THE TABLET, September 18th, 1954 VOL. 204, No. 5965

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

FOUNDED IN 1840 Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria SEPTEMBER 18th, 1954

NINEPENCE

B r ita in B e s t ir s H erself: Mr. Eden Takes the Lead

I ta ly and th e Failure o f EDC : An Article in the “Civiltà Cattolica”

B o n ifa t iu s R e d iv iv u s ? : East and West at Fulda. By Roland Hill

T oo O ld fo r th e TUC?: The Debates at Brighton

S ib e r ia ’s C u stom ers: Trading for Russian Gold. By G. H. Tallack C h r is t ia n D em o c r a t s IVleet: The “Nouvelles Equipes” at Bruges. By John Biggs-Davison

The V en ic e F ilm F estiva l: A Surprising Award. By John A. V. Burke

A r ch b ish o p o f B irm in gh am : The Sermon at the Enthronement by Mgr. R. A. Knox B o o k s R e v i e w e d : Rome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers, by Sir Mortimer Wheeler ; The Broken

Cistern, by Bonamy Dobrée ; Literature and Science, by B. Ifor Evans ; A Biographical Dictionary o f English Architects, by H. M. Colvin ; Early Fathers from the Philokalia, translated by E. Kaloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer ; Under Dartmoor Hills, by D. St. Leger-Gordon ; The Society o f MarieAuxiliatrice ; The Oxford Junior Encyclopedia, Volume XII ; English Shrines and Sanctuaries, by Christina Hole ; and some publications in the series “Le Monde et La Foi.” Reviewed by Christopher Dawson, E. F. Caldin, Philip Jebb, Bede Griffiths, O.S.B., E. W. Martin, Gerard

Meath, O.P., and B. C. L. Keelan.

LABOUR’S

W HEN the Labour Party meets, a t the end of this month, two points of view will stand out in a contrast more marked than has been known for years. It is quite true th a t the party is a democratic party, which believes in freedom o f discussion. But it also believes in discipline. Its rules are much more rigidly drawn, it goes in for expulsions which are quite foreign to the Conservative tradition, and lately the discipline has been tightened, even to the proscribing of Socialist publications hostile to the dominant leadership. One wing o f the party, with Mr. Morrison as its chief protagonist, is altogether realistic. They know that public opinion in this country is, in the main, mildly progressive, but instinctively hostile to anything that savours of political extremism or the enforcement o f doctrinaire policies. They know that over and over again the Conservatives have come back to power, mainly because they have seemed to the electorate likely to make fewer mistakes, because they see government as adm inistration rather than as legislation.

Mr. Morrison and his friends know very well that 1945 will never come again. All sorts o f factors then conspired, not only to give Labour a quite exceptional majority, but to give it a majority, combined with the controls o f wartime, which had only to be maintained, and a public opinion which, in and out of the Army, and especially since the coming of the Soviet Alliance, had been encouraged to indulge in all sorts o f far-reaching and radical ideas. Behind lay the Tory-dominated past—the unemployment and Means Test

DILEMMA o f the ’thirties, the inept and tim id foreign policy, the war that was almost lost. Ahead lay the new age of the common Englishman, in a new world for which his valour and exertions and numbers had won him pride of place ; and so on. I f anyone doubts how deep are the roots from which an old nation draws its life and character, he should reflect on all this, and then see how little difference such a Government was in fact able to make. All the big changes to the detriment of the upper and middle class came from the war years, and from the great sacrifices, a t once necessary and voluntary, of 1940. A Labour Government was happy to continue those rates and levels of taxation, but no Government could have reduced them very much.

What happened in 1950 and 1951 was more im portant than what happened in 1945. There came from the electorate no mandate to go further in extending State control over industry and commerce. On the contrary, a halt was called, and the years from 1945 to 1951, though Mr. Attlee and others have described them as the period in which the foundations o f the Socialist Commonwealth were laid, really represent the high-water-mark, the consequence of an unnatural wartime exaltation, the time when Socialists came nearest to persuading the electorate to follow them. The mood is very different now, and Labour’s prospects of returning to power depend more than anything else on the moderation which the Labour Party shows.

Mr. Morrison and his friends must wince as they read