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TH E TABLET A p ril 17th, 1954 VOL. 203, N o . 5942

TH E TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

APRIL 17th, 1954

NINEPENCE

Easter and th e T ea ch in g Church: The New Life and the Safeguarding Authority

The Easter V i g i l : “Rejoice, O Earth, made Radiant by such Splendour.” By Gerald Vann, O.P.

C a th o l ic s a t War: Extracts from an Indo-China Journal. By Graham Greene The G lo ry o f I s r a e l : Seven Jewish Philosophers Discover Christ. By Roland Hill

H ow C a th o l ic is B e lg iu m ? : III : A Question of Terms

C iv ita s L eon in a : A Tale of a Tower. By J. D. Utley

The S ecret o f M r . A t t l e e : Prime Minister by Accident. By Christopher Hollis, M.P.

M i s in f o rm a t io n : What Wittgenstein Really Said. By G. E. M. Anscombe B o o k s R e v i e w e d : Jerusalem Journey, by H. F. M. Prescott ; The English Governess at the

Siamese Court, by Anna Leonowens ; Handel, a Symposium edited by Gerald Abraham ; The Past Revisited, by Lady Galway ; The Lamartine Ladies, by Laura M. Ragg ; The Meditations o f William o f St. Thierry ; O f Cleaving to God, translated by Elizabeth Stopp ; Ancient Devotions to the Sacred Heart o f Jesus, by Carthusian Monks of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries ; Fanfare for a Witch, by Vaughan Wilkins ; Set all on Fire, by Louis de Wohl ; The Alderman’s Son, by Gerald Bullett ; and Missionary in South Africa, by Nicholas Humphreys, O.P. Reviewed by Michael Derrick, Pamela Hinkson, Anthony Milner, Yvonne ffrench, Timothy Matthews,

Dominic Francis Kane and A. J. Brooker.

THE FRENCH DILEMMA

T HE French Assembly has begun its Easter recess without a debate on the European Army or on Indo-China. M. Laniel’s Government, which still contains a majority in favour of EDC, seems to have opted for indecision, and every day appears to work against ratification. It is now estimated that the opposition includes, apart from Communists and Gaullists, about half of the moderate right, one third of the Radicals, Republicans like Barrachins and Billote, some independents, and altogether perhaps 309 of the 627 deputies. The French Socialists, too, no longer have a majority for EDC in the Assembly.

M. Laniel’s chief concern has been to keep his Government in being and to avoid an open clash between his Gaullist and his MRP Ministers. To have decided upon a date for the ratification would have provoked that clash and threatened the balance of the Government. “Are such conjectures of sufficient weight and worthy of the deliberations of a great nation ?” asked M. Gabriel-Robinet in the Figaro last week. It may be that the announcement of the exact nature of Great Britain’s “association” with EDC will serve to invigorate French public opinion and to dispel the mood of uncertainty and despair which characterises the French Assembly these days. If previously the solution of the Saar question seemed the last obstacle to EDC, now it is Indo-China, and that is in a sense the most successful result of M. Molotov’s move at Berlin in suggesting a further Conference at Geneva.

Outbursts like that of General de Gaulle last week are a reaction against the feeling that American pressure is being too crudely applied merely because the French, after carrying the burden of their war in Indo-China for seven years, have to ask the Americans to carry the burden with them. From this point of view it might have been better for Mr. Dulles to have gone to Paris before coming to London, to avoid giving the French public the impression that Britain and America sit down and decide what the French should do and then tell them. The Communists make great play with their propaganda that France has been reduced to the status of a satellite just as much as any of Moscow’s satellites. This is a dangerous propaganda, because the French public understand only too well the great difference between paying and being paid. It is not, in fact, the American intention either to give this impression of dictating, or to dictate. What the Americans want is a strong alliance, and they know very well that the only allies worth having are those who stand rooted in their own convictions, sure of themselves.

The British Government has a way of doing more than it gets the credit for in France. Great concessions are being made to convince the French that both Britain and America will remain on the mainland of Europe, and that, if we cannot enter EDC, it is because we hope to see EDC proving the nucleus of a political organization of the member Powers. The reasoning is the same as that which kept us outside the Schuman Plan—at first a scepticism whether the Plan would ever come to anything, followed by misgivings that we had perhaps made a mistake in letting the authority come into existence without us.