TH E T A B L E T , October 26th, 1952.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA D E I , PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VO L . 200, N o . 5866

FOUNDED IN 1840

L O N D O N , OCTOBER 25th, 1952

N IN EPENCE

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

PRIMACY OF THE SPIRITUAL Editorial for the Feast of Christ the King

AMERICA IN THE THROES

Impressions of a Visit as the Election Approaches. By Hugh Fraser, M .P .

RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS IN SESSION The New Problem o f the Peasantry. By Victor S . Frank THE “ELECTIONS” IN POLAND A LETTER FROM ROME

By Julius Lada

The Church and Catholic Action

THE SACHEM SEE QUEEN ANNE An Historical Diversion. By Christopher Hollis

THE BRANGWYN EXHIBITION AFTER THE BIENNALE

By Neville Braybrooke

By Kees van Hoek

DRIFT IN AFRICA

I F there is one matter in which the nation expects, and is surely entitled to expect, the Conservative Party to be particularly a t home and in control, it is in imperial policy, Commonwealth and Colonial : for this has long been one o f their claims to the confidence o f their countrym en, th a t they were alive to the greatness o f the issues, and no t to be reproached with the doctrinaire crudities which make up so much o f their opponents’ approach. Before long the country will realize how quickly what remains o f th e Colonial Empire, chiefly in Africa, is moving along paths which can only lead to a continually mounting political tension, which will destroy all th e very real economic possibilities which could be so immensely rewarding both to the Africans and ourselves.

Till a week o r two ago th e Colonial Office was playing down the M au M au in Kenya, deprecating any suggestion th a t the trouble was either deep-rooted or widespread. The new G overnor refused to hurry himself, and only to ok up his office a t th e end o f September. Then suddenly, overnight, the picture changes, and the ta lk is o f cruisers and battalions, o f a flying visit from the Colonial Secretary, and a Royal Commission to find out what ought to have been long since fully understood. The whole affair gives added point to the question whether we have the proper machinery for the conduct o f a Colonial policy ; whether more is not needed th an a D epartm en t o f largely overworked officials, dealing w ith file after file, and Ministers caught up in an unending stream o f appointm ents and engagements.

W hat is lacking is anybody charged w ith the business of long-term policy, watching and safeguarding abiding interests, looking fu rth e r ahead th an party politics allow. There should be a body parallel to the Committee o f Imperial Defence, which could be draw n from the Privy Council, and could mobilize some o f the abundant experience and ability which a t present is allowed to go to waste. I f fu tu re historians have to relate, as well they may, the story o f the rapid liquidation and disintegration o f the British Empire, from the height o f its greatness a t the beginning o f the century, they will find the explanation in th e wretched inappropriateness o f the constitutional arrangements. Colonial policy fo r h a lf a century has been a m ino r factor in domestic party politics, w ith a t first Liberal and then L abour Ministers making successive b rief but fateful incursions in accelerating the je rrybuilding o f local democracy before the prerequisites o f democracy, the chief o f them a responsible and substantial middle class electorate, have had a chance to evolve. The Lack of Moral Foundations

The Army, the police, and the M ythus ; o f these three legs o f any governmental tripod, according to Lenin, British Colonial policy has been singularly neglectful o f the Mythus. F o r a M ythus there must be. I t need n o t be a crude distortion o f reality, like the Soviet M ythus, imposed by doctoring history books and controlling press and radio, universities and schools. But there must be a coherent picture o f society as the rulers see it and believe in it, so th a t backward and prim itive peoples, as they grow up, know what it is they belong to, and ta ke a pride in it.

A t the beginning o f the century, when in all these African territories we first made contact w ith the minds and emotions o f the native tribes, we had a clear picture to give them , and we did communicate our sense o f confidence in ourselves, and in the great society in which they were being incorporated. Men whose loyalties had always been trib a l and impersonal learnt about the great th rone o f th e Queen, bu t in the subsequent half-century they have become increasingly aware th a t the character o f the society in which theirs is being m irrored is somehow now quite different from its first appearance, and is one whose most vocal citizens have repudiated the foundations o f fifty years ago and expect to see the same repudiations everywhere.

The tru th is th a t there can be no sort o f Empire unless there is some sort o f Imperial faith, some belief in the value o f what we are doing, and in our m oral right to do it, and th a t these prerequisites are fa r to o feebly present in the electorate to which th e parties and the politicians look. A Setback for the EDC

The prospect for the European Defence Community has received a severe setback from the a ttack by M. H errio t and M. D a lad ie r a t the Congress o f th e French Radical party. They adopted the thesis o f the F rench Socialists th a t a E u ro pean federation must come first, to control afterw ards a Federal Army. Most o f the Radicals and Socialists voted for