THE TABLET, July 10th, 1954 VOL. 204, No. 5955
Published as a Newspaper
THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW
Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria
FO UNDED IN 1840
JULY 10th, 1954
N IN EPENCE
T h e T u r n in g -P o in t : Making up to Communist China
T h e O p p e n h e im e r C a s e : The Development o f the Hydrogen Bomb. By P. E. Hodgson
T r a g e d y in T o n g k i
: Consequences for the Church o f “Operation Auvergne”
P r o m o t i n g H o m e O w n e r s h i p : Recent Proposals o f the Minister. By Ernest E. Fletcher
T h e B l o o m s b u r y G r o u p : An Essay in Fake Objectivity. By Sir Arnold Lunn
L e t t e r s o f P iu s I X : New Documents from the Vatican Archives. By Wilhelm E. Mallmann
B o o k s R e v i e w e d : Tudor Artists, by Erna Auerbach ; Margaret o f Austria, by Jane de Iongh ;
The Invisible Writing and Dialogue with Death, both by Arthur Koestler ; The Apostolate o f Chastity, by Ferdinand Valentine, O.P. ; George Herbert, by Joseph H. Summers ; One and Holy, by Karl Adam; Christ the Conqueror, by Ragnar Leivestad ; Cousin Jan, by Antonia Ridge ; The Visit, by Jean Matheson ; A Wreath fo r the Enemy, by Pamela Frankau ; and The Time it Takes, by Ann Stafford. Reviewed by John Pope-Hennessy, J. J. Dwyer, Roland Hill, M. O’Leary, Francis Berry, Henry
St. John, O.P., A. H. N . Green-Armytage and Maryvonne Butcher. ,
THE GREAT REFUSAL
W HEN Sir W inston Churchill telegraphs to D r. Adenauer saying he is glad D r. Adenauer approves o f the next steps in the Anglo-American programme for the restoration o f G erm an sovereignty, the message marks the high position th a t D r. Adenauer has achieved in the forefront o f the European scene. I t is a position which he and the West Germans h ad little cause to expect a few years ago. I t is a position which D r. Adenauer himself knows to be rath e r dangerous. H e has always sought something different—to become a European, to form something new with the other peoples o f the Rhine Valley and delta, with the French and Italians, bu t also with the British. Instead he finds himself being moved tow ards the position o f the political leader of a sovereign State, before there is any European Defence Community, a n d when the future o f th a t Community is highly speculative. I f there begins a bickering between the exponents o f French and German nationalism , the great conception will have been lost. In many respects, D r. Adenauer is coming to occupy in Europe the position th a t Sir W inston Churchill could have and should have occupied. I t is the great tragedy o f the post-w ar period th a t the British, for whom Western E u ro p ew a i t e d , did arrive as liberators, but were not prepared to stay as leaders and partners.
been adduced in Whitehall, reasons resting on our o th e r commitments in o th e r parts o f the world, will have lost what force they ever had. Saying we could no t be in a E u ro pean Army because our troops had to be on th e Canal, we look like losing the European Army and leaving the Canal. We listened to Mr. Nehru, saying it would prejudice In d ia ’s friendship with Britain if Britain had close political ties with the F rench, while the French still keep the last vestiges o f European Imperialism alive by their obstinate presence in Pondicherry. We dressed this up by talking o f our commitments to our Commonwealth, leaving the F rench and G e r mans with a vague impression th a t the Canadians and Australians are set against full British participation in Europe, which is far from being the case. W hat both Canadians and Australians w ant is a Europe strong and united enough to stay a t peace, in whose wars they will not be asked to come and participate fo r a th ird time, on the ground th a t the m o ther country’s survival is so intim ately bound up w ith what happens on the mainland o f Europe th a t the two are inseparable. Having given th e usual wholly disproportionate weight to Mr. N eh ru ’s lightest wish, we find it makes no difference a t all to the Asian foreign policy th a t he is going to pursue w ithout regard to us.
The leadership o f the Continent was a crown th a t we, like C$sar, did thrice refuse, although it would have made all the difference, as can be so clearly seen from the measure of success in creating common institutions which the continental peoples have achieved by themselves. But the picture would have been very different if Britain, and with her the Scandinavian countries, had really been a t the centre o f the great movement. The French would long since have ratified any defence community in which we shared whatever obligations they were asked to assume.
In a very few years from now all the reasons which have
I t rem ains strangely inexplicable th a t, although we know by most painful experience how our fate is in tertw ined with th a t o f Western Europe, we imagined th a t after 1945 we could fall back in to the well-worn groove o f the national sovereignties, even for the G erm an sovereignty towards which we are heading again. The whole episode is an illustration o f how completely peoples with an old and successful history become the prisoners o f their past, o f their traditions, because those trad itio ns and th a t past create strong institutions which prevent anything different from being done. The Conservative Party, the Foreign Office, the Services all in their differ
