THE TABLET September 28th. 1957. VOL. 210, No. 6123

the -ah; nr A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840 SEPTEMBER 28th, 1957

NINEPENCE

Animated Blackboards : Television in the Schools Bank Rate and the Pound : Consequences of Excessive Costs. By Colin Clark

Home Life in the Welfare State : a Balance-Sheet. By R ichard W. B. Ellis Palimpsest and Prayer : The Walk to Walsingham. By Donn Russell

Town Or (rown? ; Life, Letters and Mr. Wain. By Ian Gregor

Catholic Liverpool : Autum n . Winter Spring. By Julian Stonor, O.S.B.

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

THE RECKONING

jy iR . THORNEYCROFT’S firm assurances in Washington ^ that there is no intention of devaluing the pound naturally remind everybody of the similar assurances given, equally categorically, by Sir Stafford Cripps in Washington eight years ago. When the BBC on Tuesday evening interviewed experts in Frankfurt, Basel, Paris and New York, seeking their views on the reasons why such assurances should be necessary, why confidence in sterling should have been so shaken as it was when the Bank Rate was so dramatically raised last week, most of these experts put the blame first and foremost on the British trade unions for refusing to accept wage restraint (except for the man in New York, who said that most Americans had only the vaguest idea that there was any particular wage-pressure in Britain). But the trade union leaders are showing little intention of modifying their position; another round of wage-demands is hard upon us even now, and another round of priceincreases as well.

The sharp increase in the postage rates, for example, which comes into force on Tuesday, at the beginning of October, will be felt by everybody, and by affecting all office costs will further contribute to the continuing rise in general prices. Yet the increase is noticed much more than the fact that, in comparison with many other countries, our postage rates will still not be high. They will still be lower than in Western Germany, where everyone has such good reason to be satisfied with the general economic positon. It will still cost half as much again to send a letter from Germany to this country as it costs to send one from this country to Germany. At present it costs twice as much: 40 pfennig as compared with 4d. The difference is really greater, because the rate of exchange by which such comparisons are made favours our own currency unduly. The characteristic of the position in Germany is not that prices are low; it is that, hitherto at any rate, they have been stable. How long they will remain so is another question. Dr. Erhard is at present very angry at a sharp increase in the price of German coal announced immediately after the election; an increase that will be felt all through German industry. Inflation, said President Eisenhower on Monday, is a world-wide disease, and the Germans are not immune.

Hitherto they have prospered because they have been prepared to live within their means; we have got into difficulties because we have not, and now the painful process of extrication has to be faced. But we have no ground for complaint against the Germans on this account, and it is undignified to talk about their economic recovery as a “ miracle ” when in fact it has been something very much in the natural order of things; powerfully assisted after the war by support from the United States, but achieved by a readiness to work which other countries may affect to despise but now have no choice but to imitate. Immense destruction meant that by the time the factories were working again there was very little obsolete plant; very many installations were necessarily new and therefore more efficient than in the corresponding British industries where the destruction had been so much less. But this was not the only advantage that the Germans plucked from disaster. The other great advantage was that they began, after the war, with the assumption that life was going to be very hard. We began with the assumption that it was going to be easy. Now the Germans too are filled with the confidence of comfort: that is their present danger.

The easiest evasion with which we are now to be tempted is that of blaming upon the Germans the hardships which must follow from the steep rise in the Bank Rate and the measures which are accompanying it, and of finding therein a reason for not blaming ourselves. Already this inclination can be detected among people who talk about the hoards of gold in German vaults as though these had been somehow ill-gotten, and urge upon the Germans a revaluation of the mark which they are little inclined to consider. The Bank Rate was lowered in Bonn just as it was so dramatically raised in London. The meeting of the World Bank in Washington began, at the beginning of this week, with the announqement of a further loan from the German Federal Bank; and at the same time plans were being discussed for extensive German investment in Africa and Asia,