THE TABLET, March 3rd, 1956. VOL. 207, No. 6041

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Reqina et Patria

I FOUNDED IN 1840

MARCH 3rd, 1956

NINEPENCE

Ad M u lto s Annos: A Homage to the Holy Father.

Apartheid in P ractice: The Role of the Church. By Hilary J. Carpenter, O.P.

Compensating Nazi V ictim s: The Slow Process of Righting Wrongs. By Roland Hill

American S id e lig h ts : The Cloister and the Campus. By Peter Watts

Portrait o f a Press Lord: By Christopher Hollis

Holy Week Restored: III : Maundy Thursday. By Lancelot C. Sheppard

Critics’ Page : N o tebook : Book R eview s : Letters : Chess

BETTER TO TALK

N UCLEAR physics have made the world a small place and people who find themselves on a journey in close proximity with their fellow human beings must talk and be civil, and try to get on. Sir Anthony Eden pitched his expectations of what good can come of the visit of the Russian leaders to this country in April at a more modest level than he did when the visit was first announced in the summer. For nothing has happened since to encourage any particular hopes, and several things have happened, the language of these same leaders in India, the supplying of Communist arms to Egypt, which more than offset the occasional Soviet professions of a readiness, even a desire, to escape mutual extermination. The hostility, the ambition, the doctrinaire belief that they represent the next phase of human organisation and that it is their supreme and pleasant duty to hasten what is historically inevitable, all this is still present in these conditioned men. But precisely in proportion as we conclude that they live largely in a world of their own subjective imagination, is it important not to discourage their readiness to travel. How the whole position of humanity would be changed if the ruling class in Russia lost its simple faith in the nineteenthcentury materialist dogmas which are treated as the only orthodoxy. It is true that no discipline that any religious body has ever devised to maintain purity of doctrine has been so rigorous and so ruthless as the Communist system.

The device of “cells” is transforming China by creating instead of the old individual Chinamen a new being of three Chinamen, any two of him will combine against and inform against the third, if by word or deed he deviates from his duty as a good Communist. And these infernal trinities are the secret of Communist power over hundreds of millions of people.

It is everywhere true that the concentration of political power tends to make the great decisions rest with those who in all probability will be under-informed and suffering from illusions about the outside world. Even in the democracies the ultimate decisions rest with those who are the masters of the political machines which are primarily created with the electorate at home in view. The good politician will know his own people, and it is a matter of accident what he knows about foreign people. Sir Anthony Eden, who has several times lately shown a very uncertain touch about British public reactions, has had a very prolonged experience of meeting the Soviet Party chiefs and it is safe to say if he does not know them by now he never will. Nor do we think from the tenor of his and Mr. Selwyn Lloyd’s last speeches that they want the public to look forward hopefully and with much expectation to the forthcoming visit. They know it will be Communist propaganda to suggest it is the Americans who are the great obstacles to a more peaceful and serene world.

The great questions to ask Mr. Khrushchev and Marshal Bulganin are questions about reciprocity or access ; if there is to be a competition of ideas, and they are confident that their ideas, economic, political and philosophical are superior and represent a higher state of human living. Mr. Khrushchev has just commended the Communist Parties at work in democratic countries. But none of these parties are content to argue the full Communist case. What they seek to do and have a good deal of success in doing is to exploit dissensions to stimulate industrial or nationalist unrest, to seek and make trouble. And this is not taking advantage of the freedom of debate in which the non-Communist world believes ; it is avoiding debate and seeking power by indirect and treacherous means. Split Among the German Liberals

Dr. Adenauer has seemingly weathered the political storm launched against him by the so-called “young politicians” of the Free Democrat Party. The Christian Democrat Government of Dr. Karl Arnold has fallen in Düsseldorf, but in the process the long-expected split within the Liberal ranks has taken place. The dissidents who have rebelled against the erratic Chairman of the party, Herr Dehler, and its neutralist