I h b i a u l l .1 January luth, B/M/. VOL. 2 L \ xso. mstcj

TH E TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Nfewspapet*

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JANUARY 10th. 1959

NINEPENCE

M. Mikoyail in Washington: The P rospects o f D ebate

Launching the Fifth Republic: F r a n c e ’s E u ro p e an Policy. By F r a n k M acM illa n

1 lie American Business Man: Changes a n d C o n t ra s ts : II. By Colin C la rk

Russian Painting: The E xh ib itio n a t B u rlin g ton House. By John Beckwith

Plain-Chant Origins: Deficiencies o f the Solesmes School. By A n th o n y M ilner

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

AFRICA AND EUROPE

' y H E African Economic Commission meeting in Addis

Ababa has been led by the independent African States other than E g y p t ; by E thiopia and Liberia, Morocco and Tunisia ; and the meeting has so fa r been discouraging alike for th e European countries established in Africa and for th e Egyptians who hope to make Cairo the chief city of the continent. Mr. Profumo, the new Parliamentary Under-secretary at the Foreign Office, has been representing Great Britain, but because Britain is a Colonial Power he was not elected to a vicepresidency of the Commission.

The British disappointment is, however, much less than the French, for the Commissioners declared against African territories joining the European Common Market, when the French have fought the battle for their own African territories to belong. The Common Market is too strong meat for the new African nationalism. If Tunis and Morocco joined, while Algeria will probably be incorporated as a Common Market country, not only the manufactures of the European Little Six, but capital, primarily from Germany, and settlers, primarily from Italy, would have free entry to all these countries, and for th a t the North Africans are not prepared. They are not even prepared to enter a Free Trade A rea—that is, to have no tariffs against the manufactured goods of other members of the Area, while retaining local power to control the entrance and exit of capital, and of immigrants. The statesmen of these countries want foreign capital but on their own terms, and they want it to develop not only transport but industry. They see very clearly that their two main objectives, to count for more in the world and to raise the standard of living of their people, both require industrialisation. It is the sovereign panacea of the twentieth century. The most whole-hearted freetrade theorists have always made one exception, conceding that it may be right to protect infant industries which otherwise could never start, although, of course, if they are enabled to start, and to grow in importance,

they then become a powerful vested interest to maintain the protection th a t has made them possible.

What the African countries seem to envisage is a Commission which will be a common institution, bringing them into relations with each other, and making it easier for them to borrow. It can well give a powerful impetus to the movement for political independence, because it can go some way to meet the objection th a t no-one will want to lend money to unstable republics where future Governments may easily lack the ability, and perhaps the will, to fulfil the obligations undertaken by their predecessors. The Commission offers an alternative to the programme of economic progress in close association with France which all the French territories, save for French Guinea, accepted last autumn.

I t is a first beginning which contains the still faint but discernible outline of an Africa reproducing the political features a t which the world has looked for a hundred and fifty years in Central and South America, a mosaic of States where once there had been two European Colonial Empires. What progress was made in the independent republics of Spanish America was due to their receptive attitude towards foreign capital. But it was a progress in the material order, which could have been turned to much better account had there been a different tradition of statesmanship, and a keener social conscience. But nothing would have been gained by a more hostile attitude to the foreign investor. The new African States are in a very different position, without a colohial class, their leaders much more nearly parallel to the few native Indian leaders like Juarez in Mexico ; vand they will be lost if they let their enthusiasm for an African nationalism run away with them when their progress is so intimately bound up with a close continuing association with Europe and America.

When the Queen goes to Ghana, later this year, Dr. Nkrumah’s Government propose to receive her as Queen of Ghana, a constitutional sovereign acting there by the advice of her Ministers, and delivering the speeches they