguised his strongly pro-A rab sympathies, although he is a member o f a party in which Zionists and pro-Zionist feeling has always been p reponderant. Mr. Stokes will be much less embarrassed than his more doctrinaire colleagues a t the association with an oil company, o r a t defending the interests o f something which, if it were in England, would be the most obvious ta rget for Socialist attack. The whole Persian episode should have an educative effect on the L abour Party, for it is a clear illu stration th a t there is a common interest, which is th a t the wealth which can be produced should be produced, and th a t, in o rd e r to produce it, capital and management, which in the case o f the Persian oil has come from this country, is as necessary as the labour which the Persians can provide.

I t is also relevant that in p roportion as the British Government has to content itself with a smaller revenue from this enterprise, both as shareholder and tax-gatherer, will it have that much less to spend on social policy in Britain. F o r the rank and file o f the L abour Party are as yet very far from understanding how very much to their disadvantage would be