THE TABLET February 21st. 1959. VOL. 213, No. 6196

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0

FEBRUARY 21st, 1959

NINEPENCE

1he MOSCOW Outing: A Visit, not a Conference

Purpose in Punishm ent: T h e W h ite P aper on Penal R efo rm . By S arah F. M cC abe

Seventy Stepney Eamities: P o r tra i t of an E a s t L o n d o n P a r is h : II. By E. L. Way

1tie Case oi Johnnie Byrne: W ilfred F ie n b u rg h ’s Novel. By C h r is to pher Hollis

At the Loot of the Cross: L en te n M e d i ta t io n s : II . T h e Tw o Thieves. By M ichael Hollings

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

CYPRIOTS IN LONDON

' J 'H E narrow escape from death of the Turkish Prime

Minister, a central figure in the Cyprus settlement, has interposed a delay in proceedings which it was hoped would gather a swift momentum, sufficient to prevent their becoming bogged down in a morass of amendments and counter-proposals from those who were not present at Zurich. It is a great thing that the Greeks and the Turks, through their Foreign Ministers, should have agreed; and it should be sufficient were it not that neither is a Government that has actually to live in Cyprus and work the new arrangement. This is where the Archbishop and the twenty Cypriot advisers he has brought with him find their strength. I t is they who will have to work the new constitution with the Turks and the British.

It is a,great pity that the Archbishop is always called “ Archbishop,” when he is acting in a very different capacity, and one he has inherited, not invented, that of Ethnarch, or leader of the people. The Turks found it convenient in the past to hold the Archbishop responsible for the conduct of his flock towards the occupying Power. The fact that he is an Archbishop has made him more unpopular in England than he would have been had he always been thought of as the Ethnarch. His refusal before his deportation to speak out against the actual form of capricious assassination and the murder of innocent victims, often picked by chance, has never seemed to be covered by his argument that what looks like terrorism from the outside was seen quite differently, as courageous patriotism, by Greek-Cypriots. There are plenty of examples—India is the chief— showing how independence can be won by methods that do not involve shooting people in the back. Admittedly, once he had been deported, he could not be expected to say anything, because it would look as though he were trying to buy his passage back. But he could have spoken out from the very first.

The question whether Cyprus as a republic will remain in the Commonwealth is not of the importance from the British point of view that it ought to be. The countries of the Commonwealth do exactly what they please, Ceylon remains a member while asking Great Britain to cease maintaining naval bases on the island, and there is no minimum common obligation for mutual defence. The Cypriots have, however, a strong material interest in British bases. They cannot hope to see a continuance of anything like the military expenditures of the last few years, but how much is spent will obviously be determined by the estimate th a t is placed on the prospect of security of tenure and a well-disposed population.

Membership of the Commonwealth will obviously be a great convenience to those Cypriots who already work, or may want to work, in Britain. I t can make all the difference between uninhibited entry and the formalities and obstacles which aliens meet. No doubt they will point to Ireland, to prove that it is possible to have the best of both worlds, and that the sense of complete separation and sovereign independence, such as never seems quite complete till all links with the occupying Power have been broken, can be combined with free entry for individuals. But Ireland is really not a parallel. That the Irish are not treated as foreigners in this country may be a disappointment to the extreme Republicans, but it is a recognition of realities, of the union which economics prescribe taking de facto precedence of political separation. There is no > parallel reason why the Cypriots, if they become an independent republic, should be on a different footing from the Greeks, or any other Eastern Mediterranean people, as far as the laws of Britain are concerned. The New Government in Italy

With the return to the Italian premiership of Signor Segni, the Christian Democratic party resumes what may be considered its normal colour of moderate conservatism. in a way that suggests that, although it is not an old party, it has a settled tradition which was