THE TABLET, September 1st, 1951

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 198,»No. 5806

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 1st, 1951

SIXPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

HUMAN EQUALITY AND BRITISH STANDARDS

The G reat Contradiction in a N a t io nal Socialism

ON PEACE AND PROSPERITY

The O verseas Foundations o f the British W e lfa re S ta te . B y D ou g la s Jerrold

THE SCHOOLS ISSUE IN FRANCE W i ll i t D iv id e French Catholics ? B y Louis Salleron

THE FATE OF FATHER TUNG A H ong Kong Account o f a Courageous M ission ary

THE PRACTICAL STATESMAN Joseph Chamberlain at the H e ig h t o f H i s Pow er and a feeling that while the two major enemies of the Allies in the Great War, the Germans and the Japanese, are enjoying such rapid revisions of the conditions imposed on them, the Italians, too, are entitled to a very different sort of Treaty. The Italian Treaty, precisely because it was signed so quickly, is a glaring anachronism now. The Russian Exiles

SIGNOR DE GASPERI FOR WASHINGTON T HE invitation of Signor de Gasperi to go to Washington was accompanied by a warm and thoroughly deserved American tribute to the statesmanship he has displayed through five difficult years, a statesmanship particularly remarkable for its patience, which has been the chief virtue of the Prime Minister’s patience has maintained the Italian coalition. Although since 1948 his Party has had an absolute majority, Signor de Gasperi has been determined to give the Party the tradition of work in coalitions, telling them that while they can hope always to be the largest Party they cannot expect always to have a majority over all other Parties combined. But this coalition the inclusion in a Government of Republicans and Liberals at one end and the Syragat Socialists at the other was skilfully employed to maintain unity inside the Christian Democratic Party itself which has both its Conservatives and its near-Social ists : and the nearSocialists have been very troublesome. But Dr. Dossetti and his friends can claim with some justice that originally Don Sturzo’s Partito Populare was very much a Party addressing itself specially to the workers, and refusing to work with the other Parties in order to preserve its own dynamic even lending itself to the highly specious argument that because the social order was not perfect, it was not worth defending.

The answer to this Left-Wing is that much may be permitted to a small and new Party which becomes highly incongruous in a government and a Party appearing before the nation and the world as the most suitable instrument to rule Italy, and first to preserve and then to improve Italian conditions.

Dr. Dossetti and his friends seem very slow to recognise that all Socialism brings instructional difficulties of its own ; Italy has an over-riding interest in the liberalizing of trade, the free movement not only of goods, but of money and above all, of men. The Americans are continually scanning Europe for Liberal statesmen, and meeting instead so many Nationalists and National Socialists. The Washington visit, which will be followed by Signor de Gasperi’s appearance as Loreign Minister at the Conference at Ottawa of the Atlantic Treaty Powers, will strengthen his hands against that Italian Nationalism which now, as in Lascist days, makes its special appeal to the young. It has been fanned by the spectacle of the increased American cordiality to Marshal Tito which has renewed apprehensions about Trieste. On the other hand, Marshal Tito’s quarrel with the Kremlin has relieved tension in Italy, where there is no longer the feeling that across the long and narrow Adriatic the outposts of Soviet imperialism have established themselves. The Italians now find themselves not on the frontier, but behind a large buffer state. Only the Albanian coast is there as a reminder. All this has had the effect of diminishing the sense of dependence on the West,

After a four-day conference in Stuttgart, presided over by Alexander Kerensky, the Minister President of the Provisional Russian Government of 1917, it was announced that the five most important Russian emigre-groups had agreed to form a new organization, the Council for the Liberation of the Russian Peoples (SONR). Kerensky declared that the five groups had signed an agreement for the “ common struggle against the Communist dictatorship at home,” and that they would actively participate in the propaganda campaign, perhaps also in the broadcasts from Radio Free Europe. While no doubt profound ideological differences will continue to divide the Russian émigrés in the free world, this announcement will be welcomed by many, however pessimistic they may be about the chances of exiles to be considered one day as the authoritative spokesmen of their own people. Too often the fate of the refugee has been that while he may retain the traditions of his native country, he has lost touch with it in his new and alien world, and the Russian exiles, perhaps more than any others in history, represent this deep division between the “old” and the “new” emigration. Thousands of them are now living in Germany : White Russians, RussianUkrainians, former prisoners of war, displaced persons of the Second World War, members of the Vlassov army which fought with the Germans against the USSR. A t the heart of their division are their widely differing approaches to the “national question.” Many of the old Russian Democrats still favour a Russian national state ; but they have now come to accept a federal solution, perhaps less from conviction than in order to take the wind out of the sails of the separatist tendencies among the “national committees” of the smaller Russian peoples and of the Ukrainians living abroad. The influence of the “American Committee” is strong on the side of the future "dismemberment” of Russia and a consequent weakening of Russian Imperialism. One seems to recognize in that idea the revival o f a policy which during the last war sought to turn Germany into an agricultural area by the complete destruction of her industrial power. The one group among the Russian émigrés which seems to have effectively operated behind the iron curtain are, however, the so-called “ Solidarists” who are sharply opposed to the American plans. None of these visions are of much immediate importance,