THE TABLET, February 13th, 1954 VOL. 203, No. 5934

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

FEBRUARY 13th, 1954

N IN E PENCE

Priests or Factory Workers ? : A Field for the French Laity Wages and the Cost o f Living : The Retail Price Index and the Use of Sliding Scales

D isturbances in Spain : Impressions o f a British Visitor. By Christopher Hollis, M.P.

Television and the IViaSS : Père Pichard’s Avant-Garde. By Freda Bruce Lockhart

H ow Catholic is Germany ? : II : Some Basic Statistics

Faith and Fidelity: On Not Being a Perennial Philosopher. By Philip O’Riordan Smiley

M i r a c l e s , G o o d a n d B a d : A Question of Terms. By Sir Arnold Lunn

Books Reviewed: Héloïse and Abélard, by Etienne Gilson ; Art and Architecture in France

1500 to 1700, by Anthony Blunt ; Corpus Christi, by E. L. Mascall ; The Letters o f Elizabeth, Queen o f Bohemia, compiled by C. M. Baker ; Ingres, by Georges Wildenstein ; Religion and the Modern Mind, by W. T. Stace ; Leaving Home, by Elizabeth Janeway ; After the Holiday, by Louise Collis ; Children in the House, by Nan Fairbrother ; The Crooked Wall, by Faith Compton Mackenzie ; The Blossoming Tree, by Betty Askwith ; and Consider These Women, by Hebe Elsna. Reviewed by Professor David Knowles, Anthony Bertram, Mgr. H. Francis Davis, Christian Hesketh,

Sir John Rothenstein, Ivo Thomas, O.P., and M. Bellasis.

THE EAST GERMAN POLICE T HERE will be no Panmunjon in Germany. That is the clear result of this third week of the Conference of Foreign Ministers. The “Eden Plan” for the reunification of Germany in freedom has been finally rejected by M. Molotov, after a week of manœuvres, and there was perhaps some useful lesson in this public demonstration that the Western and the Soviet attitudes on the future of Germany differ not merely in their political and strategical interests, but fundamentally, in their concepts of man and society. A modern logical analyst might have enjoyed himself in Berlin merely in investigating the significant and different usage of words like “democracy” and “peace-loving” which the two sides employ in a manner that is both meaningful and meaningless.

Renewed signs of unrest in Eastern Germany, and M. Molotov’s own ominous warning at the Conference that the authorities would know how to deal with these, have justified the Western insistence on “free elections” as the first elementary condition for an all-German Government and constitution. But such a gradual reunification of the two Germanies would inevitably mean the elimination of the East German regime from any provisional Government which the people in Eastern Germany were free to choose. Signs of unrest have been discernible in Eastern Germany since last summer’s open rebellion, and the extensive security arrangements for the Conference were made to forestall its renewed outbreak. In view of the twenty-two Soviet divisions —about 600,000 men, with some sixty thousand tanks and armoured cars—and six to seven hundred Soviet jet planes, such a rebellion would have little chance of success. In addition, the 200,000 men of the armed People’s Police have been alerted, and the factory militia issued with rifles.

West German reports of large-scale protest actions have not been confirmed so far, but the number of SED agents sent out to various industrial plants to speak to the workers and explain M. Molotov’s Berlin proposals to them follow a procedure adopted also at the time of the June rebellion. A wide net of secret police spies is in action, and though this may be meant for the protection of M. Molotov’s own person as much as for rebellious elements, the East German regime has taken every precaution to ensure that it will not again be caught unprepared. The negative effect of such measures cannot be disguised. Despite all the propaganda in the Press, on the radio and in the schools, the population of the Soviet zone is well informed about the attitude of the Western Powers and the significance of their offer of free elections. Broadcasts and news from Western Berlin cannot be stopped. The employees of the large Leuna works refused last week to accept a resolution supporting the Soviet plan for Germany, and instead demanded free elections throughout Germany and their own delegation to represent these views to the Foreign Ministers. M. Molotov described these signs as “adventures engineered from abroad,” but the persistent marks of dissatisfaction among people deprived of all human rights cannot be thus explained.

The West German reactions to the course of the Conference are characteristic. Dr. Adenauer’s own attitude and that of his supporters is well enough known. In his letter to the three Western Foreign Ministers he said that M. Molotov’s proposal of a neutralized Germany involved more than the surrender of the European Defence Community. It meant that Moscow, by excluding Germany’s political integration, condemned her to a course of events which must lead