THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 168 No. 5036

LONDON NOVEMBER 14th, 1936

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK . .

THE DREAM AND THE BUSINESS ; IS PEACE INDIVISIBLE ? ; FRANCO AT MADRID ; THE POLISH FOREIGN MINISTER IN LONDON ; JEW S IN PALESTINE AND POLAND ; TERRIFIED O F WAR ; THE DISTRESSED AREAS ; PROFESSIONAL CHARITY ORGANIZERS ; THE CASE O F THE TALKING MONGOOSE

657 GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

665

ROME LETTER ..................................... THE CHURCH ABROAD ......................... 668 669

LEADING ARTICLES ......................... 660 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ......................... WAUGH IN ABYSSINIA ; MODERN TURKEY ; ELIZA­

672

OUTSIDE THE CHURCH ; NO TAILS FIVE POEMS FROM SPAIN

By ROY CAMPBELL

TOLEDO; HOT R IFLES; CHRISTS IN UNIFORM; THE ALCAZAR ; CHRIST IN THE HOSPITAL

661

BETHAN SEAMEN ; A. E. HO USMAN ; H ISTORY OF THE YORK SCHOOL O F GLASS PAINTING ; PSYCHOLOGY AND TEACHERS ; WILD BIRDS ; FICTION CHRONICLE

CHESS AND CROSSWORD......................... 680

LORD DAWSON AND THE BETTERMENT

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

681

OF THE RACE ..................................... 662 TOWN AND COUNTRY ......................... 682 BROTHER CAIN .....................................

By ARNOLD LUNN

WHY ENGLISHMEN HAVE TAILS

663 O B I T U A R I E S ................................................. 685

664 THE CALENDAR ..................................... 688

T = 3

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Dream and the Business

The past week has seen a number of speeches by British Ministers on the foreign policy of Britain in this critical year. Both Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Eden at the Mansion House and in Parliament have continued to speak in the vein which the Manchester Guardian unenthusiastically terms Faith, Hope, and Rearmament. The speeches have been well calculated to continue the tactics so ably used by the National Government at the election a year ago, of refusing to be behind the Opposition in protestations of devotion to League principles. But the form of Mr. Eden’s survey in the Commons when he discussed our relations with foreign powers, country by country, was itself a realisation that Europe today is not comprised within any League system ; indeed, the immediate difficulty is to hold a conference of the Locarno Powers to discuss an arrangement to replace Locarno. While such a limited piece of international work is proving so difficult to carry through, the large structure of an international order remains a remote ideal. A full Geneva system remains something which a number of powers for different reasons would like to see, but the dream must not distract the Government from the business in hand, the appeasement and smoothing-out of quarrels and incipient quarrels. While both Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Eden spoke of disarmament as a distasteful necessity which has been thrust upon this country, Mr. Eden recognised that armaments are not wasted when they are not used in war. The weight a country carries depends at least as much on its immediate effectiveness in the event of hostilities as on its ultimate mobilisable resources. It is therefore an exaggeration to speak, as Mr. Baldwin spoke, of competitive rearmament as madness. The armaments of the main powers are playing an enormous part in deciding the character of Europe, and men who care intensely what that character is will not be deterred by the mere cost of obtaining armed strength. Is Peace Indivisible ?

Spain, with every day that passes, points the moral of the extreme importance of arms. In effect a war that might easily ravage Europe is being fought out, happily insulated in Spain. Soviet Russia is behind one set of combatants, Germany and Italy and some other powers are behind the other group, and this strong support gives an added intensity to the struggle. Spanish history gives little warrant for thinking that the present civil war will only be measured by months. It will probably have to be thought of rather in terms of the first and second Carlist Wars. At the beginning both sides under-estimated the hold of doctrine on their opponents. The Government thought it was one more familiar move of the military, while the Generals underestimated the extent to which militant revolutionary fervour had spread among the populations of the great towns. As long as the war continues it will be a constant threat to the peace of Europe, but the fact that it has been localised for four months is an encouraging criticism of the doctrine, popularised by M. Litvinoff, that peace (and war equally) are indivisible, and that war in one place means war everywhere. Franco at Madrid

Madrid has not yet been taken by General Franco, who continues to move slowly, consolidating every point gained. The natural desire of journalists to be first with the news led to much premature reporting, last week. The capture of Madrid is much more important for Franco than is its loss for his enemies. He can lose the war by failing a t the capital, while his victory there, although it will give him a new position in Europe, will not be a decisive victory. He is in the