THE TABLET, August 28th, 1954 VOL. 204, No. 5962

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

AUGUST 28th, 1954

NINEPENCE

Alcide de Gasperi: 1: Constitutionalist and European

II : The Restoration o f Italy. By Paolo Canali III : A Last Interview. By Kees van Hoek

Universal Anglicanism: The Minneapolis Conference. By Christopher Hollis

Festive Edinburgh : Productions “on the Fringe.” By George Scott-Moncrieff

How Voltaire Died: New Light on his Last Twelve Weeks. By Michael Derrick

African Moments: Brief Encounters in the Mission Field. By Laura Lovat

Our Lady’s Assumption: A Broadcast Sermon. By Mgr. R. A. Knox

B o o k s R e v i e w e d : The Evolution o f Diplomatic Method, by Sir Harold Nicolson ; Love and

Violence, by various authors ; The Decisive Battles o f the Western World, by Major-General J. F. C. Fuller ; Diversions o f History, introduced by Peter Quennell ; Russia by the Back Door, by Leon Maks ; The Way the Wind Blows, by Howard Clewes ; The Stone Age in Scotland, by A. D. Lacaille ; The View from the Parsonage, by Sheila Kaye-Smith ; Tower o f Ivory, by Rodolfo L. Fonseca ; Strangers, by Antonia White ; Selected Poems o f Walter de la Mare, chosen by R. N. Green-Armytage ; and Form and Reform in Architecture, by Bertram Hume. Reviewed by Sir George Rendel, Lancelot C. Sheppard, J. J. Dwyer, R. P. S. Walker, M. W. Stephen, Mervyn

Phipps, Humphrey J. T. Johnson, John Biggs-Davison, Maryvonne Butcher and Philip Jebb.

THE FATEFUL DEBATE

I T is unhappily all too characteristic of the state of affairs in France that the Chamber will debate over this week-end whether to ratify or reject the EDC Treaty as it stands, without any guidance from the Government, which will wait and see. This has the advantage for M. Mendes-France that the Government does not fall if, as is anticipated, ratification is refused. But it is difficult to see how a French Premier can last very long without a coherent European policy, by which he stands or falls. What the French deputies have to face is that the other countries have refused quite clearly to take the treaty back and start all over again with their own parliaments and oppositions. They have refused because the argument which M. Mendes-France went to Brussels to make is one that could perfectly well be invoked by any number of successors, coming back to ask for yet further changes, always as the only way of securing ratification in Paris.

One of the Dutch statesmen mildly and justly observed that the French seem to think that they are the only people who suffered at the hands of the Germans. The sudden treacherous attacks on Belgium and Holland, on Belgium twice and Holland once in this century, were on a different footing to the Franco-German wars, wars of leading Powers, in which, as a matter of fact, the declarations of war on two of the three occasions came from the French side. The Dutch and the Belgians show most commendable good sense in thinking of the future ; but it is obvious that without France or Britain they will not wish themselves integrated alone with West Germany, and will prefer the looser association of the Atlantic Treaty. If France stays out, Italy is geographically cut off from her fellow members, and, in fact, the whole project dissolves.

At Brussels the other Powers did not stand on their first grievance, that the whole project was initiated by France, th a t the French took a prominent part in all the drafting, and that now they want big changes to satisfy a French public opinion full o f such vague, conflicting elements that there could be no prospect of finality. But a comparison of the bulky text of the French protocol for the application of the EDC Treaty and of the counter-proposals of the five nations shows that a great deal was done to meet the French hesitation. Whole paragraphs of the French document have been incorporated into their own declaration, while others were changed in collaboration with M. Mendes-France and his experts. The lim it o f their concessions was their resolve not to accept alterations which would make it necessary to start their own ratification over again, with long delays during which the French would probably decide to wait to see if the changes went through.

M. Robert Schuman, for whom the disappointm ent must be particularly bitter, wrote in Figaro :

“ Let us be quite clear that anything that tends to weaken Western integration will all the more accentuate German military sovereignty. The effectiveness o f integration lies in its reciprocal character.” It is this reciprocal character which the French amendments would destroy, just as they would destroy the supranational elements on which it is hoped to build.