THE TABLET, M y 28th, ?n '<- VOL. '08. N« f>W*2

Published as a NewspA£tt

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JULY 28th, 1956

NINEPENCE

No Policy for Cyprus: Bewilderment Undispelled on Lord Radcliffe’s Arrival

India and the Foreign Missions: The Prospects. By the Archbishop of Bangalore

Poland Unconquered : The Unquenchable Spirit of a Catholic Nation

Dr. Micklem’s Orthodoxy: “ Ultimate Questions.” By Dorn Illtyd Trethowan

Portrait of Africa: Some Recent Books. By Archbishop David Mathew

Critics’ Column : Notebook : Book Reviews ; Letters : Chess

THE TRIP WIRE

r nH E bland meiosis of Sir Anthony Eden is sometimes -*■ effective and sometimes not. When he told the House of Commons on Monday, opening the foreign affairs debate, that behind the iron curtain there is a growing opinion “ which would not take kindly to a return to that condition of things which we and others now describe as Stalinism,” the suggestion to anyone reading reports of the speech was that until lately the people of Eastern Europe have been perfectly happy to live under Stalinism; as though any but a handful of revolutionaries had ever “ taken kindly ” to it. It was left to Mr. Gaitskell on the following day to say bluntly that the Communists still remain in control in those countries, that Russian Communists remain in control of the native few, and that the whole Communist-dominated area is still governed by integrated policies that are wholly based on the Marxist-Leninist conception of the struggle between world Communism and capitalist imperialism.

The Prime Minister’s fondness for understatement appeared again when he spoke of the hydrogen bomb and said that it has, as everyone by now knows, “ power enough to destroy the human race.” “ Nobody, presumably, could see any advantage in trying to do more than that.” But what is important is whether statesmen see some advantage in trying with some urgency to do less than that. It was good that the Prime Minister should repeat, towards the end of his speech, that the Government is ready to do what it can to secure a general limitation of hydrogen bomb tests, as a separate problem to that of general disarmament. But we should have liked to hear the hope expressed that these tests may be, not merely limited, but abandoned altogether. They can, as the Prime Minister said, do a good deal of harm to the human race, without actually destroying it, “ if extended over a long period.” Nothing less than their abandonment should be the aim of, statesmanship, and the first task in dealing with that new phase in Soviet tactics that the Prime Minister analysed so optimistically. If the hydrogen bomb has indeed been the cause of the change, let its abandonment be made the first fruit of it.

Meanwhile, the debate did not leave anyone very much the wiser about the future of what Sir John Slessor has called “ the trip wire ”—the conventional forces in Western Europe which might be used for defence against a conventional attack.

The German Ambassador, Herr von Herwarth, sat in the Diplomats’ Gallery of the House of Commons to listen to the debate. He had been recalled to Bonn during the weekend, together with the German Ambassadors to Washington and Paris, and he went to see the Foreign Secretary before the debate began. His presence, as well as the diplomatic activity in Bonn, underlined the seriousness with which the present tendency to soften Western defensive strength is being viewed by the Federal Government and its leading political party, the Christian Democrats. They are anxious lest any of the tentative thinking on defence cuts in the Western capitals should be translated into reality.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, for his part, has so far only committed himself to some wishful thinking aloud, at a recent luncheon of the Foreign Press Association, saying how much better off this country’s economy could be if the British defence commitments could be cut by £750 million, that is, by fifty per cent. But he left no doubt in his audience’s mind that such a step was not one which he would contemplate. Even if the unconfirmed reports which made the headlines in the Daily Express and News Chronicle suggested cuts approaching £400 million, or Mr. Clement Davies’s rumoured £500 million, such a decision would involve an abdication of international responsibilities which the British Government has accepted. It would immediately reduce this country’s position to that of a minor power.

Nevertheless, pressure is likely to continue in all Western capitals. The British Labour Party is about to make an allout attack on conscription. They suggest a regular army of 200,000 men, without making it clear how they hope to attract these, in the light of the present poor recruiting figures. There is a lot of talk about concentrating on the firing-power of NATO rather than on its military strength. The suggestion is that perhaps two of the four British divisions now stationed in Germany should be withdrawn. The Daily Express rejoices in the prospect, although Mr. Gaitskell, it appears, \yould be satisfied by ¡the withdrawal of one.