THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW
ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER
VOL. 172 No. 5134
LONDON OCTOBER 1st, 1938
SIXPENCE
IN THIS ISSUE
THE GERMANS IN EUROPE
Editorial
THE SPAIN OF THE NATIONALISTS
IV.—VALLADOLID AND THE PHALANGISTS
By Douglas Woodruff
KNOCK: A RESURRECTED SHRINE
By Herbert Thurston, S.J.
CATHOLIC EDUCATION IN AUSTRIA
BELGIAN NEUTRALITY
Full L is t o f Contents on page 420.
THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Munich Conference
The four days which elapsed between the breakdown a t Godesberg and the reunion, which is in process as we write, a t Munich, were days o f gathering crisis. While it seemed incredible that the small differences which remained unbridged could lead to catastrophic conflict, those differences were plainly no more than the ground upon which a trial of strength between the chief Powers of Europe was taking place. Aristotle’s dictum th a t wars are caused by trifles, but are not about trifles, has been very much to the point. What has been on test has been the willingness of the peoples of Britain and France to face the hazards of war, and what has been demonstrated is that they are prepared to face those hazards in order to maintain their place as leading Powers. Those Germans, so near to the centre of responsibility, who have repeatedly told Herr Hitler that the British would shy at the last fence, have had their answer, and the air has been cleared. The profound ■desire for peace, which was accompanied by a progressive mobilisation, has been incarnate in the Prime Minister, who was in the position of leading the country in measures for war, while remaining indisputably the obvious candidate for the Nobel prize for Peace. When he entered the House o f Commons on Wednesday he received an ovation which drowned the earlier criticism o f his policy o f meeting the substance o f the German claims. He owes it to Herr Hitler that no one today can say that what he was prepared to do he was doing from a desire to buy a temporary respite at any price, and he left for his third visit to Germany in a stronger position than at any time since the crisis began. We hope that by the time this issue o f T he T ablet reaches its readers, a Four-Power agreement, presumably on a basis o f immediate jo in t control in the Sudetenland, will have solved the immediate impasse and have prepared the way for a new understanding.
The tributes which Mr. Chamberlain received he had earned, not merely through the events o f the last two weeks, but by an earlier activity which alone has made his present initiatives possible. I t is very doubtful if there could have been any Munich conference but for Signor Mussolini’s response to Mr. Chamberlain’s request, and it is to Mr. Chamberlain’s resolute supersession o f Mr. Eden th a t the possibility o f the request to Italy was due. Italy is a much freer country than Germany for political discussion, and the extreme state of what Kai Lung terms “ no enthusiasm ” in Italy, for a war against Britain and France in order to make Germany stronger in central Europe, has been extremely clear to see. Such a conflict might well prove fatal for the new Italian Empire. It might easily disrupt the remarkable political unity which the country, from the King downwards, has maintained during the long political reign of the Duce. With his emphatic and pungent refusal to believe in world war, Signor Mussolini was careful to stand behind Germany, but it is hard to believe that even he and his Foreign Secretary did so with much heart. Three out of the four statesmen at Munich go there, desperately anxious for peace. The German Policy
The House o f Commons heard from the Prime Minister a very full account, and it was supplemented by a White Paper giving the text o f letters, o f the course o f his conversations with Herr Hitler. I t became clear that, as at Berchtesgaden, so at Godesberg, the attitude which the British Prime Minister encountered was more rigid, was nearer to decisive one-sided action, than he had envisaged or contemplated. In a candid moment, the German Fiihrer admitted at the second interview that he had never imagined that Mr. Chamberlain would be able to return so promptly with the French and Czech consents to self-determination for the Sutedenland. The Germans, in short, had agreed to discuss ways
