TH E TABLET, October 31st, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5919.

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a rsewspaper

Pro Ecclesia D e i , Pro R e g in a e t P a t r ia

FOUNDED IN 1840

OCTOBER 31st, 1953

N IN E PENCE

P e r s e c u t i o n in P o la n d : III : The Attempt to Enforce Schism : The Usurping State P r ie s t -W o r k e r s U n d e r D i s c u s s i o n : The Difficulty of Forming a Balanced Picture T r ie s t e a n d S o u th T y r o l : The Italians Wanting it Both Ways N e w m a n ’s S c r ip tu r a l S tu d ie s : Liberation from a Myth. By Mgr. John M. T. Barton Care o f t h e A g e d : The Spiritual Problem. From a Medical Correspondent T h e L e g a c y o f G r e e c e : The Church and the Classics. By Mgr. R. A. Knox B o o k s R e v i e w e d : English Art, 1100-1216, by T. S. R. Boase ; Maria Cross, by Donat

O’Donnell ; Catholicism and the World Today, by Dom Aelred Graham ; Letters and Papers from Prison, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer ; The Song at the Scaffold, by Gertrud von le Fort ; The Coast o f Incense, by Freya Stark ; Johannes Ockeghem, by Ernst Krenek ; The Huntsman at the Gate, by Almet Jenks ; Hurry on Down, by John Wain ; The Year o f the Lion, by Gerald Hanley ; Skye and the Inner Hebrides, by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor. Reviewed by John Beckwith, Illtud Evans, O.P., Paul Foster, O.P., Roland Hill, Sir Rupert Hay, Anthony

Milner, John Biggs-Davison and Noel Macdonald Wilby.

MORE AND FREER TRADE I N spite o f many obstacles and difficulties, the in te rnational trad e o f the world continues to increase. Measured in term s o f money, in dollars, it is three times what it was fifteen years ago. This figure must be corrected by the recognition th a t the dollar in 1938 bought about double what the dollar buys today. Even so, th a t means th a t there has been a 50 per cent increase ; th a t, for dollars o f equal purchasing power, there are 150 employed where there were a hundred.

The fundam ental reason for this great recovery is the continuous economic growth o f the United States and Canada, their ability to buy, their need fo r a l ls o r ts o f materials, goods and services from outside. F o r the European countries whose M inisters meet in the Organization for European Economic Co-operation in Paris this week, the facts o f E u ro pean recovery are the more heartening because tra d e with the East,-w ith Russia and the satellites, is inevitably much less th an it was before the war.

a t the last meeting o f GATT. The British Government sought and secured authorisation to pu t obstacles in the way o f certain continental agricultural produce entering the British market. A strong protectionist element is present in both the main British political parties. I t is o f long standing in the Conservative Party, a trad i tio n th a t goes back a full hundred years, and is rooted in the landed interest. Much more surprising is the volte fa ce o f the Labour Party, which as late as 1923 was a Free T rade Party, and even in the ’thirties was highly critical o f the O ttaw a Agreements. But i t showed itself in office ready to maintain and use to the full all sorts o f controls, im port quotas, exchange control, sudden devaluation, in the interests o f full employment a t home : an approach to world trad e o f the most disconcerting and cramping kind, since no-one can be encouraged to take trouble over a m a rket which may be closed to them a t any moment, and from which they may no t be allowed to remove their profits, o r even any substantial p a r t o f them.

In spite o f this great handicap, most o f the Western countries have made a rem arkable recovery ; and one great agency for good is GATT, the G eneral Agreement on T rade and Tariffs, which has enabled the Governments o f all countries to know a little better where they are. They know there are lim its w ith in which other Governments will keep, and th a t there will be notice before excluding their produce or placing handicaps on it, and th a t many things cannot be done a t all w ith out general consent. They know th a t GATT has been valuable, th a t it represents a very im portan t step in a very im portant direction, th a t it embodies economic cooperation o f peace and partnership, by contrast with all the methods which were growing up in the 1930’s with which D r. Schacht’s name is particularly associated.

All this was made very plain to the British representatives

Mr. Thorneycroft explained on Tuesday th a t the British Government has been dispensed from raising the duties on Commonwealth goods when we impose o r raise tariffs on foreign goods in order to protect United K ingdom industry. But it is a singularly unfortunate moment to sta rt injuring the trad e o f immediate neighbours, like the Dutch, who have long relied on the British m a rke t to buy their perishable horticultural products ; and the Governm ent’s policy will make these things dearer to the consumer th an they need otherwise be in order to give protection to agricultural interests here. There may be a case for doing this briefly and for an emergency. There may be an adaptation o f the exception which Free T rade doctrine has always made for in fant industries, whose costs are higher a t the beginning. But if the tru th is th a t there is no prospect o f our growers