THE TABLET December 1st, 1956. VOL. 208. No. 6080

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

DECEMBER 1st, 1956

NINEPENCE

Impetus towards Europe: One Consequence of the Crisis European Opinion on the Suez Crisis: Views from France, Germany and Italy

Baghdad Conversations: “ We Are All One Nation.” By J. E. Alexander

The New “Dublin': Homosexuality and the Law. By Leo Gradwell American Catholics and the Intellectual Life: m. By Mgr. John Tracy Ellis

Beati Pauperes: Meditations in Advent: 1. By the Bishop of Aberdeen Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

THE MORNING AFTER

'T ’HE Commonwealth was on the verge of dissolution, but for the cease-fire, says Mr. Lester Pearson, the Canadian Minister for External Affairs. The Canadian Premier more pungently declares himself scandalised by those nations which, when it suited them, flouted the United Nations Charter. Perhaps those Conservative Members who are busy denouncing the United States Government will take from the Canadians what they will not take from the Americans.

The justification that the British Government advances for not consulting anybody before delivering its ultimatum in the Near East—Mr. Pearson was emphatic how Canada had been kept in the dark about the decisive move—is that the emergency arose so suddenly that there was no time to follow any of the proper courses. That plea leaves them with no justification for not following those courses now.

The American alliance can be restored only in terms of supporting genuinely the authority of the United Nations, which represented, when it was created, the abandonment of American isolation. When we look back on the efforts we made for so long to persuade the Americans that the persistent isolationism of the inter-war period, culminating in the Johnson Neutrality Act just before the war broke out in 1939, and recall how the United Nations, framed at San Francisco and housed in New York, represented the changed and internationally-minded United States, we can appreciate how, with all its manifest weaknesses, the United Nations is the Ark of the Covenant, carrying the aspirations and hopes of the New World; the chosen instrument.

British Ministers have in this crisis far too often given the impression that they were saying what they did not really mean, and meaning what they did not care to say, far beyond the usual latitude that must be allowed to statesmen; and now there is a most disquieting divergence between the face shown in the United Nations and the face shown to their party followers, to whom Ministers are trying to pretend that they have secured very much more than they have.

On these occasions when the Conservative party is uncertain of itself, The Times can enjoy great influence, and Wednesday’s leading article was unsparing towards the vast ministerial ineptitudes which are costing the country so very dear—the more important in coming from a paper which began in August as a whole-hearted supporter of the Prime Minister, and wrote a leading article called “ Escapers’ Club,” which poured scorn on those who said a military adventure would have the opposite results to those hoped for.

When the House of Commons holds its Foreign Affairs Debate, next week, we hope one or other of the leading Cabinet Ministers will enlighten the House and the country about the working of their minds : what it was they expected to happen that did not happen, and what it was that happened which they did not expect.

The Arab and Moslem reaction has surely been exactly what was foretold. It is quite true that some of the rulers are jealous of Egypt and President Nasser, and that they dislike his influence among their own populations. But the men who feel like this have to reckon with the voice of the Arabs from Cairo and bow before the strong wind which blows whenever anything happens that seems to suggest that Moslem countries are inferior and can be dictated to and ordered about.

Was the American reaction unexpected by men who had seen and heard Mr. Dulles in August and September ? It is quite true that the Middle East is the part of the world furthest away from the United States, and the part least understood; that neither the Canal nor the oil seem to the Americans to have quite the primary importance which is instinctively attached to Japan and Formosa, or to the Panama Canal, whilst the degree to which President Eisenhower and Mr. Dulles have pinned their faith and policy to the United Nations has been misjudged and underrated. It should be elementary that while the old League of Nations never registered emotionally with the Americans public, as it did with the British public, the United Nations represents the first great American adventure in international association. It bears the American impress all through, and is taken very seriously, as has been shown by the readiness of the Americans to approach their own colour question in a much