THE TABLET, December 5th, 1953 VOL. 202, No. 5924

THE TABLET

Published as alNewspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

F O U N D E D IN 1840

D E C E M B E R 5th , 1953

N I N E P E N C E

Free Trade in the Modern World: I I I : Free Trade and Party Politics. By Colin Clark

New Light On Early Man: I I : In Europe and Asia. By Humphrey J. T. Johnson

The Marian Year: This Year and Every Year. By Michael Hollings Mgr. Joseph Masterson : A Tribute to the late Archbishop o f Birmingham

CHRISTMAS BOOK SUPPLEMENT B o o k s R e v i e w e d : The Age o f Inigo Jones, by James Lees-Milne ; Michelangelo Merisi da Cara­

vaggio, by Roger Hinks ; Caravaggio : His Incongruity and His Fame, by Bernard Berenson; Baudelaire, by Martin Turned ; The Hedgehog and the Fox, by Isaiah Berlin ; The Navy as an Instrument o f Policy, 1558-1727, by Sir Herbert Richmond ; Power and Influence, by Lord Beveridge ; Assisi and Umbria Revisited, by Edward Hutton ; The Catholic Bedside Book ; Mary in the Documents o f the Church, by Paul F. Palmer, S.J. ; Along M y Line, by G ilbert Harding ; Teapots and Quads, by Edward Lear ; Down With S k o o l !, by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle ; Oddly Bodlikins, by Paul Jennings ; Hunting, Shooting and Fishing, by Mrs. Victor H u rs t ; Dark Estuary, by B.B. ; Two Men and a Dog, by John Montgomery ; and a selection o f Children’s Books. Reviewed by Peter Watts, John Beckwith, Derek Stanford, Christopher Hollis, Thomas Gilby, O.P.,

D.W., Bruno S. James, J. J. Dwyer, H. M artin Gillett, B. C. L. Keelan, Lance Wright, Christopher Derrick and Pamela Whitlock.

EUROPE AT BERMUDA

S IR W IN STON CHURCHILL has his way, and President Eisenhower is meeting him, as the guest o f the British Government, in Bermuda. But M. Laniel, too, will be there, still ju s t Prim e Minister o f F rance ; and a large p a r t o f the agenda will be the fu tu re o f EDC, which the British did not particularly intend o r wish to discuss, for it means meeting the combined exhortations o f America and F rance for more whole-hearted British participation. Sir W inston Churchill is n o t taking this journey for that, bu t to persuade the President th a t it is good policy to seek a top level meeting with the Russians, more untrammelled and uncircumscribed than the meeting o f Foreign Ministers which the latest Russian Note envisages. Mr. Foster Dulles, talking in Washington on Monday, put his finger on the crux o f the m a tte r : that relations between America and Russia must depend on the Russian a t titu de towards the satellite States o f Central Europe ; on whether the Russians are willing to let these nations be themselves, which means throw ing off their quite unrepresentative Communist rulers, who are only in power because Russia stands behind them. The West would only be weakened if there were a conference in which the Americans treated this as fundamental and were not supported by their European Allies ; and in this m a tte r American opinion has grown increasingly doubtful about where G reat Britain stands, and how far people here might be gulled in to thinking something had been achieved if they formally abandoned Central Europe to Communism.

The latest Soviet Note before the meeting a t Bermuda, containing the acceptance o f the idea o f a Conference o f the F o u r Powers, showed signs th a t somewhere M. M o lo tov’s diplomacy has failed to work. I t may be th a t the differences between the three Western Powers were judged in Moscow to be greater than in fact they are. There had been definite agreement between Paris, Washington and London about the negative character o f these recent Soviet Notes, and about the retu rn to the diplomacy o f the Stalin era which they seemed to suggest. That was no t a t all the result which M. Molotov desired to achieve. When the Soviet N o te o f November 3rd was taken a t its face value and understood in Washington and London to signify th a t Moscow was not interested in discussing the German problem o r the Treaty with Austria, the Tass agency was called in to clear up the “misunderstanding,” declaring th a t the N o te had implied no rejection o f a Conference o f the four Foreign Ministers. Some days la ter M. Molotov went out o f his way to repeat this explanatio n a t a Press conference. And all this to rectify an impression which the Soviet Government itself had created.

M. M o lo tov’s dilemma was th a t he had himself provided the arguments for finishing once and fo r all with the useless exchange o f diplom atic Notes which it had been his special interest to prolong in o rder to keep Western minds guessing about “ Soviet intentions.” The cat had been let ou t o f the bag, and when the Western Powers replied, on November 16th, the Soviet Government hastened to make its real feelings known ; the answer received after ten days indicated the Soviet Government’s willingness to participate in a Conference. The former dem and for a p r io r Five Power Conference including Communist China has been dropped fo r the time being, and to make up for this concession the suggestion o f Berlin as a meeting-place is made. This seems to