THE TABLET, September 19th, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5913
Published as a Newspaper
TH E TABLET
A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW
Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria
FOUNDED IN 1840
SEPTEMBER 19th, 1953
NINEPENCE
M oscow and th e German E lection : Expected Repercussions. By Franz Borkenau
France and the European Community : Robert Schuman Surveys the Prospects
Impressions o f Berlin : Germany Behind the Iron Curtain
After th e Trades Union Congress : Nationalisation and Wages Policy
Good Show : A Day at the Farnborough Air Display. By Christopher Derrick
Cowards o f Us All : Where does Conscience come from ? By F. H. Drinkwater
The Ozanam Centenary : Commemorations in Paris. By Frank MacMillan
At th e Venice Festival: Films from Many Lands. By Maryvonne Butcher B o o k R e v i e w s : By Colin Clark, Sir Arnold Lunn, D. W., Anthony Milner, Gerard Meath, O.P.,
M. Bellasis, and R. E. Havard. Correspondence from Mgr. Canon Cuthbert Collingwood, Michael Riddle, K. F. McMurtrie, G. Royde
Smith and Michael Elton.
SOCIALISM I T was the great delusion o f the British Labour Government’s foreign policy after the war that Left should and could speak to Left ; that the democratic forces on the Continent were worthy o f British support in the measure in which they professed the convictions o f the Left. The delusion was not new. In the nineteenth century the English Whigs were the main, supporters o f the European revolutionaries and radicals, believing that Liberalism in England and Liberalism on the Continent were two flowers o f the same tree, when in fact they were not. That mistaken interpretation placed a large share o f the responsibility for the rising aggressive nationalism in Europe on Britain’s shoulders. And the mistake was repeated after 1945 when this country professed to see its true allies in the Marxist doctrinaires in Germany, Austria or Italy, and not in the Christian Democratic forces which re-emerged from the conflagration. The distinction between “Left” and “Right,” originating in the Manege o f Versailles, had lost its meaning in Europe.
British Socialists, however, did not know it, and this country consequently found itself ill-prepared, after an exhausting and magnificent work o f liberation, to give that political leadership o f which the Continent stood in need. The withdrawal to this island and the concentration on internal policies were accompanied by the loss o f British prestige in Europe. But the German Socialists remembered gratefully the support from this side o f the channel, and began to model themselves on the pattern o f the British Labour Party. Herr Ollenhauer, who succeeded the late Dr. Schumacher as leader o f the West. German SPD, had spent his exile in Britain and believed that he could take triumph for granted by presenting himself as a German counterpart o f Mr. Attlee. His disillusionment took place on September 6th.
The point about the election which took place in Western Germany on that day seems to have escaped observers like Mr. R. H. S. Crossman. It is that this was an election won
IN ECLIPSE against the German Social Democrats, on whose behalf Mr. Crossman appears to have been taking part in the election campaign. All that the extremist and neutralist groups could achieve was a number o f splinter parties which might have impaired but could never have defeated the formidable power o f the Christian Democrats and their coalition partners. The only party that was strong enough to have thought o f defeating Dr. Adenauer was that o f the Social Democrats. In 1949 the CDU won only by a small margin o f votes. Indeed, Dr. Adenauer himself then became Chancellor with a majority o f one single vote. Considering now his disadvantage o f having been four years in office, it seemed to the SPD that they would this time attain the majority without difficulty.
But they did not gain it, and it is an instructive lesson in political evolution to investigate the reasons why, though one will search in vain through Mr. Crossman’s contributions for an answer. He names “ the Hierarchy,” “the Americans,” “ the vast funds o f German big business,” “almost the whole o f the German Press.” But Mr. Crossman is myth-making. The influence o f the German Hierarchy is one o f these myths. The much-talked-about Catholic majority does not exist, even in Western Germany alone. The latest census figures showed that the Federal Republic is only 45 per cent Catholic, and it is often stated by the German Bishops themselves that even in such important matters for Catholics as the school question the Catholic support for the Bishops is far from satisfactory. Mr. Crossman shows himself surprised that a Catholic priest in Regensburg should describe a vote for Ollenhauer as “a vote against Christianity.” But if he had studied not the German Socialist profession o f Christian principles but the Socialist practice in Lower-Saxony, Hessen and Baden-Württemberg, and its treatment o f the Catholic claims in the school question alone—claims which are, after all, made in the name o f that liberty o f conscience which
