THE TABLET, February 14th, 1953.

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 201, No. 5882

LONDON, FEBRUARY 14th, 1953

NINEPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

THE KOREAN IMPASSE The Responsibility o f America’s Allies THE MIND OF THE MARSHAL “ Tito Speaks.” Discussed by R. G. D . Laffan

REFUGEES FROM RUSSIA Their Treatment in the West. By Tanya Matthews

POLITICS ON THE ZAMBEZI Hopes and Fears for Federation. By B . C. L . Keelan PROFESSOR TOYNBEE, “THE WEST,” AND THE WORLD

Thoughts on the Reith Lectures : I. By Douglas Jerrold

CARDINAL GRACIAS

By an Indian Correspondent

IN THE HANDS OF GOD

The Disaster in the Netherlands

FAREWELL TO THE SHADES “ Orpheus” at Covent Garden. By Rosemary Hughes

THE FIRST TRAIN-LOAD O N Tuesday the first train-load o f Ruhr coke, destined for Thionville in Lorraine, passed the Franco-G erm an border w ithout the norm al customs formalities. Economic barriers which hitherto impeded the free circulation o f coal, iron and steel have fallen in the six member-nations o f the new Community. Whatever the difficulties besetting the creation o f a European Defence system, a concrete beginning has been made in economic co-operation. Theoretical discussions have given way to action and to a first major breach in the citadel o f national sovereignties. The new Community unites 155 million inhabitants. The United States o f Europe have made a start.

If the new Community is to be more than a mere agglomeration o f a num ber o f formerly lim ited individual markets, it will have to aim a t finding new markets and investments for its products. N one o f the six member-nations has, so far, worked ou t any plan for such a general economic expansion beyond its own frontiers, o r in regard to th e African market which is, o f course, p a r t o f it, in so far as it belongs politically to some o f th e member-States. European unity is today bound up with the industrial development o f the African continent, and a nationally divided Europe will never be able to cope with th e vast human and industrial power potential o f Africa. The Underlying Difficulties

But much more difficult tasks lie ahead. Political questions have tended to push economic considerations into the background, and it is perhaps as well to remember th a t the League o f Nations collapsed largely because it had failed to pay sufficient a tten tion to Europe’s economic problems. Insistence on territorial demands, as they emerge in the Saar question, is only too likely to endanger the new Community. The tru th is th a t men are led chiefly no t by the force o f reason and logic bu t by sentiments and the way their daily lives are affected. The success o f the Coal and Steel Community will depend on whether it can create the psychological conditions in which the required reform s o f the European economy can be seen and felt as postulates o f the survival o f the whole continent. A common plan needs a “ clim ate” th a t is common to all the partners. This clim ate did exist forty years ago, when industrial conditions, wages, taxation and the economic structures o f the six nations concerned .were more o r less equal. Two wars and a series o f economic upheavals have entirely changed the European picture.

I t is the prim ary purpose o f the new Community to develop the basic industries harmoniously and in relation to the general economy o f its members. Its purpose is no t the economic advantage o f one ra th e r than another o f the partners. The mere existence o f a common coal and steel market will no t increase consumption, which, rather than production, is the core o f present-day economics.

The obstacles in Europe rem ain very visible if one looks behind the political dissensions. There is a wide disparity in F rance, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries in the application and distribution o f taxation, in tran sport costs and in financial methods. These a re the causes o f the varying production-costs o f coal and steel, and, even if it were possible to adjust raw material prices, which is no t the object o f the Community, a very substantial difference remains in living standards, wage scales and economic habits, quite a p a r t from more fundam ental national differences.

D irect taxation, for instance, is almost a hundred per cent higher in Germany than in France, whereas the French industries are burdened far more heavily than either the German o r Belgian industries by indirect taxation. T ransport costs a re much lower in Germany th an in any o ther o f the Schuman nations, because successive German Governments have been subsidizing the heavy industries for over half a century, while th e opposite is true o f France. Coal and steel prices are naturally subject to th e geographical position o f the mines and factories which ought to be but are not sited in relation to their markets. I t was one consequence o f the century-old F ranco-G e rm an conflict th a t the R uh r was developed a t the expense o f the Lorraine industries. New F rench factories had to be set up, away from the troubled