THE TABLET, October 29th, 1955. VOL. 206, No. 6023

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Recjina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

OCTOBER 29 th, 1955

NINEPENCE

Warning from the Saar: The Lost statute The Unanswered Case: i : The Invalidity of Anglican Orders. By Hugh Ross Williamson

II : The Real Point at Issue in South India

The Newman Demographic Survey : 1 : How and Why. By Anthony Spencer

II : The Schools. By R. G. Barley and A. G. Donnithorne

“ Citizens of Tomorrow” : Remedies but not Priorities Magistrates and Morals : The Loss of the Christian Tradition Proust On Exhibition : Apotheosis in Bond Street. By Sir Shane Leslie Frederick Lucas : 1855-1955 : Founder of “The Tablet.” By J. H. Whyte B o o k s R e v i e w e d : The Psychological Novel, 1900-1950, by Léon Edel : The Education o f Good

Men, by M. L. Jacks ; The Life o f Kathleen Perrier, by Winifred Ferrier ; A Frenchman Examines his Conscience, by Jules Romains ; Nine Lives, by Richard Hilton ; Commando Climber, by Mike Banks ; ' and Hue and Cry, by Patrick Pringle. Reviewed by A. O. J. Cockshut, A. C. F. Beales, Rowena Hamer-Jones, Ronald Matthews and Robert

Cardigan. Other Contributions from E. T. Long, Reginald Dingle, and B. C. L. Keelan.

RUSSIA AND EGYPT

T HE Foreign Ministers meet at Geneva with the Middle East casting a darkening shadow over their deliberations. It is here, more than anywhere in Europe at the moment, that Russian intentions can be tested and it can be seen whether the advantages of a relaxation of tension seem to the Kremlin to outweigh the possibilities which the Middle Eastern political situation affords for weakening European and American interests throughout that highly important area. The Americans have made every effort to please the King of Saudi Arabia and develop the oil in his country in a spirit of mutual respect and partnership. But he has just concluded a bilateral pact with Egypt, and it comes at the very moment when the Egyptian Government is sending away the American Air Attaché in Cairo for making derogatory remarks, a charge which might rapidly thin the ranks of the diplomatic body in Cairo.

There is at the moment a strong military temptation for the Israeli Government to improve its position on the Egyptian frontier, seizing a little more land there before the Egyptians have obtained their arms ; and they may be the more tempted to do this when they find the British and American Governments unwilling to make any more explicit security pact with Israel. That is something which Britain certainly can hardly do on the eve of quitting the Canal Zone. The Communists at the moment have great hopes in Syria and some in the Lebanon, but Egypt is the great field for diplomatic exploitation ; and the Suez rebels in the House of Commons can already point to many of their gloomy predictions coming true.

Soviet Policy in the Middle East is directed to weakening any dependence and any sense of dependence that the Arab countries feel towards Britain. Egypt and Jordan in particular have been for long in a special relationship with Britain, which goes back with Jordan for more than thirty years, and with Egypt for twice as long. We have air forces in Iraq, and a special position in the Persian Gulf. To achieve the ultimate aim of substituting the Soviet Union for Great Britain throughout this oil-bearing area, the first step is to convince the local politicians that they are not dependent on Britain or America ; and that the means to what is a deeply cherished dream, the end of the State of Israel, can be obtained from Russia. At the same time M. Molotov has received the Israeli Premier, M. Moshe Sharett, at Geneva, and has apparently indicated to him that his Government, too, may hope to buy Russian arms. By now the Russians and their satellites have a surplus of weapons, but a great need of foreign exchange ; and in proportion as tension is relaxed and disarmament makes progress, these weapons can be made available elsewhere.

The Arab League, which was set up in 1945, has had a history very parallel to European Union. It has achieved a little, but not nearly enough. There are strong arguments for it—the realization that the Great Powers in the world today are unions, political unities which have been built up out of States none of which would individually have amounted to very much in terms of world power. This is equally true of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the old Empire of the Tsars, and of the United States of America, which, if American history had gone differently, might well have presented the same sort of picture as Central and South America—a number of States, some of them rich and import­