April 4, 1936.

THE TABLET A Weekly Newspaper and Review

Vol. 16 7 . No. 5004.

L ondon, A pril 4, 1936 Registered at the General Post Office as a Newspaper.

S i x p e n c e

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS.

Page

WEEK BY WEEK ........................................... 421 LEADING ARTICLE ......................... 424 THE CHANGE IN THE TABLET .............. 425 NEWS AND NOTES ........................ 426 THE RE-MAKING OF EUROPE ............. 428

Page

THE MORALS OF MR. B O Z ....................... 430 PAUL’S CROSS ........................................... 431 THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD ............. 433 THE NEW BOOKS ................................. 435 PALM SUNDAY ........................................... 446

WEEK BY WEEK

THE BACKGROUND TO THE GERMAN PROPOSALS.

T T is four weeks to-day since Herr Hitler dra­

matically reoccupied the Rhineland. They have been weeks o f extreme tension with highly critical moments, and it is still premature to say that all danger is passed. But in the net result, the London Conferences, the proposals put forward by Britain, France and the other powers, and the German reply to those proposals this week, have materially improved the outlook. The way looks reasonably clear at the moment for those negotiations which should be a final liquidation o f the Treaty o f Versailles. The German reoccupation had three main motives. The new German Government came into power on a revival o f self-confident German patriotism. Herr Hitler restored to the Germans their pride in themselves, their dignity, and their feeling that they rank as one o f the great peoples o f the earth. When he restored conscription in contravention o f the provisions o f the Treaty o f Versailles, he had the nation behind him, because the right to impose conscription was felt to be an essential part o f national sovereignty. In the name o f national sovereignty the Rhineland was reoccupied, and the reoccupation ended the last o f the spectacular inequalities under which Germany suffered as the result o f defeat in the War. But there was a more concrete reason. The rise o f the new Germany, its successful haste in re-equipping itself for the exigencies o f modern war led, last year, to the negotiations o f the pact between France and Russia. This pact was modelled on the pacts which France had already concluded in 1925 with Poland and with Czechoslovakia. From the French side it wns but an extension o f a policy which has been pursued alongside o f the League o f Nations, a policy o f definite two-sided pacts with the other neighbours o f Germany. The earlier pacts, like the consistent French support o f the Little Entente, had been accepted without violent protest by the Republican regime in Germany. But a Franco

New Series. Vol. CXXXV. No. 4403.

Soviet pact was viewed very differently, and throughout last year Herr Hitler spoke strongty against it. The conflict with Communism lies at the root o f Herr Hitler’s career. Thus, in his speech to the Reichstag on March 7 he said : “ The first contact with Bolshevism in 1917 brought revolution upon ourselves a year later, the second contact was in itself sufficient to bring Germany in a few years to the brink o f a collapse into Communism. I severed that connection, and by so doing snatched back the country from destruction. Nothing will induce me to pursue any other course than that which my experience, insight and foresight dictate, and I know that this conviction has become the firmest tenet in the ideology o f the whole National-Socialist movement. With unyielding determination we will deal with the social problems and maladjustments o f our people by evolutionary methods, and thus secure to ourselves the blessings o f tranquil development, to the benefit o f all our fellow-countrymen; and the ever new problems which arise in the process will fill us with the jo y that comes to those who cannot live without work and the problems which it entails. Applying now this fundamental principle to European politics in general, I find that Europe is divided into two halves. The one half consists o f autonomous and independent national States, o f peoples with whom we are linked in a thousand ways through history and civilization, and with whom we wish to remain for ever linked, as with the free and independent nations o f other continents. The other half is ruled by that intolerant Bolshevist doctrine, with its aims o f general international domination which even preaches the annihilation o f the most eternal, and to us most sacred, values both o f this world and the next, in order to install a new world order abhorrent to us in culture, aspect and meaning. With that other half we desire no closer contact than is necessary in the way o f ordinary political and economic relationships.” He has, in short, declared that in his mind the saving o f Germany from Communism is the means to the salvation o f Europe from the same menace. That is the high mission which he sees the German race fulfilling.