THE TABLET, December 19th, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5926

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FO UNDED IN 1840

DECEMBER 19th, 1953

N INEPENCE

T h e H o l y Y ear o f C om p o s t e la : Pilgrimage to the City o f the Cockle Shells

A R om a n H o l i d a y : Impressions o f the Opening of the Marian Year

T h e M y s t e r y o f C h r i s tm a s : A Meditation. By Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce

M u s ic G ay a n d B r i g h t : John Dunstable, Inventor o f Counterpoint. By Anthony Milner

T h e G rand T o u r w i t h B o sw e l l : Meeting Rousseau and Voltaire. By Sir Arnold Lunn

A L e t t e r f r om M .adrid: The Treaty with the United States. From our Correspondent

Free T rad e in t h e M o d e r n W o r ld : The Case for Restoration. By Colin Clark

Books Reviewed : The Story o f England : Makers o f the Realm, by Arthur Bryant ; Ireland o f the Saints, by D. D. C. Pochin Mould ; Letters to Benvenuta and Correspondence in Verse with Erika Mitterer, by Rainer Maria Rilke ; Dr. Arnold o f Rugby, by Norman Wymer ; Augustus Hervey's Journal, edited by David Erskine ; A Song o f a Shirt, by Christopher Sykes ; The Ever-Interesting Topic, by William Cooper ; Hornblower and the Atropos, by C. S. Forester ; Beyond this Place, by A. J. Cronin ; Time and Time Again, by James Hilton ; Spring in Spain, by Mackinley Helm ; and Paul, by Martin Dibelius Reviewed by D.W., Pamela Hinkson, Anthony Bertram, Gerard Meath, O.P., G. S. Bremner, John Biggs-

Davison, Patrick Bushell, Cong. Orat., and Letitia Fairfield.

DEMANDS, AND SUPPLY

A S we go to press, conversations are continuing in the hope o f averting a nation-wide railway strike on Sunday. The issue of strike notices presages the end o f a long period o f industrial peace, for which credit is due both to the responsible trade union leadership and to the temper o f the o ther negotiating bodies, and to the Government, this and the last. If the test o f a good Minister is how much he can keep out o f the news, Sir Walter M onckton has had an excellent record over the last two years. But precisely because there has been so much sense o f an underlying common interest, the extremity o f the step now contemplated by the N U R reflects perm anent factors which, whatever the outcom e o f this week’s talks, remain to trouble the national prospect.

The N U R would not have threatened to inflict the maximum inconvenience a t Christmas-time, when the mass o f the people have the opportunity and the desire to travel for family reunions, and would no t have invited so much unpopularity, except from the conviction th a t they might get concessions from the Government which would be less easily obtained a t any o ther time. Mr. Campbell also lets it appear th a t he does not much mind where the money comes from ; whether the Government makes a subsidy to the railways, o r the railways increase their fares and freight charges. W hat he is concerned to do is his duty to his members, which is to get them more money now, some substantial advance on th e four shillings a week which was all the tribunal felt th a t the industry could conceivably pay; some advance towards fifteen shillings, o r even a pound.

The Conservatives claim th a t, in the two years they have been in office, while prices have risen by 8 J per cent, wages have risen by \ 2 \ per cent, making them now 137, if 1947 is taken as 100 : th a t the average earnings in April this year were £9 5s. l i d .—a 169 per cent increase since 1938 ; th a t clothing, household durables, and goods in general, have all gone down by 4 per cent, though they all rose very steeply in the last two years o f the Labour Government. I t is significant th a t where the costs have continued to increase, though no t so rapidly, is in the nationalized industries, fuel and light and services like transport. The party also claim in Two Years' Work (Conservative Research Departm ent, Is. 9d.) th a t more food was eaten in the first half o f this year th an ever before, as an answer to the allegation th a t the removal o f the subsidies pu t much o f it out o f the reach o f the ordinary purse. The consumption o f sweets alone has risen by £90 million this year.

The food subsidies, which began moderately a t £63 million in 1941, were costing £439 million by 1949 and were reduced by Sir Stafford Cripps and Mr. Gaitskell to £410 million. The Conservatives have only reduced them by £80 million : they are still £332 million, a very big item in the budget ; and yet, immediately, the reduction o f £80 million is treated as an argument, in industry after industry, fo r wage increases which are in the aggregate to cost very much more.

The cost o f living has become, under universal suffrage and with a majority o f women voters, incomparably the chief electoral issue : and yet it is something dependent on a great variety o f factors, a t home and abroad, h a rd to trace and easy to confuse. I t is the most short-term and immediate