THE TABLET March 14th, 1959. VOL. 213. No 6199

\Bh: A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

MARCH 14th, 1959

NINEPENCE

The Satellite Empire : M. Khrushchev’s Worry Christians in Iraq l Catholic Schools in Moslem Lands. By Alan Neame More Catholic Marriages l An Increasing Proportion. By A. E. C. W. Spencer Manning, Dilke and Virginia Crawford: By Francis Bywater At the Foot of the Cross : Lenten Meditations: V. Two Absentees. By Michael Hollings

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

MEASURING GAPS

r j 'H E R E are plenty of reasons why Mr. Macmillan’s welcome in Paris was correct rather than warm. The most important is the French feeling th a t France is a mainland Power, with an interest, only second to that of the West Germans, in seeing th a t British and American troops should remain in Germany. There is a recent back history when at the last minute, five years ago, the British agreed to increase their contingent in order to secure French assent to a measure of German rearmament in a European Defence Community. Now the French suspect th a t we want to whittle away that commitment. Any plans fo r a limited withdrawal of troops from Germany commonly involve stationing more American troops in France, and th a t again is not what is wanted. The French prefer Anglo-American forces to remain in Germany itself, while the bulk of the French Army is preoccupied in North Africa.

Then there is the new solidarity between Dr. Adenauer and General de Gaulle. Dr. Adenauer wants the new French Government to show itself at least as whole-hearted for the European cause as the old Fourth Republic ministries consistently did. He wants French support against changes in the status of East Germany. He is offering something very valuable in return, German financial support during this difficult time for the French economy. He represents a Germany of which very few Frenchmen feel at all afraid—a Germany minus Prussia, militarily weak but economically the strongest part of Western Europe. The idea that there must be a change of relationship, a real understanding and co-operation between Frenchmen and Germans, has survived and grown stronger over forty years, ever since the appalling mutual slaughter of the trench war. It even survived the rise of the Third Reich, and was behind the wide acceptance in France of the Pétain policy.

How imperative it is for the French not to live in the past is shown by the acceptance by General de Gaulle of this new policy. The French have indeed no option except to be Europeans. But they have splendid prospects in proportion as the European programme succeeds ; and its success depends mainly on the success of Western Germany, which has just overtaken Britain for second place as an exporting nation, after the United States. This is only the beginning of what can be hoped for as German manufacture obtains in the Common Market the one thing that it has hitherto lacked—free access to a mass market.

Very little prospect is left of a free-trade area since the Common Market countries met at Brussels last week. They showed themselves prepared to consider extending the reductions of quotas to the European neighbours of the Six, but only on a restricted l i s t ; and they are now too interested in the success of their joint movement to reduce their tariffs year by year to each other to consider jeopardising a hopeful venture.

Great fortunes will be made in Germany and invested in France and Italy. In all this Great Britain is standing aside in a way that we believe will look very strange in ten and still more in twenty years’ time. But this detached attitude to the economic future of Europe does not make a good preparation for the assumption of diplomatic leadership by Britain in the handling of the German future.

It is requiring all Mr. Macmillan’s tact, his willingness to describe himself as coming to give a personal report to General de Gaulle and Dr. Adenauer, to make his leading role acceptable. When Mr. Dulles takes a leading part, there is plenty of European murmuring, that the Americans do not really understand this or that side of an international question. But there is also basically an extreme unwillingness in Europe to do anything that might lose or diminish American interest in the Continent. Mr. Dulles will never know how much he owes to the Republicans of 1920 who caused America to withdraw from the international commitments that Woodrow Wilson wanted to undertake. In the second German war the Americans played a much