THE TABLET, November 28th, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5923

THE TABLET

P ub lis hed as a n ew s p a p e r

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Reclina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

NOVEMBER 28th, 1953

NINEPENCE

Free Trade in th e M odern World: l l : The Case for Protection. By Colin Clark N ew Light On Early M.an: I : African Fossil Primates. By Humphrey J. T. Johnson The Threatened Engineering S tr ik e : The Inadequacy of the Negotiating Machinery Thring o f U ppingham : The Centenary of a Memorable Man. By Gerard Meath, O.P. St. A lban H a ll, Oxford: Where Cuthbert Mayne was an Undergraduate. By P. A. Boyan Four Words for Advent: I : Kyrie Eleison. By Illtud Evans, O.P. B o o k s R e v i e w e d : History o f the Theories o f /Ether and Electricity (Volume II), by Sir Edmund

Whittaker ; Seeing and Knowing, by Bernard Berenson ; A Handful o f Authors, by G. K. Chesterton ; A Blessed Girl, by Lady Emily Lutyens ; Eternal Greece, by Rex Warner and Martin Hiirlimann ; The Stronghold, by Xan Fielding ; French Film, by Georges Sadoul ; The Priest, by Beatrix Beck ; Saints in Hell, by Gilbert Cesbron ; The House the Nino Built, by Giovanni Guareschi ; and North Country Stories, selected by A. G. Brooks.

Reviewed by Professor G. Temple, F.R.S., Anthony Bertram, J. J. Dwyer, Sir Arnold Lunn, Vincent

Desborough, Maryvonne Butcher, A. Gregory Murray, O.S.B., and G. S. Bremner.

FRANCE, BRITAIN AND THE E.D.C. M B IDAULT is now due to go to The Hague, to continue • the negotiations for the creation o f a European Authority with the Ministers who last met in Rome last month. It had been hoped th a t he would go with his hands greatly strengthened by the F rench Chamber. This has n o t happened. On the contrary, the terms o f the motion which the LanielBidault Government have judged the furthest, in the European sense, which the Chamber would accept, emphasizes not so much the European Defence Community as the need for two things—a settlem ent over the Saar, and more explicit support from G reat Britain—as prerequisites for French acceptance o f th e European Defence Community. We write before the Chamber has voted, but, even assuming th a t the motion is carried, it prim arily reflects the misgivings and hesitations and divisions with which the French will enter, if they do enter, these new engagements.

The need for what is called a political au tho rity stands out much more clearly in relation to the EDC th an in relation to iron and steel. But the activities o f both bodies will be what they will be according to the larger policy they are meant to support. In the debate in the French Chamber speaker after speaker, even those supporting EDC, disclosed how real is the F rench anxiety lest they commit their troops, in a way the British are being careful n o t to commit theirs, to policies which may prove to be chiefly fram ed by the Germans and having in view the reunification o f the Reich. The more EDC is declared to exist as a purely military alliance, the greater will be the danger in French eyes th a t German commanders will, in fact, make up the policy. Very much might be done in Berlin, for example, in the name o f security, th a t would in fact am ount to a forw ard foreign policy.

W hat has become quite clear in the last five years is th a t there will no t be th a t “ one spasm o f resolve” for which Sir Winston Churchill called in the days when he was the shining protagonist o f a bold policy o f European Unity, in a position o f greater freedom and less responsibility than he has occupied for the last two years. The Federalists, who wanted to go too fast and too far, have been repulsed. But the cause has not been abandoned ; the necessity for it is too compelling. So there has been the functional approach, by which the Western European nations take off the habiliments o f sovereignty, one garment a t a time. What the Ministers meeting a t The Hague have to resolve is how to develop this functional approach w ithout playing into the hands o f the experts. There must no t be technicians, whether they are military o r heavy industry specialists, acting as they think best but in fact responsible to nobody except, in the end, the different national Governments.

I t was one o f the strong cards o f M. B idault’s supporters that, if France hesitates and goes back on this policy o f close association with Germany, the Americans will make with D r. Adenauer the same sort o f agreement th a t they have made recently with General Franco. The Spanish parallel was cited over and over again in the debate, to show how, when they think in military terms, the Americans m ind very little about the sort o f Government they take as an ally. The deduction follows th a t D r. Adenauer might in a year or two be thrust aside by Germans much more nationalist and much less devoted to parliam entary democracy; and yet it would still be true th a t such a Germany could offer the Americans the essentials, the troops and the geographical positions, which are judged necessary if NATO is to fulfil its purpose. A Germany directly equipped from the United States would be much more likely to go its own way, and increase the peril for the rest o f Europe, th an a Germany integrated with profoundly pacific neighbours, the French, the Italians, the Low Countries.