THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 169 No. 5045

LONDON JANUARY 16th, 1937

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

THE ADVANCE AGAINST MADRID ; ASSURANCES ON MOROCCO ; ITALIAN VOLUNTEERS ; BUTTER AND GUNS ; BRITISH RECOMMENDATIONS ; EQUIPPING RUSSIA ; THE AMERICAN STRIKE : MODERNIZING AN EXECUTIVE ; THE DIVERGENT WAYS OF MONARCHY ; THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE ; TALKING IN ACCENTS PINK ; THE HOMELY FLEA THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE

CHURCH IN SPAIN ........................... THE FRENCH CANADIANS THE RECOVERY OF HISTORICAL TRUTH

By W. J . BLYTON DUBLIN LETTER ....................................... ROME LETTER THE CHURCH ABROAD ...........................

73 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ........................... 88

SENOR GURREA ON SPAIN ; RARE POEMS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ; SIR HENRY LEE ; CHILD OF LIGHT ; PENSER AVEC LES MAINS ; NERVES AND RELIGION ; RECOLLECTIONS OF ROME ; POLYCARP’S EPISTLES TO THE PHILIPPIANS ; VOYAGES OF A MODERN VIKING GERMAN CATHOLIC LETTERS 93 76 LETTERS TO THE ED IT OR ............................. 94 79 TOWN AND COUNTRY ............................. 96 81 C R O S SW O R D ......................................................... 102 82 APOSTOLATE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE . 103 83 C H E S S ...................................................................... 104 84 THE CALENDAR ............................................. 104

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Advance against Madrid

Italian Volunteers

After the successful advance by the Nationalists in the north-west of Madrid, threatening the line between the Escorial and Madrid, there has been a lull in the operations for the capture of the city. General Varela, who is in command, has publicly expressed the great importance of the tactical position captured, and he is in no habit of speaking much or over-hopefully. But defence is so much easier than attack in this warfare, and a few resolute men with machine guns, strongly entrenched, are sufficient to check much larger numbers of attackers who cannot be reckless of casualties, and the operations may well endure for a long time yet. Assurances on Morocco

The past week has seen a definite easing in the political situation as both the German Government and General Franco have given the French full assurances that Germany has no designs on Spanish Morocco and no troops there. It is freely said in Paris that the French can congratulate themselves on an astute piece of work. They were afraid that the Germans might go to Morocco, and they have removed the danger by pretending that they were already there, thus making it plain that it is in French eyes a vital interest that is at stake, and one to prevent which the strongest measures would be taken. This is a matter in which French alarm must be considered quite reasonable because Spanish Morocco lies right across the line of communication between France and her West African colonies, on whose troops she hopes to draw in emergency. We do not doubt that German agents, like the agents of Moscow, are active among the tribesmen of North-West Africa, and all steps which can be taken to damp down subterranean activities are good. Agreements which really satisfy both parties are the best means for circumscribing the kind of activity which seeks to exploit the weaker spots of foreign Powers. A particularly welcome part of the recent Anglo-Italian agreemeni, in which the two Powers agreed not to engage in activities detrimental to each other, marked, we hope, the end of wireless propaganda, particularly propaganda directed to the Levant.

There are papers in Great Britain so ingrainedly hostile to the new Italy that they seized on the news of contingents of Italian volunteers for Spain as though it were a breach of this agreement, before the ink was dry. But there is nothing in the agreement about volunteers, which is a matter for an entirely different international body, the Non-intervention Committee. But the complaints were significant, partly as suggesting, what is far from the truth, that Great Britain has any special reason for disliking the Italian contingents on the mainland. There were fears that the Italians intended to occupy and to keep the Balearic Islands, and it is to allay those fears that the clause about territorial sovereignty appears in the text. The complaints were also prompted by a distaste for the agreement, and by a recrudescence of the bad habit, rather common in this country, of feeling that diplomatic agreements are hardly worth the labour of negotiation, since all foreigners are so untruthful and unreliable. It is true that there is no great Power which has an altogether clean bill in the matter of treaty observance, and all these agreements are at the best short-term affairs, but that does not mean that they are without high value ; and they are particularly valuable when they improve the state of feeling and make nations more ready to make imaginative efforts to appreciate what is good and to understand the reasons for what is bad in the ideas and methods of foreign countries. Butter and Guns

As far as possible the economic difficulties o f Germany should be disentangled from political activities and ambitions. And for this reason we are glad it is Dr. Schacht who is to go to Paris, for he is not only not a politician in the conventional sense, but he is a link with the Germany of the days before the Nazis. Better than any man, he can talk the language which is immediately intelligible to the politicians of France. When Mr. Eden, speaking at the Foreign Press Association dinner, declared “ We prefer butter to guns,” he was saying something with rather too much verbal