THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 172 No. 5144

LONDON DECEMBER 10th 1938

SIXPENCE

IN THIS ISSUE

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

A Study of the New Romanity by J. Brodrick, S.J.

TUNIS, FRANCE AND ITALY

The Historical Background

THE CHURCH IN SPAIN

V.—The New Vocations

FRANCE AFTER THE STRIKE

By Lucien Corpechot

NATIONAL DEFENCE

Editorial Full L ist o f Contents on page 784.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Franco-German Pact

Herr von Ribbentrop in Paris

The visit o f Herr Ribbentrop was no doubt intended to strengthen the present French Government which the Germans desire to see in power. I t was complementary to the visits which King Carol of Rumania and Prince Paul o f Jugoslavia have been paying in the west. I t is anticipated that by next spring the whole of Europe will be talking about the Ukraine, with the Germans effectively championing Ukrainian nationalism. When this happens there will be two schools o f thought in France, one which will say that all the reasons which were so strong in favour of the policy actually followed last September, apply much more obviously further east, and one which will say that the Soviet and Poland must be supported all the more thoroughly because Czechoslovakia was not supported. But there can be little doubt th a t the prevailing opinion then, as now, will be against the attem pt successfuly to oppose the German designs. To most Frenchmen it is a great thing that those designs are, in fact, concerned with the distant border country, where Europe merges into Asia among populations which would have nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain by any change of overlordship. The head of the new Ukrainian National Army, which is being formed in Ruthenia, Prince Razumowski, has declared that by next June 43 million o f Ukrainians will demand their independence, with an army o f 200,000 men and German backing. I t is this shadow which lies across Polish policy. I f the Ukrainian claim were to be established, the loss to the vast bulk o f the U.S.S.R. would be proportionately very small by comparison with the loss Poland will suffer by the detachment o f Galicia.

The era of collective pacts signed in large concourses, with attendant ceremony, has been succeeded by an era of bilateral undertakings. The great value of bilateral pacts is their power o f covering precisely real points of friction. The Anglo-Italian agreement is a capital instance. They lose value in proportion to their vagueness, and the pact just signed by the Foreign Ministers o f Germany and France excluded from its range questions arising out o f the relations o f either o f the parties with any third Power. The pact, that is to say, in no wise limits Germany, for example, from giving the fullest support even to the last extremities to any claims which the Italians may advance against the French. Its value is wholly hypothetical unless it can be matched by a Franco-Italian understanding. Nevertheless, Herr R ibbentrop’s visit was only possible because there has been a real change in the international situation. The Völkischer Beobachter, when it declares the two countries face in different directions—France looks west and south, and Germany looks east—is expressing the real position now. The Italian Aspirations

Munich did a great deal fo r the peace o f Europe. Its real meaning was the peaceful abandonment by the French o f the predominant position they had enjoyed in Central Europe since the War. That predominance was plainly exceptional, but it has been unusual in history for Powers to recognize the shifting o f forces without an effort to preserve their own predominance. The French are open to criticism from the Czechs for their vacillations, but in essence they took the right