THE TABLET August 22nd 1959. VOL. 213. No. 6222

Published as a Newspaper

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 184 0

AUGUST 22 nd, 19 59

N1NEPENCE

Islam and Communism: Russian Progress among the Arabs

Irish Catholics ill England: Recent Immigration Figures. By A. E. C. W. Spencer

A Christian View of History: Father D ’A rcy’s Conversations. By T. S. Gregory

Heyond the Parish: The General Mission in France: II. By S. G. A. LufT

Critics" Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Chess

THE VOICE

r F H E speech of the French Premier, M. Debré, carried some strong expressions aimed primarily at the United States, and partly, perhaps, at' Britain, the general tenor being th a t the French are not sufficiently considered. In particular, M. Debré voiced the feeling of Frenchmen that their cause in North Africa is something more than the upholding of the interests acquired by France since 1830 ; that what is at issue is something much wider, the conditions of European and American participation in the development of the vast area adjoining Europe, crying out for the science and the capital which the local peoples cannot provide for themselves,-but which it is so obviously to their interest to see provided. What is in the best interests of the local people is also in the interests of Europeans and Americans with the know-how and the money. But this fruitful partnership does not appeal so much to local nationalist leaders, unless they are left entirely free to dictate its terms.

That is really what is at issue. Everyone is agreed on development, but not on the political setting in which it is to take place, and the French are fully entitled to ask for more support, especially from the United States, when they say there must be institutions and laws, and a distribution of political power which will protect costly installations in the desert. If enough money is spent, the Sahara can become not the synonym for arid sterility, but a most fruitful source both of mineral and agricultural wealth. This great work will not be done if there is a serious risk that unstable political regimes, in Algeria or somewhere else, are going to assert their sovereignty over the whole area in the name of nationalism or democracy.

The Americans have to meet the French suspicion that American corporations have a way of preferring to deal with weak and impecunious local Governments, instead of with the representatives of France. It is certainly true that the whole history of Central and South America, as Spanish and Portuguese historians look at it, is of the Americans and the British being determined to end the colonial rule of Spain and Portugal, with its restrictive protectionism and exclusion

OF FRANCE of the foreign investor and trader. What the Monroe Doctrine proclaimed was that Central and South America should be open to British and American enterprise, and the doctrine, when it was promulgated, meant much more to the British, who were then very much richer th an the Americans, and had much more foreign trade. I t marked the final victory in the struggle of the Spanish Main, the achievement of the British maritime resolve to break the closed trading system of the Spanish Empire.

Nineteenth-century capitalism favoured romantic nationalism because it was determined to open up new countries and the patriots could be relied upon to want help. What British capitalists did in the nineteenth century, American capitalists have taken the lead in doing in the twentieth. The pattern has reproduced itself in the new States of Asia and North Africa, with American diplomatic representatives making plain that their country understands all the feelings against Colonialism, and against any special inherited privileges enjoyed by European powers.

But the Americans need never have been anxious about insufficient opportunities for investment and trade. The position is just the opposite, that all the new countries are in competition for more and more investment ; th a t they are now inclined to demand it as a right, because they are under-developed countries, and to intimate that, if they do not receive enough, Communism will grow, and their countries will be added to the Communist camp. Today’s problem for the Americans, and for the European nations whose prosperity is giving them bigger surpluses to invest abroad, is to devise safeguards against the great political risks of unstable regimes succeeding one another, and all finding demagogic advantage in promising to make the foreign capitalist pay. There is a common interest of the lending and investing countries, and a number of international institutions like the World Bank provide the machinery. But there is no accepted code which the leaders of under-developed countries have accepted, or made their local public opinion accept, as equitable and as common-sense. There is