THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 168 No. 5037

LONDON NOVEMBER 21st, 1936

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

THE RECOGNITION OF FRANCO ; BRINGING IN JAPAN ; THE POLISH ATTITUDE ; MR. BALDWIN’S GRAVE ADMISSION ; THE SOURCE OF WEAKNESS ; THE KING IN SOUTH WALES ; THE PUBLIC ORDER BILL ; OUR DEBT TO AMERICA LEADING ARTICLES....................................... 696

. 693

THE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN ORDER ; THE COMING SIN AUTONOMY AND FEDERALISM IN SPAIN 697

By E. ALLISON PEERS E U T H A N A S IA ......................................................... 699 EXILE ..................................................................... 700

By DAVID MATHEW THE GREATER AND THE SMALLER . . 701

By EDWARD QUINN GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

. 703

ROME LETTER ............................................ 704

THE CHURCH ABROAD ................................ 706 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .708 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ................................ 710

THROUGH MITHRAS TO CHRIST (by Roy Campbell); HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO DECLARE (by Maurice Baring) ; THE HOLY BIBLE ABRIDGED (by Ronald Knox) ; CHRISTIAN POLITY (by V. A. Demant) ; CO-OP (by Upton Sinclair) ; AROUND THE WORLD IN ELEVEN YEARS (by Patience. Richard, and John Abbe) GRAMOPHONE NOTES ................................ 715 CHESS AND CROSSWORD................................ 716 PLAINSONG FESTIVAL ................................ 717 TOWN AND COUNTRY ................................ 718

MGR. KNOX ; AN ULSTER ALCAZAR, etc. O B I T U A R I E S ......................................................... 721

MGR. BARNES ; CARDINAL MAURIN ; COL. TODHUNTER THE CALENDAR .............................................724

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Recognition of Franco

The chief news of the week is the recognition by Germany and Italy of General Franco. It was thought that this step would be taken as soon as Franco was in possession of Madrid. That it has been taken while the fighting is still in progress and the issue still uncertain, and taken in identical words, issued from Berlin and Rome, gives the impression that while recognition was decided upon some time ago, when it was obvious that the National movement in Spain was a genuine movement with wide popular support, the recognition has in fact been hurried to facilitate military and naval opposition to the Soviet, whose intervention has been increasingly marked and increasingly effective. It seems a legitimate inference that the agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan has been timed for this moment as a warning signal to the Soviet of the farreaching consequences of a persistent attempt to found a satellite state in Catalonia. Bringing in Japan

The Spanish War has been successfully isolated through the fortunate circumstance that Spain is at the extreme end of the European Peninsula, and that same factor makes effective Russian aid a difficult matter. The agreement with Japan may well go much further than anything that has been allowed to become known, but its primary purpose is to keep the Soviet on the defensive at this critical time. It will now be followed by a blockade of the Catalan coast, in which General Franco will receive counter-assistance from Italy to prevent Catalonia being converted into a Red State fed, armed and trained from Russia. German Diplomatic Methods

The denunciation by Germany of the international control of the great rivers which flow mainly through Germany but in part through other countries, is in line with previous declarations. It is a pity that at a time when any signs of courtesy and goodwill are so highly prized in international dealings, the same abrupt methods should have been followed. It is true that the history of these international waterway commissions since the

War has been a history of lost opportunities for magnanimity on the part of the allied powers, particularly the French, and that today a pendulum of discourtesy is swinging in the other direction. What has now to be watched with great care is the position in Czechoslovakia. A glance at any map will show how that artificial state, a synthetic creation of the Peace Conference, is the bridge which lies across the anti-Communist block which Hitler and Mussolini are engaged in constructing. Czechoslovakia has its German population and it has its Communists, and it is in the form of internal struggle, supported with increasing thoroughness from outside that trouble, if it comes, will arise. The danger is not immediate and has been postponed by the Spanish Civil War, but it is latent. The attitude of Poland is of the greatest importance. The main result of Colonel Beck’s visit to London was to make it clear that Poland, like Britain, is greatly interested in arresting the division of Europe into two blocs on the Communist issue. This is not from any belief, such as is common in England but not elsewhere, that that issue is unreal. The Poles are too much at the heart of things for such fatuity. But they hold that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia are highly dynamic and not at all static entities, and that their rapid internal transformations may mitigate the present tensions. England and Italy

While the relations between Italy and Russia grow steadily worse, there has been some improvement in the Anglo-Italian position. Signor Mussolini understands the British Government’s unwillingness to have to meet opposition criticism by concluding any written agreement with a country which has so recently ignored and derided the League of Nations. But the British Government itself is sensibly anxious to reciprocate the Italian gestures and to clear away, in time, the risk of a new-formed habit of hostility between the two parties in the Mediterranean, where each country has its difficulties. The Italians are anxious to see a good footing re-established now, because they cannot tell what may happen in a few years in Britain. Some three years hence, there might be a powerfully