TH E T A B L E T , September 13th, 1952

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 200, No. 5860

FOUNDED IN 1840

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 13th, 1952

NINEPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE STABILITY OF THE FAMILY The Deepest Issue Before the International Conference at Oxford SCIENCE, MORALITY AND THE COMMUNITY Professor H ill’s Address to the British Association. By Douglas Jerrold

IN THE PATRIMONY OF ST. MARK Christians in Egypt and the New Regime. By John Ramsay Fairfax

PUGIN AND VIOLLET-LE-DUC

Two Centenaries. By Tudor Edwards

EDINBURGH REFLECTIONS MUSIC OF THE MONTH

By George Scott-Moncrieff

By Rosemary Hughes

WILFRID MEYNELL AT GREATHAM A Concluding Extract from the Forthcoming Book by Viola Meynell

THE EDEN PLAN

W HEN Mr. Eden goes to Strasbourg, at the beginning of next week, to speak to the Consultative Assembly on his proposals for the future of the Council of Europe, he will inaugurate a new phase in the workings of that body. The proposal is th a t the Council of Europe should become the framework within which certain institutions of the European Community, such as the Defence Community and the Schuman Plan, can operate, and this would allow for a close link with the United Kingdom.

The Eden Plan is typically English in its empirical approach to the problem of European unity. It does not seek to define the exact and final form of Great Britain’s association, but it suggests how such an association might begin. It goes in fact beyond the cardinal principle of the Labour Government, that Britain should not be committed further in Europe than are the United States, by recognizing that we are in Europe for good or ill, and have to accept responsibilities which correspond to that situation.

The Council of Europe and the Assembly are facing stagnation in the eternal debate between functionalists and federalists, and every important step which has so far been taken on the road towards European unity, such as the launching of O.E.E.C., the Schuman Plan and the European Defence Community, has been taken outside the Assembly and outside the Council of Europe, while the Convention of Human Rights and the social and cultural conventions, which owe their initiative to the Council, have all been worked out by experts on a governmental level, obtaining only their approval a t Strasbourg.

The British proposal opens up promising prospects for the future, for it avoids both the overshadowing of the Council of Europe by the Specialized Authorities, and the frustration of its activities by the Atlantic Treaty Organization and the movement towards political federation in Europe. In its debate of the Eden Plan last May the Assembly showed a greater understanding than it had previously done for the British position at the centre, to use Mr. Churchill’s analogy, of three concentric but not exclusive circles, those of the Commonwealth, the United States and Western Europe. The Eden Plan springs from that background. Many at Strasbourg were inclined, as M. Federspiel from Denmark put it, to look upon it as the little boy in Hans Andersen’s fairy tale looked upon the Emperor’s new clothes. In fact it constitutes a key to the building up of real functions for the Council of Europe. The Task of Recapturing Youth

Both Signor de Gasperi and Dr. Adenauer, who last week attended the Luxembourg and Strasbourg meetings of the Schuman Plan countries, are now set, after the summer recess, upon their last parliamentary year before the general elections due in Italy and Germany early next summer. This beginning with European issues may be symbolic for what remains the primary concern of both statesmen and their parties, but its unbroken continuation will depend upon the tactical defeat of a large and growing opposition. In both countries today nationalists of the extreme Right, joined not infrequently to the one-time internationalists of the Left, provide the major rallying ground of that opposition. But the Christian Democratic coalitions of the centre have recently been able to strengthen their forces, not least because of the extremism as well as the disunity of their antagonists, and, particularly in Germany, because of the complete lack of an alternative policy to that of the Federal Chancellor. Dr. Adenauer, however, is seventy-six years old, and Signor de Gasperi seventy-one, and their far-seeing policies have not yet, in either country, obtained that bridge to the young electorate which must remain an indispensable condition unless these policies are to be left to others to change and whittle away. The disillusionment of European youth is a necessary consequence of the years of war and economic and social uncertainty. The post-war enthusiasm for Europe of the young both in Italy and Germany flagged once the real difficulties became apparent. Count Sforza

“With nations, as with individual souls,” Count Sforza wrote in his book, Contemporary Italy, “ falsehood degrades love.” And it was to the pursuit of this principle that his life was devoted. His refusal to uphold “historical necessities” over moral necessities brought him into conflict with Mussolini as much as with King Victor Emmanuel III, who in 1943 had asked him to form the new Italian Government, a proposal which Sforza countered with the demand for the King’s abdication and for the proclamation as King of his grandson. However, he worked with complete loyalty with the Govern-