THE TABLET, April 16th, 1955. VOL. 205, No. 5995

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

APRIL 16th, 1955

NINEPENCE

The C hancellor’s D ilem m a : Politics and Economics in a Time o f War

B eh in d th e N ew spaper Strike: The Data Before the Court o f Enquiry

Id le Thoughts: Impressions o f a Fleet Street Journalist. By Francis Kent

On Race R e la t io n s : Segregation and Mixed Marriages. By Tracy Philipps

Austria and th e S ov ie t U n i o n : Herr Raab’s Visit to Moscow. By Roland Hill

S tu dent Parish m C le rm o n t : Catholic Life in a French University. By Pierre Janelle

C u r io s itie s ab ou t K in gsley: Re-reading “Westward Ho !” By Christopher Hollis

Chaplains in th e Army: The Centenary o f St. Michael’s, Aldershot. By Mgr. John Coghlan

Books R e v ie w e d : Mantegna, by E. Tietze-Conrat ; Called Up, edited by Peter Chambers and Amy Landreth ; Poems and Songs o f Robert Burns, edited by James Barke ; Lost Girls, by Caroline Brown ; Fortitude and Temperance, by Josef Pieper ; The Ulysses Theme, by W. B. Stanford ; Lysistrata, translated by Dudley Fitts ; Essays o f Contention, by Stephen J. Brown, S.J. ; and The Crucible, by John Graham Gillam. Reviewed by John Beckwith, Uvedale Tristram, Morley Jamieson, Anne Crawshay, Desmond

Schlegel, O.S.B., Anthony Lejeune, J. Lewis May and F. Sherwood Taylor.

WELCOME TO MR. MACMILLAN I N the United Europe Movement the new Foreign Secretary, Mr. Harold Macmillan, presided over the Committee which concerned itself with the peoples of Europe behind the Iron Curtain. The Committee had an important task, to establish in the minds of Western Europeans that there was no idea of forgetting their separated brethren, or of re-defining Europe in such a way as to abandon some hundred million Europeans. Mr. Macmillan espoused this cause at a time when his colleagues in the Government of today were showing themselves somewhat tepid towards the whole European idea, and when the Foreign Office, which now has him for its chief, was sceptical and chiefly anxious to preserve national sovereignty unimpaired by keeping all decisions in the hands of Foreign Ministers.

countries, is not divided on this issue. Public opinion accepted the decision about troops, and the Queen reflected public sentiment by making it the occasion for conferring the Garter on Sir Anthony Eden. There is a clear recognition that bad relations between France and Germany would be dangerous for the peace of Europe, perhaps presenting the Soviet Union with an irresistible temptation. The Saar is proving a source of tension, and probably the first field for Mr. Macmillan will be here.

Little by little, the inexorable pressure of events has forced Great Britain to accept her position as a European Power, and Mr. Macmillan is fortunate that he takes over the Foreign Office after the Rubicon has been crossed ; and the new Prime Minister is the man who crossed it, with the declaration that British troops will remain on the mainland. That decision was inevitable, once it was plain that the French preferred to jettison the whole structure rather than enter a European Defence Community with the Germans and without the British. Now we have given the pledge, and France has ratified. But it cannot be claimed that the auguries are very good, and in Germany, France and Italy the Europeans, though they are just in the ascendant, have strong domestic opposition, which, if it came to power, might whittle away everything so far achieved. But Britain, like the Benelux

At the end of the war, Mr. Macmillan was in Italy as a political Minister with the Commander-in-Chief, and he brings to his new office a close acquaintance with that country such as none of his immediate predecessors, Conservative or Labour, has had ; and this is also true of the rest of the Mediterranean world, in which there remains a good deal of scope for a British Foreign Secretary.

The contact has been curiously inadequate between the Catholic forces of Spain and Italy and Great Britain. The historical reasons are full and cogent to explain this remoteness and incomprehension on both sides, but in the present state of the world it is a great pity that people with so much in common should know and see so little of each o ther; that the British links with Liberal and Socialist elements should have been for a hundred years so strong, when today the Liberal elements count for so little, and the Socialist elements are so unreliable.

The messages exchanged between the Pope and the outgoing and incoming British Prime Ministers, which we print on another page, reflect today something more than formal