T H E T A B L E T , September lo th , 1961
THE TABLET
A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW
PRO ECCLESIA D E I , PRO REGE ET PATRIA
VOL. 1 9 8 , N o . 5808
POUNDED IN 1840
L O N D O N , SEPTEM BER 15th, 1951
S IX PENCE
PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER
NATIONALIST PASSION OR HUMAN PROGRESS
The Choice Before the P eop le s PURGE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA The In exorable P r o c e s s Behind the L a te s t Changes
DISUNITY IN EUROPE
C a tholics and the Second S o c ia lis t In ternational. B y Bernard Sullivan IRELAND AND THE WEST AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL Europe and the C e ltic Church. B y John H ennig B y G eorge S c o t t-M on c r ie ff
THE HOLY SEE AND REPEAL N ew L igh t on the A ttitu de o f Gregory X V I . B y Christopher H o l l is
ASIATIC TURNING-POINT T HE British Government, announcing the withdrawal of facilities which the Persian Government has been enjoying to obtain dollars through Britain, is careful to emphasize that the withdrawal is necessary to protect the British economy, and is not to be considered as an economic sanction. It is an entirely reasonable reminder to the Persians, in thenexuberant and short-sighted nationalism, that their economic interests are closely bound up with ours, and that our presence in Persia has brought on to the world market Persian wealth which can command foreign exchange, including the dollar, which every undeveloped country needs so badly. What is intensely regrettable is that political stupidity in Persia and the all-too-successful machinations of men whose object is to sabotage the beneficent process of economic advance combine to arrest all sorts of private activities of trade whose growth is the best hope for the Persian people.
Persian management, is fundamental, and that it should be fundamental is the measure of the gravity of the crisis, and the improbability of a settlement.
Undoubtedly it would be in the interests of Persia, and of the throne, that the Shah should take a more active part, should tell the people some of the fundamental truths about Persia’s dangerous position in the world, and how far and away her best prospects of security and progress lie in a close association with Great Britain and the United States, with a maximum output from the oilfields as a great common interest. But this would be to outrage nationalist passions, which the throne is expected to share and to lead, not to dampen and discourage. The Japanese Peace Treaty
The British Government’s announcement of steps long considered was deferred until the last possible moment, lest it should carry the character of an angry answer to Doctor Mossadeq’s ultimatum. But nothing could prevent it appearing to be closely connected with that ultimatum. There have been signs in the last week that some of the deputies, with November elections in front of them, have begun to feel that denunciation of Britain is insufficient as a policy, even though the full extent of the disaster to their country incurred by the picking of this needless quarrel will not be apparent until the early part of next year.
The British Government’s action has been answered by immediate reprisals against British residents in Persia, which bear all the marks of angry improvization. The truth plainly is that Doctor Mossadeq is now at his wits’ end, and has landed himself in an impossible position. All projects for selling oil to the satellite States of Central Europe would involve a blind reliance, little by little, on the Soviet Empire. It might begin with Communist technicians ; it would very soon pass to Communist political agents ; and it would soon be the end, perhaps the violent end, of Doctor Mossadeq and his friends, the rich Persians who have lent themselves to all this short-sighted nationalist agitation.
On the other hand the Nationalist violence is not less menacing. What he wants is an arrangement with Britain on his own terms, by which he can appear to his countrymen to have triumphed, and to have humiliated the foreigner. British skill and technical leadership would be less difficult to swallow if Persian pride were assuaged by proclaiming the technicians their servants, and it is doubly galling that the British refuse, not on any ground of a principle of objection to working for and under other nationalities, but because the Persian record does not inspire any confidence. The matter on which the Stokes negotiations broke down, the refusal of the British staff to place themselves at the mercy of a
The Japanese Peace Treaty was signed according to plan, and it remains a puzzle why Mr. Gromyko and his large staff came so far for so little. But the solemn warning about a new war may well have been judged worth the special journey, which must be looked at in conjunction with the war in Korea, where the fruitless armistice talks take on more and more of the character of a screen, necessary in conjunction with the general peace offensive designed to slow down rearmament in Western Europe and to strengthen the Communist Parties there in their business of confusing and dividing factory workers. No one is enthusiastic over the Japanese Treaty, and it is significant and not unexpected that almost the very first use the Japanese have made of their greater freedom of action is to hold a memorial service for General Yamingito, the war-time commander in Singapore, who was hanged for many and great exhibitions of inhumanity. To the Japanese, he is a fine soldier and a patriot who fell at the hands of his enemies, and, if he is to be criticised, it is for letting that happen instead of taking his own life.
The terms of the treaty, which continue the American occupation as far as American strategy requires it, will have the paradoxical effect that Japanese industry will benefit, to the disadvantage of the Asiatic nations whom the Japanese overran, because there will be more security for American capitalists in Japan than there is, for example, for British capital in India.
These Asiatic nations, so anxious to set up as absolutely sovereign States, have made, from the economic point of view, a great mistake which the Japanese have not been allowed to make. They should have seen the advantages of a much closer association with the British Commonwealth or the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and they would have gained great substance in exchange for shadows. We discuss this immensely important matter further in the leading article. The relations between Asia and the Western world are crystallizing in these years.
