T H E T A B L E T , February 21st, 1953.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA

VOL. 201, N o . 5883

LONDON, FEBRUARY 21st, 1953

NINEPENCE

FOUNDED IN 1840

PU B L IS H ED AS A N EW S PA P E R

. THE SUDAN, THE CANAL AND ISRAEL

Unrealised Implications o f the Policy towards Egypt

EGYPT AND THE ARAB LEAGUE Changing Policies through the Middle East. By Charles P . Brown PROFESSOR TOYNBEE, “THE WEST” AND THE WORLD

Thoughts on the Reith Lectures : II. By Douglas Jerrold THE NORTH SEA FLOODS RELIGION IN THE ARMY

By John Bunting

By Myles Reynolds

THE VAUXES OF HARROWDEN Vicissitudes o f an English Family. By Christian Hesketh

DON CAMILLO COMES TO TOWN London’s French Film Festival. By Freda Bruce Lockhart

COLD WAR STRATEGY A SIA, the Middle E ast and Europe are th e three great cards, where we are invited to guess aright which is the chosen card. The new American Administration is rising energetically to what it rightly feels to be a gathering intensification o f th e cold war. British opinion ought to understand much more clearly that, whatever it finds to criticise in particular projects o r adum brations o f policy, the Americans have seized th e heart o f the matter, which is th a t the West will go down to disaster in the end if it is content to do nothing, but waits passively and merely watches the ceaseless manifold activities concerned to compass its downfall.

The American m ood is b itte r and im patient over th e stalemate maintained today by the “ neutral” Soviet Union as the chief source o f the military supplies to China.

Last autum n , G eneral L in-Piao was entrusted w ith the task o f reorganizing and modernizing the Chinese Communist armies which is to be completed by 1955. This vast plan depends on the 16,500 specialists and technicians and on the equipm ent prom ised by the Soviet Union. M ao Tsetung’s side o f the bargain is to continue the war. There seems to be little reason to go on with th e fruitless truce ta lks under these conditions. Pressure upon China will have to be increased considerably to enforce peace.

F a r too much o f British opinion deprecates any American energy in the F a r E ast because th a t is drawing American strength away from Europe, and then equally deprecates any suggestion th a t there is anything to be done in Europe, beyond remaining in Berlin and resting on the line o f the Elbe. It is the whole lesson o f the years since 1945 th a t where the Russians have encountered any firm resistance, either in Greece o r in Berlin, they have cautiously drawn in their horns, and where they have n o t encountered resistance they have carried their revolution as fast and as far as they could. Meanwhile th e sum o f ideas in British heads seldom adds up to a coherent policy, fo r i t is common to meet people who have no ideas for Japan except th a t the Japanese are no t to emigrate, bu t must no t capture our markets ; no idea for China except to acquiesce in the slow Communist digestion o f th a t enorm ous area and population ; and so, round the globe, with a series o f improvized, hand-to-m outh policies, generally following the line o f least resistance, letting go slowly o f the Empire while n o t drawing appreciably closer to Europe, wanting to hold on where people want them to go, and holding back where people are eager to welcome them. The Americans are abundantly right th a t even a so-called cold war needs to be conducted with much more sense of purpose and strategy.

The Korea debate, first on the Agenda o f the new session o f the United Nations General Assembly in New York, will not be held under auspicious circumstances. The United States have borne the b ru n t o f this war since June, 1950 ; the forces provided by o ther nations to ta l now about 40,000 men. There have been 128,000 casualties, mostly American.

General Van Fleet, the retiring E ighth Army commander, has expressed his view th a t a United Nations offensive could be decisive in Korea. H e will presently appear before the House Armed Services Committee, which plans to question him about the K orean alternatives, bu t the voices are few o f those who believe th a t the war can be ended in K o rea w ithout a terrible toll in lives. The blockade o f China will n o t achieve th a t aim unless it is supplemented by other political and military measures, since most o f the supplies fo r K o rea come n o t by sea but by land on th e Trans-Siberian and M anchurian railways.

Tomorrow’s Election in Austria

The unknown factor in tom orrow ’s general election in Austria is the political allegiance o f two groups—about half-a-m illion refugees now naturalized A ustrian citizens, and the young people who have attained the age o f franchise since the last elections in 1949. I t is inevitable th a t the present coalition o f the Catholic People’s Party and the Socialists should have lost popularity in the eight years during which it has been in office. The A ustrian political situ a tio n is, moreover, such, as the recent failure to resume Peace Treaty discussions has once again shown, th a t any fu tu re Austrian Government will have to accept conditions as they are, which it has no power to change. Party programmes have largely lost their meaning, and, despite a long list of promises which the Socialists are holding out to the electors, their realization does n o t seem to be expected even by their own prom oters when they mention, as i t were in passing,