THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 169 No. 5049

LONDON FEBRUARY 13th, 1937

SIXPENCE

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

. 217

PARIS LETTER

226

MALAGA AND AFTER ; GENERALS JANVIER, FEVR1ER, AND FAUPEL ; THE REGENCY BILL ; THE KING NOT AN OFFICIAL ; A TIME-LIMIT FOR SETTLEMENT ; PARLIAMENT ON POPULATION; BAD COUNTING AND BAD RHETORIC ; HANDING ROUND THE MORTARBOARD ; THE ESSENTIAL BODLEIAN ; THE BLESSED WORD ORGANIZATION ; ROOSEVELT AND THE SUPREME COURT ; STAY-IN CHURCH STRIKES ; LOCOMOTION AS AN IDEAL THE FAITH IN THE E A S T ......................... 220 FASCISTS AND NAZIS ......................... 221

By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS SPANISH ATROCITIES REPORT . . 223

DUBLIN LEITER

ROME LETTER .......................................... 227 THE CHURCH ABROAD .............................. 229 BOOKS OF THE WEEK .............................. 232

THOMAS MORE ; ECONOMICS AND ETHICS ; SOCIAL ORIGINS ; MYSTIC LIFE OF GRACES ; MARCUS AGRIPPA ; MURDER OF ME ; TURNCOAT ; CATHOLIC PERIODICALS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR......................... 238 LENTEN PASTORALS ......................... 241

224 TOWN AND COUNTRY AND ABROAD . 242

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK Malaga and After

One of the earliest known pieces of writing, a clay tablet dug up some decades ago in Mesopotamia, carries the sentence “ In the Spring-time, when Kings go out to War. ’’ Winter quarters and spring and summer campaigns have been the pattern of most recorded warfare. The pattern has reappeared in Spain, a country with a terribly severe winter climate. Since November the military operations of the Nationalists have been suspended, except for the attempts against Madrid. Now with the first approach of milder weather, the offensive has been resumed on a large scale. Its firstfruits have been very important. Malaga was the great Red base in the south, and its capture makes it no longer accurate to talk of each side controlling half Spain. The Nationalists now control nearly two-thirds, and if Catalonia is considered as apart from the rest of the country, the area under the authority of the Valencia Government is now a large wedge running from Madrid due east, and dropping an angle south-east. Generals Janvier, Février and Faupel successful aggression ; it even writes that we in Britain may be made similar victims. This is a curious inversion of the plain historical truth that what brought the help, first of Italy, and then of Germany, for Nationalist Spain was the proof which the Nationalists could adduce that there was already the most formidable Communist intervention in the Peninsula. The latest number of International Press Correspondence has an article glorifying the later achievements of the Communist Party, which “ now plays a decisive part in the national life of democratic Spain. ” It claims that most of its 200,000 members are in leading positions, including the ministries of agriculture and education. The Communists are entitled to their claim that they have been the core of the defence of Madrid. They could also claim, if it were not tactically inadvisable, to have been for a long time the great link between extremists in Spain and international revolution. The great thesis of International Press Correspondence is the reality of this international solidarity, by which revolutionary strength can be concentrated in any one country at any particular moment. Anyone who is really looking for the origin of this new factor of intervention, will find it in the writings, in particular, of Lenin.

The recent successes have led at once to the charge that they have been gained not only with German and Italian men and weapons, but directly under German generalship. With a strange forgetfulness of the course between July and November when obviously able generalship brought the Nationalists, under many difficulties, from success to success, their English critics now base on the failure to capture Madrid a general disparagement of Spanish generalship, and conclude that General Faupel, the German Military Attaché, is to be credited with the capture of Malaga and the cutting of the road from Valencia to Madrid. Much that is plainly due to the new time of year is credited to the Germans, who will soon be held responsible for the spring and the summer weather. The First Intervention

In proportion as the Nationalist successes continue, will it be to the interest of their enemies to continue to harp more loudly than ever on the element of German and Italian help ? The Manchester Guardian, which is so much the fairest and best of the English Liberal and Labour Press, writes editorially of Spain as the field in which the new Fascist International is carrying out

Europe is full of small countries whose governments could be jeopardised by a concentrated effort. They protect themselves today, notably Switzerland and Portugal, by drastic powers to arrest and deport, and by an efficient police surveillance, but they might need outside assistance, and it would be forthcoming, not from any motives of aggression, but from motives of insurance and prudence. The Regency Bill

The Regency Bill and the discussion over the Civil List have afforded a number of unwelcome signs of the widespread tendency to bring the Monarchy into line with ordinary public employments. The Home Secretary was in some difficulty in arguing the importance of the Regency Bill, for he had to make it very plain that what the King is primarily required to do is to sign, on the dotted line, an unending succession of official documents. The work is wearing because it never ceases, but the signature is a pure formality which