THE TABLET, January 1st, 1955. VOL. 205, No. 5980

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER &

REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JANUARY 1st, 1955

NINEPENCE

Christians and Jew s: Catholics and the Council Greece and th e M ed ite rranean: The Comparison with Spain Russia versus Islam : The Soviet Union’s Twenty Million Muslims E le c t io n V ic to r ie s : Conviction and Caprice. By Christopher Hollis, M.P. F i f t y Y e a r s o f B o r s t a l : Society’s Responsibility. By Illtud Evans, O.P. W i l l i a m B o n a p a r t e W y s e : A Victorian Troubadour. By Tudor Edwards P r o f i l e o f t h e M e s t i z o : Mexico and its Past. By Mervyn Phipps B o o k s R e v i e w e d : A History o f the Crusades, Volume III, by Steven Runciman ; Mr. Guy's

Hospital, by H. C. Cameron ; The Vanishing Irish, edited by John O’Brien ; Nefertiti Lived Here, by Mary Chubb ; Queen Anne's Son, by Hester W. Chapman ; Letters to a Musical Boy, by Mervyn Bruxner ; Pictures from an Institution, by Randall Jarrell ; The Curate's Wand, by Fielden Hughes ; A Peacock Cry, by Val Mulkerns ; Pilling Always Pays, by Thomas Armstrong ; Prince du Nord, by Josef André ; and T. E. Lawrence by his Friends, edited by A. W. Lawrence. Reviewed by René Hague, David Thomas, Ulick O’Connor, Pamela Hinkson, J. J. Dwyer, Rowena Hamer-

Jones and Mildred Tschoeberlé.

THE RELUCTANT FRENCH

A S we go to press the last vote o f confidence in th e French Chamber has still to be taken. Earlier votes had given M. Mendes-France a majority, bu t a majority in painful contrast by its inadequacy and half heartedness to the solid agreement o f the anti-C ommunist forces in America and B rita in , Italy and the Benelux countries.

The rejection o f EDC in the summer by th e French served them very well. I t was th e direct cause o f a major change in British policy, th e acceptance o f a great European commitment by Britain. This has enabled de Gaullists and others to say to the disappointed champions o f EDC th a t all has tu rned ou t fo r the better. But they are answered th a t B rita in has as usual retained a loophole, th a t the British tro ops m ight depart because o f crisis elsewhere, while i t is quite certain th a t once a German Army comes in to existence i t will rem ain as F ran ce’s neighbour, and th a t i f the present peril from Russia should dim inish with the years, as everyone must hope, the German Army will still rem ain a point o f assembly for emotions, ideas and am bitions which have already cost Europe so dear.

There a re French Deputies who see themselves vainly trying to explain in th e fu tu re what was th e psychological atm osphere a t the end o f 1954 which had made them cast votes which had come to look like short-sighted opportunism , parallel to the votes against rearm am ent which were so popular though so unintelligent in the F rance and B rita in of twenty years ago. This is perhaps the more respectable reason fo r th a t weak policy o f abstention in which so many Deputies have indulged themselves. I t is weak because a public man judging a public question cannot th in k the pros and cons so neatly balanced th a t there is no margin of advantage tilting the scale even slightly in one direction, where i t is his duty to vote. There a re also personal resentments, the desire to bring down an unpopular Prim e M inister whose six months in office are thought to be an unduly long time. There is the idea th a t M. Mendes-France can be used fo r this unpalatable business, the F rench acceptance o f German rearm ament, and then discarded ; and perhaps half the nonCommunist Deputies are plainly wishing th a t th e consent of th e Chamber was n o t necessary, and th a t the responsibility could be solely his.

The o ther Catholic parties in Europe have no t concealed their disappointm ent with the MRP. I t would have been altogether fitting i f F rance, the eldest daughter o f the Church, had produced the leading Catholic party in Western Europe. But from the very beginning the F rench Catholics alone judged it the better p a r t o f valour no t even to call themselves Christian, as all the o ther parties did ; and this opportunism , while it does no t seem to have a ttracted to them any support th a t they would no t have had otherwise, proved symbolical, the starting po in t o f a long record o f ambiguity, till th e main impression th a t the party has made for some tim e has been th a t its one big idea is to perpetuate itself.

I t has had one great positive th ing in its favour, th a t i t has been in the vanguard o f the European idea ; th a t i t produced in M. R obert Schuman a genuinely European figure, parallel to D r. Adenauer and de Gasperi. But M. Bidault, who himself made such great exertions for a fuller European policy, is now markedly out o f step with the Catholic parties in the rest of Western Europe. These parties are finding i t difficult, w ithout seeming to lecture the F rench Catholics, to convey to tU their own sense o f urgency, and their conviction th a t tb : m a tte r where everyone has a right and a duty *