THE TABLET September 19th, 1959. VOL. 213. No. 622f5

TH E TABLET

Published as a Newspaper

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840 SEPTEMBER 19th. 1959

NINEPENCE

Expectancy in Russia: a New Situation

German Protestants and the Coming Council: By Gerard Hughes, s .j . Better Views of tran ce: 1. A Freer and Purer Air. By Pierre Janelle

11. Portrait of a Diocese. By Ernest Jeanneau d lie Lite of Ronald Knox: IV : A t the Old Palace. By Evelyn Waugh b ilins at Venice: Rossellini’s Return. By Maryvonne Butcher Studying the Faithful: From Head-counting to Psycho-sociology. By A. E. <T. W. Spencer.

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

THE PRICE OF LIBERTY

M KHRUSHCHEV has made,his exuberant appear­

ance in the United States, determined that he shall not be blamed if the atmosphere is at all chilly, his ears only for applause while his guards busily photograph every sign of a hostile demonstration so that they may be well equipped afterwards if need be to publish pictures showing how rudely the vicious Americans received this well-intentioned harbinger of peace. But all the first reports to the Soviet public have been of the warmth of the American people’s welcome.

“ In our system,” said President Eisenhower as he greeted his guest on the air-field, “ the people themselves establish and control the Government.” It seems a pity that M. Khrushchev cannot break his homeward journey to visit this country and so supplement the impressions of the Western world that he will have gained in the United States with the spectacle of a parliamentary election in its later stages. Political leaders might be reluctant to take time off from their constituencies to entertain him, but a rapid tour of the more lively marginal constituencies, if difficult to arrange, might at least persuade him that the parties are not secret partners, shadowboxing to keep the proletariat under.

Sir David Eccles fears that this election campaign is going to be a dirty one ; and, while the first reflection of every reasonable man must be to hope that he is wrong, acrimony between the contestants does begin to be useful as well as unpleasant when boredom seizes the electorate, as the Spectator seems to hope as well as think it will. A bad-tempered election does at least arouse interest, and even passion, among the jaded electors, as among the witnesses of a cock-fight; and the greater the rancour left among the unsuccessful candidates the greater the chance that, even if everyone else is bored, they and their friends of the new parliamentary opposition at least will be determined to exercise that vigilance which assuredly is the price of liberty. However much party-politics may be regarded as a charade, it will always be important that somebody shall do this. Party Programmes

It is a merciful as well as necessary dispensation which restricts a general election campaign to a brief period, within which party programmes must be rushed swiftly from the Press- the Conservative one came last weekend, the Labour and Liberal ones come now— while secondary manifestoes on a range of affairs jostle for attention and are soon submerged. But there is much to be said for keeping the attention fixed more firmly on what has been drafted and published at greater leisure, without the thought of polling-day so much in the minds of the draftsmen. Nobody will expect a party that is in opposition to commit itself in too much detail to particular courses of action to be taken in an unpredictable future, but the broad statements of party positions will often make a deeper impression when they are published without an election immediately impending.

So it is that the British Labour Party’s election manifesto has been preceded by a week by the publication of the draft programme of the Social Democratic Party in Germany, where federal elections are not due until 1961. This appears in preparation for the party congress later in the autumn, but thereafter, in the form in which it is adopted, it will be the official “ platform ” on which the election campaign will be fought eighteen months afterwards. The flight from Socialism is so complete as to make the British Labour Party seem by contrast to the continentals like the last stronghold of the old formulas, the tradition-loving British clinging to