THE TABLET .Tunc 22nd, 1957. VOL. 209. No. 6109

TH E TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

FOUNDED IN 18 40 Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria JUNE 22nd, 1957

NI NEPENCE

What is Divided?: Conditions of a European Settlement 1 he Grand Design I The British View of West European Unity. By John Dingle

Crisis in the Italian Left: The Young Giolitti Divides the Communists

Poets in the Pillory : New Hearts for Old. By Tanya Matthews

“Pay No Attention’ ; The Foreign Office and an English Canonisation

Bertrand Russell: “ The Passionate Sceptic.” By Christopher Hollis

Spreading the Faith : Archbishop Godfrey's Pastoral Letter for Trinity Sunday

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

CANADA AND THE COMMONWEALTH TT is clearly Mr. Macmillan's policy, without overtly saying more about it than can be helped, nevertheless to attempt to redress the balance of the harm that was done last October. It is his determination to prove by example rather than by promise that never again will the fatal error be made of trying to go it alone without consultation with our friends. That being so, it was logical enough to follow up the meeting with President Eisenhower by the Commonwealth Conference which opens in London on Wednesday.

A series of misfortunes will prevent the presence at the Conference of a number of those whom we had most wished to see there. For reasons of health Mr. Bandaraniake, Mr. Strijdom and Mr. Holland cannot come, and all will regret their absence. But the main handicap to the Conference’s effectiveness will certainly be the absence of a clear representation from Canada. It would be hypercritical for those who complained that the British Government had not consulted them last October that they should complain of Mr. Macmillan’s Conference now that it was premature ; nor can anyone fairly blame Mr. Macmillan for not foreseeing the Canadian difficulty. For no ong, it seems, in Canada or outside it, did foresee that difficulty.

It had been confidently predicted on all sides that the election would return the Liberal Party, if perhaps with a reduced majority, and no one doubted that Mr. St. Laurent would attend the Conference, his authority reinforced by electoral victory. It is no business of ours to take a side in Canadian party politics, and if the Canadian electorate, repudiating Mr. St. Laurent, had given a clear majority to the Conservatives and Mr. Diel'enbaker, we should of course have whole-heartedly welcomed him as his nation’s leader. But what has happened must, we fear, inevitably detract from the usefulness of the Conference. The Canadian electorate has given a clear majority neither to Liberal nor to Conservative. It is no longer uncertain which party will be nominally in power at the time of the Conference, but it seems to be certain that Mr. Diefenbaker will not be really in power—that the Conference will take place during a period of uneasy lull, before the electorate is given a second opportunity to make its choice and at a time when no one can speak for it with any confidence.

That it should be Canada who is caught in this situation is a great misfortune. For, though it is no business of ours whose may be the voice that speaks for Canada, Canada is at the moment the most important member of the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth can hardly survive unless the Canadian voice is a clear one. With the accession of Ghana the Commonwealth is now, whether we reckon by Governments or by individuals, predominantly an Afro-Asian body. The fact that the Afro-Asians have a mechanical and mathematical majority is not indeed of great importance, for matters are not settled at Commonwealth Conferences by majorities and the relations between Pakistan and India are sufficient to remind us of the folly of speaking of an Afro-Asian bloc as if all the Afro-Asian nations necessarily took the same line upon every problem. Nevertheless, the figures are sufficient to show that the old days of the white man’s predominance have vanished.

It is idle to complain of the influence of the Afro-Asian Powers in the United Nations as if it was simply the fault of the United Nations constitution that they exercised such influence. The truth is that the Afro-Asian nations have become powerful and that they would be powerful whether they exercised that power through the United Nations or in another way. They are powerful, and if we persist in treating them as inevitably hostile we shall only succeed in making them so and thus drive them irrevocably into the arms of Russia and China. The Commonwealth provides an excellent means for preventing the growth of that general hostility. But the Commonwealth can hardly function on that as on other planes without an effective voice from Canada. Britain’s prestige was too heavily damaged by her behaviour in October. It is Canada alone who has a record and a prestige which enables her to play a part of middle-man between East and West.