THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 170 No. 5091)

LONDON NOVEMBER 27th, 1937

SIXPENCE

IN THIS ISSUE

TROTZKY AGAINST STALIN A Review of the Communist Quarrel by Christopher Hollis

HAWTHORNE’S DAUGHTER The Story of a Religious Foundress by J. Brodrick, S.J.

ON LIBERALISM IN SPAIN

By M. C. D’Arcy, S.J.

FOREIGN BROADCASTS Full List o f Contents on page 712.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Two Paths

Very little was disclosed to the House of Commons about Lord Halifax’s long talks with Herr Hitler. Certain Press forecasts as that a deal was to be done, Germany being content with a general recognition of a right to the eventual return of the actual colonies lost at the end of the War, in exchange for a free hand to exert pressure on Austria and Czechoslovakia, have been explicitly disavowed by the British Government. It is indeed not an arrangement that would be made, though very much the same result is extremely likely to come about. It needs very little now for there to be a tacit admission, from the British side, that the Germans have a reasonable claim to control some of the tropical territory held by the western European Powers. It needs very little, too, for it to be quite plain that Britain will not consider the frontiers or the constitutions of Austria or Czechoslovakia as certain causes for hostility or war. Only within the framework of the League, with the widespread feeling in Britain that a system of automatic collective security could yet be salvaged, could any Government lead public opinion to a war over the boundaries of Central Europe. Today the unworkableness as well as the inherent injustice of a system under which everything would turn on juridical considerations, on possession in 1919, on technical definitions of aggression and sovereignty, is so widely recognized that no one suggests putting these living questions under the injurious machinery of Geneva. Direct negotiation is much more fruitful.

The Germans must be conceded their first contention, that to talk all the time in terms of general settlements embracing East and West and of the indivisibility of peace, is to stultify discussion at the start. Progress will only come by taking up issues one by one, and from that point of view the fewer parties to each discussion the better. The British problem is to reconcile this technique, a return to the old diplomacy, with the protection of British interests and the stability of Europe. Our position is that we do not greatly mind what the frontiers in Central Europe are, but we do greatly care that there shall not be frontiers which are indefinite sources of contention. The need for stability is, at the moment, a much more real necessity for Great Britain, than countering the remote threat of a German hegemony in Europe. The way is yet very far before that sort of threat could become real. Austria is not a country which can be partitioned as Poland was partitioned. It must keep its independence, or it must be absorbed in the Reich, and the second alternative will, at once, create a demand for the return of the Tyrolean Austrians now incorporated in Italy. The Future of the Entente

It will be a grave error of judgment if the chance of improving relations with Germany today is foregone on the ground that the great object of German policy is to separate the British from the French, and that such separation must be at all costs prevented. Too high a price can be paid for solidarity with France. 1937 may not provide any event which will cause it to be recognised as a spectacular turning point, but it is a time comparable to the years 1903 and 1904, when the last possibilities of a German understanding were, in fact, buried and the Entente Cordiale in the face of the new German Power, was created. The Entente