THE TABLET January 17th, 1959. VOL. 213. No. 6191

TH E TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JANUARY 17th, 1959

N1NEPENCE

The Witness of A rm s: No Unity without Authority The United States R e-v is ited : In partibus semi-fidelium. By Sir Arnold Lunn Uatholieism in Finland : Paradox of a Minority. By Ann D. Green A Tittle Centenary ! The End of the Stuart Holydays. By Gareth Edwards The Cardinal of M ex ico : Experience of Revolution. By Grenville Holms

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

CASHING THE BLANK CHEQUE

TN his first week as President General de Gaulle has acted with a boldness beyond the capacity of the Governments of the Fourth Republic, when the consequence of boldness was always a clearly predictable defeat in the Chamber for whatever uneasy coalition formed the ministry of the moment. This magnanimous act of amnesty, the release of seven thousand Algerian Nationalist prisoners, shows how the General now regards himself as deriving his power not from those who provided the initial impetus last May, who want to see a tough line in Algeria, but from the whole French nation. The nation is only interested in ends, not in means, in the preservation of France’s position in North Africa, and can very well appreciate that very little is lost and much may be gained by beginning with generous gestures intended to lower the temperature. If they succeed in doing that, it will be excellent. If, on the contrary, they have the opposite effect, and there is further encouragement to terrorism, and then more repression, it will greatly help the de Gaulle Government in the eyes of the world that it has begun like this.

The new austerity imposed on the French has come abruptly and drastically, and has left the public bewildered and resentful. Again, it is something that no ministry of the Fourth Republic could have attempted. Whatever the grumblings, the General is in an extremely strong position, not least from the care he took last autumn to preserve the continuity of French parliamentary democracy at a time when it was very discredited.

M. Debré as Prime Minister is really the symbol of de Gaulle’s determination to govern with and through the Chamber of Deputies. The General is himself the Head of the Government, as well as the Head of the State, and presides over his Cabinet. In the strict meaning of the word, there can be no other First Minister, or President of the Council, as French Premiers used to be called.

It remains to be seen whether this new French pattern will work better than the American separation between legislature and executive, which has the great advantage that the government of the United States goes on even when President and Congress are at loggerheads. General de Gaulle is committed to governing through a Cabinet and a Premier who have the confidence of the Chamber. That at any rate is the idea, although it has been whittled away : the Chamber will only sit for less than half the year, and the President can dissolve it instead of having to wait for periodical elections. The Chamber may well, in fact, come through the pressure of events to lose the importance the General wishes it to have. It is one of the lessons of history that it is very difficult to find a half-way house between an Assembly that is sovereign over policy and one that has very little real power. At the moment, General de Gaulle can do what he likes. Immensely fateful decisions like the whole European policy of closer union with the Common Market countries rest with him to decide. Forcing a Summit

M. Mikoyan’s visit to the United States has been an impudently successful affair, by-passing the American Government, which would not extend the sort of invitation that M. Khrushchev and Marshal Bulganin obtained from Sir Anthony Eden three years ago. The Hungarian Rising lies in between, and this is the first moment, but a nicely judged one, when M. Mikoyan can safely avail himself of the short memories of the American people, and their great desire to find some hopeful patches in the overcast international sky. His jokes and vulgarities and easy sociability have not notably softened the language in which Mr. Dulles has characterised the latest proposals about Berlin. But his terse characterisation of those proposals as stupid and fraught with danger is nevertheless part of a response which, like the Russian, is less rigid and unaccommodating than the earlier exchanges. M. Mikoyan can claim to have had something to do with that, taking advantage of the impression which Mr. Dulles has for so long given, and should have contrived not to give, that he did not want even to talk.