THE TABLET January 31st, 1959. VOL. 213, No. 6193

THE TABLET

Published as a Newspatfeii

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER’& REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JANUARY 31st, 1959

NINE PENCE

Councils in the Modern Age: Changing Conditions since Trent

The Church: Idea, and Fact: The Mind of F. D. Maurice. By the Abbot of Downside A General Council: The Approach to Separated Churches now and in 1868 b ree Church P innness: Opposition to the Confessional Schools. By A. C. F. Beales Born out of Wedlock: The New Legitimacy Bill. By Philip Bell, Q.C., M.P.

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

STILL FREEZING

AM tomorrow ” continues to be the motto of the

Soviet Union, where the Government is fortunate in dealing with people who through the centuries have learned to be content with little. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 it was power over people with a long training in docility, well accustomed to seeing the Government do what it pleased, and thankful for small mercies. But the successive Plans for increasing production, although they have generally fallen short of expectations, have by now had an immense cumulative effect, and represent a total achievement which ought not to be belittled in the West merely because it is exaggerated in the East.

One part of tomorrow’s jam is a promise that direct taxation will end. This is a promise that will have more echoes outside than inside Russia. Intelligent Russians known very well that, where a Government has concentrated all economic authority, it can tax in all manner of ways that are less obvious than direct taxation. It is by indirect taxation that the poorer section of any community has always been made to contribute to the public revenue. A Government that controls trade and prices can collect what it chooses. But the propaganda value of this announcement is considerable at a time when all round the world most Governments are preoccupied with how to collect more; and in France in particular much heavier direct taxation is the order of the day.

The ministers of the new States of Asia and Africa, in their desperate search for revenue, will be tempted to draw the conclusion that the more the State plans the economy, and controls production and trade, the more it can conceal the burden it has to place on unwilling shoulders. It is the great weakness of parliamentary democracy such as we recommend to Asia and Africa, that it involves leaving an opposition free to exploit this natural discontent at heavy taxes. The Communist system has a double advantage for rulers, that it gives them much more power, and then frees them from anxiety about the reactions of public opinion. While it is to their collective interest as a governing group, the Communist system is highly dangerous to individuals. The front seats at Russian Party Congresses are seldom occupied by the same individuals for very long.

M. Khrushchev’s references to foreign policy, and the comments of Mr. Dulles and Mr. Nixon, give the impression that the effects of M. Mikoyan’s visit to America have already worn off. Mr. Dulles warns his countrymen, especially the business community, that any optimism is misplaced; that, while the Russians say they want a thaw, that is part of their tactical manoevring to gain advantages in a struggle which their theories teach them cannot and should not be relaxed, because it is inherent in the nature of human society. It is the struggle of the new against the old, and the new is bound to prevail, and has no need to reconcile itself to any passive conception of co-existence when it can keep on helping history forward.

It is rather surprising how both the Russian and the American statesmen agree in describing the future of Germany as the key to future relations, since the cold war goes on all over the world, and would still be with us even if, as seems so totally unlikely, some way was found of ending the tension over divided Germany.

Talking to the West German Ambassador in Moscow, Herr Kroll, M. Khrushchev was made to fall back on the blunt assertion that he simply does not believe that Dr. Adenauer represents the East Germans as well as the West Germans. This is a question of fact which can very easily be ascertained, and it is where the Soviet leaders are on the weakest ground. They continually invoke the notion of the people, in People’s Courts and the rest of it. But even if they were known to exclude from their East German electorate all the bourgeois, a working-class vote would mark the end of the East German Communist State. Let it be tested.