THE TABLET, March 19th, 1955. VOL. 205, No. 5991
THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW
Published as a Newspaper
Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria
FOUNDED IN 1840
MARCH 19th, 1955
NINEPENCE
France for Europe : Next Week’s Debate in the French Senate
Incident at Gaza : Israel and the Arab States. By David Walker
Schism in the Labour Party : Withdrawal o f the Whip. By Colm Brogan
Faces Saved : Reflections on the Farm Price Settlement. By Jorian Jenks
Fear or Prayer ? : Cardinal Griffin on the Hydrogen Bomb and the Basis for Peace
The D e La Salle B ro th ers: A Hundred Years o f Work in England. By Outram Evennett
Dr. Johnson’s iVIonastic Cell: Where he Thought to End his Days. By Michael Derrick
M ed ita tions in L en t : History and Judgment : ii. By Romano Guardini
B o o k s R e v i e w e d : Science and Freedom, by various authors ; Science and Religion, by C. A.
Coulson ; Preparing fo r Easter, by Clifford Howell, S.J. ; The British Working-Class Reader, 17901848, by R. K. Webb ; Homer's Daughter, by Robert Graves ; A Handbook to the Palace o f Minos at Knossos, by J. D. S. Pendlebury ; The Lakers, by Norman Nicholson ; The Reach o f the Mind, by J. B. Rhine ; Modern Experiments in Telepathy, by S. G. Soal and F. Bateman ; The Letters o f W. B. Yeats, edited by Allan Wade ; The Day at the Fair, by Jean Matheson ; The Figure in the Misty by Elizabeth Coxhead ; Melilot, by Naomi Royde Smith ; and a selection o f books for the young. Reviewed by Peter E. Hodgson, Gordon Wheeler, A. J. Brooker, Vincent Desborough, M. Bellasis, Bede
Griffiths, O.S.B., Illtud Evans, O.P., and Maryvonne Butcher.
THE AXE FALLS
I T was by a very narrow margin that the Parliamentary
Labour Party decided on Wednesday to withdraw the Whip from Mr. Aneurin Bevan. There was a majority of less than thirty votes in favour of this step, and more than thirty members were absent and did not vote ; while the amendment proposing that Mr. Bevan should only becensured was defeated by only a dozen votes. There have been expulsions from the Parliamentary Labour Party before, of men who, like Ramsay MacDonald and Sir Stafford Cripps, have later reappeared among its leaders, as Mr. Bevan no doubt expects in the fulness of time to do ; but no earlier expulsion has been so strongly resisted, and no earlier rebel has carried such a following with him in the country as Mr. Bevan undoubtedly has now, among people who recognize in him perhaps a more authentic tradition. He is still today what those who have expelled him were in their youth, speaking with the real voice of radicalism and Socialism, and, therefore, the real opposition to a Conservative Government. As is remarked in the article by Mr. Colm Brogan which appears on another page, he has by far the largest personal following of any Socialist politician ; yet on the other hand the party machine is now so highly developed that it can deprive him of any chance of returning to-Parliament with an effective following when there is a General Election. In his own constituency he will, no doubt, be secure, but the position is more serious for his followers than for himself : a much more difficult problem arises for those with no impregnable strongholds, whom the local constituency may be obliged to disavow.
Part of the feeling against Mr. Bevan comes from the belief in the party that, unlike many of the older party leaders, he is quite philosophical about the party losing the next election. If that happened, the party could re-form behind him in the wilderness, as it is called, whereas if it became the Government it would be led by those whom he is anxious to supplant. At fifty-seven he can well afford a contemplative and agricultural interval.
Meanwhile, the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, likewise with an eye to a coming election, having to frame a Budget in a time when the Budget has become an instrument of economic policy, is faced with what is now a chronic dilemma for British Governments—how to take away with one hand what is being given with the other, so that the public shall have the illusion that it is better off without the reality of consuming more. Wage increases are sought in •order that the money shall be spent immediately, not that it shall be saved or invested, and as every few weeks some millions more purchasing power is put into the hands of the people who want it to spend in the shops, the Government then sets about trying to ensure that the things in the shops shall cost more. For this is the effect of dearer money, as well as the effect of wage increases. The latest increase to the miners, which will put up the price of coal, will put up the
