THE TABLET, November 7th, 1959. VOL. 213, No. 6233

Published as a Newspar«

THE TABLET

A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

NOVEMBER 7th, 1959

NINE PENCE

File Confused Society : Signposts in All Directions

Irish Emigration : l l . A New Type of Emigration. By G a rre t FitzG erald Central African Federation : The Bishops’ Anxieties and Sir Roy Welensky's Reply I lie Phenomenon of Man : Teilhard de Chardin in English. By Bernard Towers Eate Season Stratford : Two Ways with Shakespeare. By Robert Speaight

I he Second Council of the Vatican: Cardinal T a rd in i’s Press Conference

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

NO MAGIC IN MEETING

J I was a sudden but real concession that was announced on Tuesday by the Soviet delegate to the conference at Geneva which is seeking to obtain the agreed abandonment of tests of nuclear weapons ; even if it was made in order to avert the break-down of the conference, which had come to seem likely. The Soviet Union will after all co-operate in jointly investigating new techniques for the detection of underground explosions.

A few days earlier there had been much bonhomie but little sign of readiness to yield ground in the address which M. Khrushchev delivered to the Supreme Soviet. He began by speaking of “ the difficult position ” in which, he said, God would be placed if the people of the Communist countries should start praying for the liberation of the rest of the world from capitalism while the rest of the world continued to pray for the liberation of those countries from Communism. It was an echo of one of the things that had most irked him in the United States, to find a week of prayer in progress “ for the peoples enslaved by Communism.” This he has been unable to fo rg e t; it rankled, apparently, much more than anything said by the Mayor of Los Angeles or anyone else. Later in this speech to the Supreme Soviet last Saturday M. Khrushchev repeated the view that a summit conference must meet as soon as possible. “ If the major questions were solved before a meeting of the Heads of Governments,” said he, “ it would be a meeting not for the solution of urgent questions but for joint fishing.” “ However,” he added, “ I do not fish.”

But Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, addressing the new House of Commons, had shown how much progress can be made outside a summit conference. There is indeed no magic in round-the-table meetings, and if the Press of the world crowds round the keyhole, with highly competitive correspondents and newspapers trying to know or to guess a little more than their rivals, the setting really becomes more prejudicial than useful. The great merit of what are called the ordinary diplomatic channels is that through them proposals can be advanced, commented upon, amended, or, it may be, dropped without making headlines or involving prestige.

In such a matter as disarmament there are proposals made to catch the attention of the world, like expressions of readiness to disarm totally, and there are more limited practical proposals, with the great merit than one step can lead naturally to another. On total disarmament it is important to recognise that there must always be a residual minimum of force at the disposal of Governments, because where it does not exist there is a direct invitation to political parties to arm themselves and challenge the Government. We can immediately think of many countries, like Hungary, where this would be a happy outcome ; for the Hungarians threaten nobody else but profoundly yearn to be rid of a Government imposed on them by the Russians. But hard cases make bad law, and on the whole it is very much to the advantage of humanity that there should be large political societies, able to give millions of people law and order, even where the law and order fall very far short of what justice properly requires. If no Governments had armies behind their police there could be a swift racial fragmentation in Europe, and disarmament, has always, in all serious discussions, stopped short of being complete. What is new, and should be helpful today, is that never before has there been such a superstructure of immensely costly weapons which no Government could conceivably employ in maintaining its authority at home.

The nuclear disarmament conference having recovered itself at Geneva, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, for Great Britain, has made some new suggestions which it is greatly hoped will not be resented by the French as designed to prevent France from qualifying as a nuclear Power.