THE TABLET June J3th, 1959. VOL 213, No. 6212

Published as a Newspapef

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

JUNE 13th, 1959

N1NEPENCE

The Light of Day l The Press and Abuses of Power

Old Rome and New: Constantinople and the Holy See. By Joseph M inihan

Plircell aild Handel r Some Centenary Reflections. By Anthony M ilner Man of Taste: The Biography of Edward Marsh. By Robert Speaight Walpole’s Gothick Castle: An Evening a t Strawberry Hill. By Aubrey Noakes

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

THE OLD MAN

TP HE latest Russian offers at Geneva seem to be still designed to gain more international recognition for Moscow’s German Communist protégés. The occupational rights of the Western Powers are to go on for another year, according to the most credible accounts of these offers, and during that year the East German Government will be brought nearer to the centre of the stage. Conferences with the Russians resemble nothing so much as master chess, in the search for small advantages which will prove far from small later on. This may not be quite the end at Geneva, but it is now almost certain that some such result will be all there is to show ; and it is what Dr. Adenauer has always expected, and preferred. We are not surprised that he wants to stay at the helm over the next two critical years.

It looks as though, with some concessions to Dr. Erhard, he will be confirmed by the party in the chancellorship. There have been widespread expressions of concern lest this assertion of personal authority should cause the world to wag its head knowingly and say that, painfully though the Germans may try to learn democracy, what they really like is to lead or to be led, and that the new Constitution is barely dry before its spirit is contravened. The criticisms are excessive. No one would have made such criticisms if Dr. Adenauer had mérely continued as Chancellor, and the reasons, which are quite substantial ones, for his wanting to retain power over these critical months, were just as strong when he first announced that he would become President.

It was clear then that, whether Mr. Dulles lived or not, the Eisenhower Administration was entering on its last phase. Next year all the interests in the United States will be concentrated on the Party Conventions, and the choice of the next President. As Dr. Adenauer looks round his principal allies, it is General de Gaulle who reassures him most, that he will be in power this time next year, and that his outlook will be what it is today. Britain, like America, may have a different

OF THE C.D.U. Government by then, or Mr. Macmillan may still be in power, with Dr. Adenauer a little uneasy that, apart from any electoral considerations of giving the British public the gestures it expects, there is a genuine conviction in Whitehall that flexibility will still be found rewarding.

Flexibility is a particularly disquieting conception in Dr. Adenauer’s view if the Foreign Ministers’ Conference achieves no more than agreement to disagree over Berlin. Dr. Adenauer never believed in the Conference, and still less in a summit, but he is undoubtedly right in thinking that, whatever the outcome at Geneva, the British Government will not want to be as bleakly negative as he is content to be. One portent is the Anglo-Russian Trade Agreement, which, though small in its immediate exchanges, could develop. This agreement has provoked questions, particularly in America, why this moment was chosen, why it could not have been deferred for a few months, could not have been indicated as something waiting in the wings if the Russians would make some constructive concessions in the Disarmament or the Foreign Ministers’ Conference.

All in all, no one can blame Dr. Adenauer for deciding to remain where he is, presumably till the next Federal election in 1961. By that time the Common Market policy will have begun to show solid results, and the mutual quota and tariff reductions will give the promise of the great free market awaiting German manufactures. Dr. Adenauer likes the Little Six for the political promise of a progressive Customs Union between France and Germany, as well as the other four, where Dr. Erhard, regarding economic policy not as a means to a political end but as an end in itself, is more sympathetic to a larger free trade area for manufactures. It seems unlikely that the seven European countries outside the Common Market, most of them because Britain is outside, would be able to do a great deal for each other. But they can do something, and the Scandinavian countries in particular will be in a better bargaining position to see that the Common