THE TABLET November 23rd, 1957. VOL. 210. No. 6131

THE TEL A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

NOVEMBER 23rd, 1957

NINEPENCE

A Check O i l the Commons l The Alternatives of the Lords and the Privy Council the Coming Lambeth Conference! I. Genesis and Background. By J. J. Coyne Conversations in the Middle East: Islam and Communism. By J. E. Alexander Back to Keynes: Mrs. Smith and the “ General Theory.” By Michael P. Fogarty Some Irish Economists: The Protectionist Preconceptions. By Colin Clark 1 he Altering Eye : Thoughts on the Blake Bicentenary. By Anthony Bertram

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

FRANCE AND

hope the angry exchanges between France and her allies over American and British shipments of arms to M. Bourguiba in Tunisia will be seen in proportion, for the matter is a small one, the arms unimportant, the principle upon which they were supplied one that has long been accepted—that friendly Governments have the right to buy arms, unless there is some compelling reason to the contrary, as there is where there is a latent state of war, as in the Levant.

M. Bourguiba has a very difficult part to play. He is in power as the leader in the successful struggle for the independence of Tunisia from France. But he has political opponents who think he is much too pro-Western and proFrench, insufficiently committed to making Tunisia a base for the Algerian Nationalists. If he were unseated, it would be to make way for someone whom the French would relish much less—someone with a name still to make and no achievement to point to already.

When their sharp criticisms of America and Britain have died away, the French will hardly fail to note how the whole episode followed directly from there being no Government in France for so many weeks, so much indecision in Paris, so that it became unreasonable to ask Washington and London to follow a leadership that was not in fact either consistent or forthcoming. At first the French wanted to be the only country from which Tunisia took arms, and, when this was seen to be an unreasonable limitation, the kind of arrangement that has been made should have been accepted. At present M. Bourguiba's requests are moderate, nor is there a great deal of money to spend, even on somewhat dated weapons, such as Czechoslovakia is often happy to supply.

The Tunisian episode has strengthened M. Gaillard in his first shakey weeks in office, as such international incidents always stimulate national feeling, and a sense of unity in the face of uncomprehending allies and a rather unfriendly world. We cannot expect that Great Britain should not be criticised with some severity, and with more severity because it is the same Foreign Minister, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, who was so thoroughly with the French and against the Ameri

HER ALLIES cans a year ago and is now with the Americans and against the French.

Meanwhile the French Communists, who have been having a very difficult time, since they could not deny that their mother-country was opposed to France in all the African issues, have at last something to build on in a Russian assurance that no Russian arms will go to Tunis. This is meant to help the propaganda of the French Communists that France should keep outside the Atlantic Community, avoid any closer relations with Germany, and be very careful not to let French policy trail along in the wake of a bellicose and inexperienced United States. All this meets with a certain response, and many Frenchmen who have no use for the French Communists think it can be rather useful that they are there to indicate that French public opinion cannot be ignored on the ground that it has no option but to continue quietly in the Anglo-American camp.

When M. Bourguiba meets the Sultan of Morocco this week, it is with the avowed intention of making a joint approach to France for negotiation over Algeria. Negotiation has achieved settlements with Tunisia and Morocco, and the beneficiaries are obviously entitled to urge that in the much thornier Algerian question a similar approach is the only sensible policy for the French to pursue. There is no prospect of Algerian nationalism fading away from inanition; there would not be even if the Nationalists could not rely, as they can, on a widespread support throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Their movement cannot be thought of as something parallel to the Mau Mau, a strange local eruption burning itself out and needing to be firmly handled during its season of violent vitality. Admittedly the Algerian problem is far more intractable than were those set to French statesmanship in Morocco and Tunis, because of the far greater magnitude of the settled French community, but this community, with its undeniable rights, should make a mixed constitution acceptable. But it is difficult to see what the French have to gain by delay, or in what way time could be on their side. The record points the other way, that much that might have been done four years or