THE TABLET, July 31st, 1954 VOL. 204, No. 5958

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JULY 31st, 1954

NINEPENCE

Leaving Suez : The Least Disadvantageous Course The Needs o f th e E ld erly : After the Gerontological Congress. By Thomas Rudd

The Great Debate among German Socialists: n : Taking New Positions

Impressions o f P o r tu ga l : A Thriving Economy and its Difficulties. By Eugene Bagger

The Elusive Island: San Giorgio Maggiore. By Freda Bruce Lockhart

Keeping Up w ith the Joneses : George Orwell and the Aspidistra. By Christopher Hollis

The Evanston A ssem b ly : The Catholic View. A Broadcast Address by Gordon Albion B o o k s R e v i e w e d : Capitalism and the Historians, by F. A. Hayek ; The Latin Language, by

L. R. Palmer ; High Mountains, by Charles Meade ; Entscheidung um Europa, by Otto von Habsburg ; The Liturgical Movement, by J. H. Srawley ; Torridon Highlands, by Brenda G. Macrow ; In the Hills o f Breadalbane, by V. A. Firsoff; Scotland's Western Seaboard, by G. Douglas Bolton; One, by David Karp ; Genera! from the Jungle, by Ben Traven ; A Kind o f Misfortune, by Richard Parker ; and A River Full o f Stars, by Elizabeth Hamilton. Reviewed by Colin Clark, J. Lewis May, Sir Arnold Lunn, Walter C. Breitenfeld, Basil N. Aldridge, Noel

Macdonald Wilby, Florence O’Donoghue and Isabel Quigly.

FOLLOWING UP GENEVA

T HE extreme gravity of the incidents in the air over the China Seas is that they have illuminated the actual position, which is one of watchful and armed hostility on the main front, whatever agreement may have been made on one section o f the front, French Indo-China. The Chinese are obviously in two minds. Their apology for the original murderous attack on a British plane was couched with a proper note of regret and concern, at an incident which had come to mar their rejoicings over the Geneva pact. The subsequent shooting at American planes looking for survivors has been more truculently justified, because these planes, belonging to a country which does not recognize the Chinese Communists diplomatically, are a symbol that the conflict, though latent, is still there, with the Government o f Chiang Kai-shek biding its time in Formosa under American protection. To the Americans, the incident needs to be treated firmly precisely because the Communist propaganda has been able to make so much o f the Communist success at Geneva.

What the Americans have all the time in their minds is the fact that the plight o f the French in Indo-China only became acute when the armistice had been concluded in Korea and the Chinese Communists were able to switch from Korea to Indo-China a great amount of material and large numbers of troops, all of which are now available again as the armistice comes into force in Indo-China. The obvious objective for these “expendable” forces is now Formosa. An attack on Formosa would be a very different matter from either of the two earlier campaigns, in Korea and IndoChina, involving a long and difficult sea-crossing and a much more direct challenge to the Americans. But it is certainly present in the minds of the Chinese Communists, and, even if it is not thought of as immediately practicable, the first step is to seek to establish, by gradual intimidation, a control of the air over the sea, the Fu-Kien strait, across which an invading force would have to be carried.

The civilian victims who have been shot down represent all humanity in its claim that one of the achievements of civilization is that we have the means to move freely about the world, that we have the right to do so, that the freedom of private movement is one of the marks of civilized living and mature peoples, and that in this great matter the world has gone back in the last fifty years. The Chinese pilots who shot down the plane can be believed when they say they mistook it in their inexperience ; but they were waiting, eager to come to grips with enemies, because that is how the new Chinese Communist forces are trained to see the world.

All overtures for peace, for recognizing the oneness of the world, which come from Peking or Moscow, need to be commented on in this way, that the road to a better international situation lies through an amelioration of manners as much as anything else. It was an excellent thing when the floods in the Danube Valley brought out Russian and American occupying forces, not to watch each other, but to co-operate in saving property and life from the floods. If M. Molotov really wants to improve the situation, in Germany or elsewhere, the way to do so is not by Notes which, because they are published, are written partly in the language of propaganda, but by easing the hold of Government on those Germans who are under Communist rule.