AUTOBIOGRAPHY of G. K. C H E S T E R T O N ^ «

THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 168 No. 5028

LONDON SEPTEMBER 19th, 1936

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK .

THE TRADE UNIONS AND EUROPE ; THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL ; AFTER SAN SEBASTIAN ; SYRIA ; THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION LEADING ARTICLES ........................

THE AUTHORITY O F THE STATE ; GOOD NAMESJTO 368

365 THE CHURCH ABROAD ........................ 378

THE MEXICAN B ISH OPS’ PASTORAL ; RUSSIA ; INDIA

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, I I I ........................

By G. K. CHESTERTON

SHOUT THE SPAIN I SAW

369 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ........................ PLAN^ FOR PEACE; J . MARITAIN ; THE HALLEY

By RAYMOND LACOSTE

STEWART LECTURES

FATHER COUGHLIN AND

PARTY ...................... THE THIRD 371 LETTERS TO THE ED ITO R ........................ 390 Bv CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS THE SALZBURG FESTIVAL 373 THE CALENDAR .................................... 393

By J . POPE-HENNESSY ROME LETTER

DUBLIN LETTER

375 APOSTOLATE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE .. 394

376 CHESS AND CROSSWORD........................ 396

381

385

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Trade Unions and Europe

There are increasing signs of a complete change in the attitude of organised Labour towards rearmament. Mr. Ernest Bevin’s speech at the Trades Union Congress foreshadowed the abandonment of the attitude which has been maintained since the war. Mr. Bevin enjoyed a great personal triumph, and so did the secretary, Sir Walter Citrine. They secured huge votes for the official policy of the T.U.C. of nonintervention in the Spanish Civil War, and their intellectual superiority was as decisive as their numerical majority when it came to the vote. Mr. Bevin has the reputation of being very autocratic ; he is also credited with large political ambitions, and many observers consider him the most likely of the possible Prime Ministers in the ranks of Labour. They think that one of the Labour seats where the Trade Union movement pays the expenses will soon be found for Mr. Bevin, and that he will force his way to the leadership at once. Mr. Attlee is by comparison a man of much lighter calibre, who was agreed upon as a caretaker in the leadership as being without strong enemies anywhere.

There is a growing disposition in the Trade Unions to stop their officials from entering Parliament. It is felt that the high offices in the Union are of sufficient importance to be ends in themselves and not stepping stones, but Mr. Bevin dealt trenchantly with the people who foolishly object to the Trades Union Congress discussing general questions of foreign policy. He replied that as long as wars are fought by the exertions of Trade Unionists they must be expected to have views and to air them. In the same way, as long as the Trade Unions provide so much of the strength of the Labour movement, they are unwise not to make it easy for their outstanding men to play a dominant part in Parliament. There is at present an obvious cleavage, keenly resented by Labour intellectuals, between the

Trade Union leaders who have their feet planted firmly on the ground, and the irresponsible progressive freelances in Parliament and outside it, who want to commit the movement to the most ambitious and hazardous schemes for the immediate betterment of mankind.

The Trade Union leaders have to make verbal concessions to these elements who enjoy an intellectual leadership among many of the Labour rank and file. That is the explanation of much of the language which appears in Trade Union congresses and meetings. But it is also true that the Trade Union leaders think about Europe in over-simple terms. The Trade Unions have been built on the principle of collective security and of collective bargaining ; the last hundred years have seen the successful growth, not only of individual unions, but of machinery for common action by all the unions together. This idea is easily carried over into international politics, and makes the idea of collective security instinctively attractive. The great revelation to Socialists of the last war was the tremendous strength of national feeling which destroyed the Second International, and today’s attempts to work through the League of Nations are attempts to harness and use national feeling, since it cannot be directly challenged. The Three Internationals

There have been three Internationals. Among the minor anniversaries, this month sees the seventieth of the first meeting of the First International at Geneva. That International had a brief and stormy life in the ’sixties under the leadership of Marx himself, and it may be said to have died of excessive revolutionary activity. It was very violent, but it represented lucidly the first experimental attempts at international revolutionary work. It could not control its members, and Bakunin and the Anarcho-Syndicalists soon split off in disgust to follow their own lines, principally in Italy and Spain.