T U E T A D L E T , December 27th, 1952

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 200, No. 5875

LONDON, DECEMBER 27th, 1952

NINEPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1 8 4 0

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE POST-CHRISTIANS’ CHRISTMAS

Strange Figures who Look in at Bethlehem MARSHAL TITO AND THE HOLY SEE I : The Marshal’s Confusion between Italy and the Vatican WAS ST. JOAN OF ARC REALLY BURNED? A Refutation o f the Theory that She was Not. By W . S . Scott THE COPENHAGEN SCENE THE HAIG DIARIES

By Derek Patmore

Reviewed by Sir David Kelly

VERDICT ON ROOSEVELT The Memoirs o f Judge Rosenman. By Christopher Hollis EDMUND PLOWDEN THE OTHER PRUSSIA A Reading in the Middle Temple By Donald Nicholl

SOME GHOST STORIES

By Sir Shane Leslie

A CHRISTMAS NOCTURN

By Violet Clifton

HOLDING THE LINE

TN any retrospect o f 1952 we must recognize th a t it has * been a year in which a line has but been held; and if there have been no great defeats, there have equally been no great victories. The Kremlin has continued to exploit what it believes to be a major weakness o f the Western world, its unsatisfactory relations with the native peoples o f Asian and African te rrito ries whose raw materials Western industry needs. In Korea, Indo-C h ina and Malaya, in Persia and in Kenya, Communist influence has always been present behind each crisis, in a greater o r in a smaller degree, to inflame sores and exacerbate relationships which are easily exacerbated; and if on the whole the West has been holding its ground, th a t is insufficient, for these are countries in which we are being attacked and undermined.

O u r enemies have much the easier part, for it is much easier to be destructive, and to exploit the emotions which divide men and inflame them against each other, than to be constructive and elicit the co-operation and forbearance which mixed societies and different interests really require. There is less prospect o f any marked alteration for the better in these Colonial situations than there is o f deterioration. In Africa the police measures taken in Kenya threaten to quicken elsewhere an unco-operative racial consciousness, a simple prim itive emotion, outside the reach o f the most cogent arguments, about the common interests o f peoples who need each other. T hat our difficulties today are greater than they need have been or would have been had we been less satisfied to proceed racially in the past is true enough ; and th a t past makes things more difficult by creating a tendency to swing to th e o th e r extreme, so th a t the British Labour Party is full o f men with no understanding o f the size o f Africa, o f the way it has room for many races, or o f the complete inappropriateness o f notions o f simple majority rule by mass electorates.

But if in Africa and Asia tendencies to separation and division have continued, in 1952, we can also record unspectacular bu t real and im portan t advances in the in tegration o f Western Europe and the A tlantic Community. The setting up o f the High A u thority 'fo r Coal and Steel a t Luxembourg, the working out o f a more ambitious plan for a Little Federation, these things show what a deep and powerful current is running, much stronger than British officialdom would fo r a long tim e believe, and one which American policy under General Eisenhower may be counted upon to assist more wholeheartedly than before. The M ilita ry Danger

The main weakness is reflected in the scaling down o f the NATO rearm ament plans a t the end o f the year, by contrast with the hopes and blueprints o f the Lisbon meeting in March. This scaling-down is disquieting because it does no t come from any justifiable reassessm ent o f the military danger, but from the inability o f the national economies o f the countries concerned to do what they had intended to do. They have decided th a t solvency must come first ; th a t even from the military point o f view, it is better to have smaller forces and ra th e r fewer airfields and bases th an to have inflation, unemployment, with divided and bitter electorates ; and this decision has had to be taken because the chief countries have no margin to spare. They are a t best ju s t holding their price levels, but only ju s t . They are ju s t keeping their markets and balancing their payments, and their F inance Ministries have had the last word in spite o f the protests o f General Ridgway.

This year’s Soviet defence budget is about 19 per cent higher than last year's. The current Soviet output o f aircraft is a t the rate o f eleven thousand a year and th a t o f arm oured fighting vehicles a t the rate o f 5,500 a year. The Soviet Union’s budgetary expenditure on the arm ed forces am ounts th is year to no less th an 25 per cent o f the national income, compared to the 11 and 14 per cent respectively o f the British and American national incomes. The Soviet arm ed forces are estim ated a t about five million men, and they are a t a decisive advantage in the number o f reserves added annually to their effective strength. A million and a h a lf troops and security forces can be supplied from the satellite countries,