TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

VOL. 201, No. 5888 PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGINA ET PATRIA LONDON, MARCH 28th, 1953 FOUNDED IN 1840

NINEPENCE PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

RETREAT FROM SOCIALISM Moderating a Cause of Deep Dissensions in Europe

THE ARMIES OF MOSCOW Russia’s European Janissaries: I. By K. Smogorzewski

THE LITTLE HOUSE An Experiment in Preventive Care. By Illtud Evans, O .P .

CONTEMPLATIVES IN INDIA The Work of Benedictine Missionaries. By Roland Hill

“THE DISINHERITED MIND” ARCHITECTURE AND TRADITION

Nietzsche and Rilke. By A. Dru

By George Scott-Moncrieff

THE WAY OF THE CROSS Verses and Meditations for Good Friday. By Dorothy H. Wells

QUEEN MARY

T HE great lady who died during Tuesday night was the nation’s last intimate link with Queen Victoria, in whose reign she grew up and married and whose standards she carried, with the support of her family, half a century onwards. She has died ten weeks before the coronation of her granddaughter, whose reign may be expected, with the help of God, to reach to the close of the second thousand years of the Christian era. If Queen Elizabeth II is to mean for the twentieth century what Queen Victoria meant for the nineteenth, the share of Queen Mary in transmitting and developing that high tradition has been immeasurable.

This year of 1953, which had been thought of as a year for rejoicing and looking forward, has become also a year for mourning and looking backwards through the long years of Queen Mary’s lifetime ; and the grief at her death is made sharper by the sense that she personified so much that was excellent in a past which has gone. The unvarying toque, the precise walk, the umbrella always carried were symbols of a dignity so largely lost through the years of the world wars. She presided as wife and as grandmother over a Royal Family which had its full share and more of private and public tragedy, but which yet always preserved the highest standards and gave the nation their example. Queen Mary presented the pattern of a Christian lady, unfailing in courage, incomparable in dignity, warm in affection and indulgent in humour. No one now in middle-age can remember a time when she was not present at the Court, an invincible source of comfort whatever might occur.

morning a message of sympathy and an assurance of prayers on the occasion of Queen Mary’s death. May she rest in peace. Freeing European Trade

The most spectacular part of the Government's trade concessions is, of course, the raising of the foreign travel allowance from £25 to £40, the children’s allowance from £15 to £30 and the motor-car allowance from £15 to £20. But this will only account, in Mr. Thorneycroft’s estimate, for £8 million of the £40 million involved in the concession, and more important and more welcome to the French and the Italians are the measures for the relaxation of the import restrictions which were imposed in November, 1951, and March, 1952. It was always doubtful whether this was a method which would be likely greatly to help us in our problem. Restrictions on imports from America—a country with a vast surplus of exports over imports, and one into which it is difficult for British goods to penetrate—are one thing. Restrictions on imports from European countries, with whom, taking the rough with the smooth, we can generally keep our books in balance, are quite another. It was inevitable—as indeed happened—that the French would answer our restrictions with counter-restrictions of their own, and there was a dangerous chance that restrictions would breed further restrictions until eventually the books of both countries would balance at the dreary figure of zero equals zero.

But the grief at her death is of the most homely and simple kind. She was the universal aunt, the universal grandmother, loved all the more because she combined an austere appearance with a twinkling eye. Her fondness for browsing in antique-shops and her skill in fine needle-work were characteristics which endeared her no less than her sterner qualities commanded respect. The warm cheering which would always greet, for instance, her appearance in a news-reel at a cinema was a measure of the affection which the more unruly members of a family will show to a well-beloved autocrat.

On behalf of the Catholics of England and Wales, Cardinal Griffin sent to Her Majesty The Queen on Wednesday

Great Britain is a country which, with her dependence on imported food and raw materials, cannot afford economic nationalism, and the more that it is true that we have for the moment to discriminate against the dollar, the more important is it to find other areas in which we can extend freedom. The Continent of Europe is clearly such an area. There is still a long way to go. Before November, 1951, 90 per cent of our trade was free, compared with the minimum standard of 75 per cent recommended by OEEC. We reduced that percentage by our restrictions to 44, and now have restored it to 58. But it is at least half the battle to reverse the direction. This at any rate the Government has succeeded in doing.

Doubly welcome is the decision to continue EPU for a