T H E T A B L E T , October 13th, 1951

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

VOL. 198, No. 5812

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

LONDON, OCTOBER 13th, 1951

NINEPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

COLLECTIVISM AND WAR The Twentieth Century Contrasted with the Nineteenth

THE CREATION OF WEALTH The Conditions o f a Sound Fiscal Policy. By Douglas Jerrold

HOW STRONG IS THE SOVIET UNION? The Weaknesses o f its Economy and the Hope of Peace. By Wilfred Ryder “MISSION DE LA MER” POETS AND PARASITES

By Peter F . Anson

By J . Lewis May

TWO LETTERS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS New Discoveries, and the Hope o f More. By E . Allison Peers

THE VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS Proposals from the Ministry, and the Statement of the Hierarchy intend any decisive breach with its friends and allies of the Western world, and this was usefully-said.

LANCASHIRE AND THE SUDAN T HE assumption by the King of Egypt o f the title of King of the Sudan makes it certain that the imperial issue will overshadow the domestic issue in the election, because it throws into sharp relief how the two issues merge into one. In all the constituencies where cotton textiles are manufactured there has been an immediate realization of a threat to a vital source of raw material for a leading British industry, equally important for the contribution it makes to well-being a t home and to British exports. Cotton exports are a very much smaller proportion of our total exports today than they were thirty years ago, but they are still some 8 per cent of the whole. Those who live by the textile industry know they are particularly exposed to foreign competition, for wherever there are abundant populations, anxious to live by manufacturing and exporting, textiles are a relatively simple industry to start, much simpler than our other strong lines, engineering or motor manufacturing, or pottery or even whisky, all of which require local raw materials. Sudanese cotton had been developed by British capital and enterprise long before there was any dollar problem to complicate the purchases from the American cotton belt. It is of singular importance today.

The first American reactions seem to be what they generally , are. The Americans have grown up thinking of the British as a strong imperial Power, fully deserving of moral disapproval from the purer American democracy, which is, nevertheless, always disconcerted if Britain does not maintain its positions. For many Americans that is the ideal division of labour in the Middle East—that the British and French should remain there, maintaining the essentials, while the Americans politely disapprove of such traces of colonialism, and establish a special relationship of understanding with the local peoples, as being themselves a people who have passed through a colonial period before winning their independence. The American Evolution

Over a number of vital constituencies where the majorities last year were two thousand or less, the future of the Sudan suddenly imports itself, bringing with it far-reaching considerations to Labour voters who have hitherto never realized how intimate is the connection between the imperialism they have liked to denounce and the living standards they have liked to cheer and enjoy.

They are in two minds all the time when they hear of progress towards local self-government in the Gold Coast or Ceylon, applauding the advance to political democracy while uneasy lest the first use native peoples make of their powers will be to become violently protectionist in their anxiety to extort the largest possible price from the outside world for whatever it is, cocoa or rubber or tea or cotton, that foreign capital has shown can be grown and marketed to the general advantage.

But in the Sudan no one can see King Farouk as answering Jefferson’s description o f “ a people struggling to be rightly free.” He embodies merely the proposal to substitute Egyptian overlordship for British, something as devoid of moral as of legal cogency. ■The Egyptian Ambassador in Washington explained to Mr. Dean Acheson that the Government had acted so precipitately and aggressively because of strong pressure inside the Egyptian Parliament, and that it did not

I f it is the defence of the Government that they had not been able to secure American support for a common line in Persia, that makes nonsense of the Daily Mirror's campaign, which is to suggest that Mr. Attlee will have more influence in Washington than Mr. Churchill can hope to have, and so will be a better custodian of world peace. The Labour Government has not very much influence in Washington, and cannot expect to have while it so plainly does not know its own mind.

The Americans have had a disconcerting experience since 1945. They were at first quite ready to believe that Great Britain knew Europe at any rate, and if we had taken the lead in the necessary movement towards some real European unity, the Americans would have been very relieved and pleased. What they found in Whitehall, unfortunately, was Socialist bigotry, British politicians wondering how they could make Europe more Socialist and how they could build up the German Social Democrats or the Italian Socialists ; politicians whose order of priorities was Socialism first, and then, perhaps, more union, but certainly not more union with non-Socialist countries. This struck the Americans as rather absurd, because they were being asked to co-operate very closely with Socialist Britain ; and the argument seemed to be that we could bear the capitalism of the United States, but not the capitalism of Europe. Slowly but definitely the Americans have since gone ahead, and we have followed ; but Mr. Churchill was ahead of the Americans.

The official British reluctance and tepidity about United Europe was much more the fruit of Socialism than of insularity. So with the protracted and futile ostracism of Spain,