THE TABLET, July 11th, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5903

TH E TABLET

PublisKecTas a N ew sp a p e r

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JULY 11th, 1953

NINEPENCE

On E q u a l i t a r ia n i sm : A Study in the History o f Ideas. By Colin Clark

The N e w P h a se in E a stern E u r o p e : Changes in Hungary. By Franz Borkenau

M r . d e V a le r a ’s V o te o f C o n f id e n c e : By Senator George O'Brien

S e c u r i t y o f T en u r e : Judiciary and Executive

P r ie s t -W o r k e r s in F ic t io n : Lessons from some Novels. By Stephen J. Roche

T h e V o c a t io n s E x h ib i t io n : Impressions at Olympia

S een a n d H e a r d : The Week in Radio and Television B o o k R e v i e w s : By Henry St. John, O.P., Noel Hughes, Peter Watts, Julius Lada, R. E. Havard,

Bruno S. James, Tudor Edwards, and Maryvonne Butcher Correspondence from Maurice J. M. Larkin, Philip Ingress Bell, Q.C., M.P., Eric Maschwitz, Gerald

Kendall, F. H. Drinkwater, H. P. R. Finberg, Dr. Letitia Fairfield, and Mrs. F. J. Robins.

The text o f the Holy Father’s Letter in connection with the Vocations Exhibition, and o f Cardinal

Griffin’s sermon at Olympia

DECISION FOR AFRICA T HE House o f Lords, debating the Second Reading o f the Federation Bill, heard the British Government state the case for the African future in term s o f complementary contributions from different peoples. This is good Christian doctrine, consonant with the best trad itio ns—and there are some good traditions, together with so much violence, greed and oppression—in the European colonization o f other continents. In these things the balance is seldom held evenly. F o r a long tim e the fashion o f thought and sentim ent made far too little o f native aspirations. Now, in the mid-twentieth century, and especially under Asiatic influence, the danger is th a t nothing else but these aspirations will be considered to have any moral validity. The immediate task must be to show how much else needs all the tim e to be kept steadily in view, if Africans a re to have a happier fu tu re th an one o f political passion in a setting o f extreme poverty. The political ferm ent is beginning altogether too soon, before there has been the economic progress, and th e beginnings o f a responsible middle strata o f A frican society ou t o f which a responsible electorate could be formed.

and Indian o f the conception th a t all three races have their p a r t to play. O f the three, the Indians are least necessary in the economic field, and it must be adm itted th a t Mr. N eh ru ’s language about Africa is n o t helpful. But, in so far as the Africans are increasing, they are going to need more and more European and American capital, and E u ro pean skill and management. The political institutions, law and public opinion, must all create the right climate, very different to th a t now coming to prevail in so much o f the M iddle East, a p a r t o f the world th a t seems destined to bad government, and its concom itant, poverty.

F ear is a bad counsellor, especially fear o f the unknown, the crudely imagined o r dimly apprehended dangers ahead ; and so the G ovepim en t have rightly decided to erect the Central African Federation, as the only way o f showing the Africans th a t the fears which they have been encouraged to entertain a re groundless ; that, on the contrary, the larger and stronger the political structure, the more local self-government can there be inside it. The essential thing, on which the whole African fu tu re depends, is the understanding th a t real progress, in term s o f hum an living, depends on the acceptance by the African as well as by the European

We are endeavouring to develop democratic institutions and practices w ithout having developed the religious presuppositions which democracy requires. I t is an entirely unproved m a tte r what is going to happen to the house th a t is built w ithout foundations. The extent to which a political creed, the democratic faith, has replaced doctrinal Christianity as the criterion by which o ther people’s religions and in stitu tions are instinctively judged is being illustrated on the television screen, where Mr. A idan Crawley, following another L abour ex-Minister, Mr. Christopher Mayhew, acts as a guide to the Indian scene, as Mr. Mayhew did to the African. Both guides make the standards o f Western secular democracy their guiding light. Mr. A idan Crawley wants to see castes disappear in India, but a t the same tim e wants the H indu religion to remain in its perennial strength, though a faith less consonant with democracy cannot be imagined.

Those who went out to India merely to trade, like th e East India Company, and who found themselves a Government, because law and order are the prerequisites o f any sustained profitable commerce, could afford to be indifferent and call