THE TABLET August 2nd, 195S. VOL 212. No. 6167

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER’& REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

AUGUST 2nd, 1958

N1NEPENCE

The European Customer: The Oil Consumers' Advantage Manning the Welfare State: Can the Church Help? By T. N. Rudd

Individual and Society: An Essay in Social Philosophy. By the Bishop of Salford

A Question of Evidence: Miss Rebecca West’s Literary Enquiry. By lan Gregor

A Conference on Catechetics: The Prospect of a National Catechetical Centre

Critics" Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Talking at Random

THEdraft Constitution for France proposes, as was

STRENGTHENING FRANCE

universally expected, a President with much greater powers, similar to those of the American President. He is to be elected, as the American Constitution originally envisaged, by a College of Electors, but the French College is to be much more widely drawn and from the educated classes. The parliamentary tradition in France since the first Revolution is a very strong one, embodying all the French suspicion of the personal rule under which they have so often fallen, and the Assembly will be in some respects stronger than the American Congress. A majority of the Assembly, by withdrawing its confidence, will be able to bring down a ministry as Congress cannot do. On the other hand, the Government can pass an act, over the Assembly’s opposition, after sixty days.

last election, he can dissolve the Chamber and order a new election at any time. This should be one of his main sources of power, such as an American President does not possess. In its draft form, the Constitution gives both the President and the Assembly more power against each other than the President and Congress enjoy in the States, and the risk of deadlocks in a country so ideologically divided seems still to be very great. The Chamber is to sit for less than half the year, but the President will not really be free to pick his own Cabinet, or to govern with a hostile Chamber, as, in the first revulsion against the mess that the Chamber of Deputies had made of French policy, it was expected General de Gaulle would propose.

We can see in this the hands of M. Mollet and M. Pflimlin, representing the Socialist and MRP parties, who have been at the heart of the life of the Fourth Republic. They are prepared to rob the deputies of the chief attraction of parliamentary l i f e ^ th e strong probability th a t every deputy has had of becoming a Minister, the good chance he has had of having his turn at forming an administration and, though it might not last a month, being Monsieur le Président for the rest of his life. This may make the Chamber less attractive as a profession, and may make its members more eager to assert them selves against the Executive, not because the constant new administrations will any longer suit the parties, but in order not to be reduced to the level of the Assemblies in autocratically ruled countries. Deputies are to be eligible to be Ministers, but must then vacate their seats and let someone else stand in their place at a by-election.

The Republic, “ indivisible, lay, social and democratic,” will reflect the popular will through several channels, and not only through the Chamber of Deputies, and this is a great step forward, and one to be recommended to the new democracies round the world. It will be the President and not the Assembly who will have a fixed term of office, and, provided a year has elapsed since the

Particular importance attaches now to the proposals by which any overseas territory can vote to become part of France, or become a State in a French federation. This second development is the one to which the legislative councils in the French colonies naturally lead, and it seems certain to be much more popular with the educated minorities, who make the politics of these territories, and want to be as independent as possible, if the financial loss will not be too heavy. They look admiringly a t Dr. Nkrumah. when as a member of the United Nations he offers to send a battalion from Ghana to take part in United Nations police work. That is status in the world The Baghdad Pact

The coup in Iraq has brought the United States more fully than ever before into a special alliance with Russia’s southern neighbours — Turkey, Persia and Pakistan—arvd the alliance of these countries, which have the geographical position and infantry, with Britain and America, who have the modem weapons, adds up to a very formidable combination. I t is one which the Russians quite understandably dislike, although they can hardly say it has been brought into existence by anything other than their own demeanour.

The Arab peoples ought to hold themselves very