TUB T A B L E T , January 12th, 1952

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 199, No. 5825

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, JANUARY 12th, 1952

NINEPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE STERLING AREA Basic Issues Before the Commonwealth Finance Ministers

SOUTH AFRICAN SURVEY I: Racial Relationships. By Peter Railing THE MILLENNIUM AS COMMUNISTS SEE IT

Day-Dreams in Moscow. By Victor S . Frank RUSSIA IN EASTERN GERMANY

Bourgeois Necessity and Communist Dogma MAX PICARD’S ITALIAN JOURNEYS The World of Destruction and the World o f Wholeness. By Stanley Godman

RETURN TO CHESTERTON II: Life at Beaconsfield. By Maisie Ward

AMERICA AND EUROPE RESIDENT TRUMAN’S report to Congress on the State The economic difficulties which beset this country are JL of the Union gave a picture of the immense power of the United States, with a production in 1951 three times what it had been in 1950 and an output of steel which is expected next year to equal that of all the rest of the world together. It is a world in which the danger of war has diminished as the military strength o f the United States has increased ; but the President spoke of the greater production of military aircraft in the Soviet Union and of other respects in which, comparatively, the free world is still inferior.

The President spoke also of American policy in a Europe which, he said, must seek new conceptions of unity for the sake not only of its political independence of Moscow, but also of its economic independence of Washington.

President Truman’s conversations with Mr. Churchill could not be expected, at this particular juncture in the United States, to leadxit once to any sensational announcements, but they covered a wide ground, both military and economic, touching the affairs of the Far East and the Middle East as well as those of Europe. In particular they served to place the problems of Western Europe in the larger setting of the Atlantic community. In making this journey to Washington, Mr. Churchill went far to explain the attitude which the British Government maintained at Strasbourg in November, of reserved aloofness from the rest of the European continent, and the claim to be treated, not so much as a part of Europe, but rather as part of a separate entity, the Commonwealth, approaching Europe as the United States does, as an outsi4e Power. It is a claim underlined by the meeting of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers in London, but one which the Americans have hitherto by no means been ready »to accept.

The Marshall Plan came to its official end with the end of 1951, and the Economic Co-operation Administration which administered it is replaced by the Mutual Security Agency, the change in name reflecting the way in which defence has replaced the assistance o f economic recovery as such as the primary objective of the Americans in Europe. But the technique remains an integrating one, depending economically on the breaking down of national sovereignties in so far as they present obstacles to trade and to the development of an expanding continental economy, and the Marshall Aid administrators and their successors have always regarded Britain as a European Power, swimming or sinking with the rest of the Continental countries.

indeed acute, but they are not unique. All Western Europe has an increasing dollar deficit, a threat of inflation, a basic dependence on coal which is not produced in „sufficient quantities. Where a year ago the European countries were finding their dollar position easier, on account of the boom in raw materials which they exported largely from their overseas territories, as this country exported in particular tin and rubber from Malaya, today those increased prices are being felt in the increased cost o f Europe’s imports. The terms of trade are running against the continent as a whole, as well as against Britain ; the world prices of what Europe needs to import are all the time rising, and will continue to rise, in relation to the world prices of what Europe exports. Rearmament programmes undertaken during the past year have made matters worse for all the West European countries, increasing the risk of serious inflation which is common to them all, and compelling them all to take the kind of measures of retrenchment which have just brought down the Government in France. The Prospect of Dearer Food in Britain

The dilemma for Britain in particular is that if the Government embarks on a thorough-going policy of deflation, using the traditional methods of dealing with inflation, then the farmers will be among the first to suffer, as they were in the 1920’s, and food supplies will become increasingly short because of the increasing difficulty o f importing food from overseas. As things are the farmers are dismayed by the new scale of farm prices recently announced by the Minister of Agriculture as a sequel to the increase in farm wages granted in October. Other costs for farmers continue to increase, and the result of the recent wage and price increases is that the farmers are given additional income o f some £26 millions a year to offset additional commitments of some £40 millions. As the Deputy President of the National Farmers’ Union said a t Dorchester last weekend, “next month’s review of farm prices will be the most critical the farming industry of this country has ever had to face.” I f prices are not raised sufficiently to cover costs, farmers will be forced to cut their costs and produce less food ; to have more land as pasture, for instance, where less labour is needed, and less land arable ; and less food will be forthcoming. The vital thing is to maintain and increase yields per acre, rather than output per head, and to bring marginal land back into cultivation.

But if farm prices are raised, food prices must rise higher,