THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

VOL. 169 No. 5051

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

LONDON FEBRUARY 27th, 1937

SIXPENCE

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

PRINCIPAL

. 289

EXCITEMENT IN AUSTRIA ; THE END OF ECONOMY ; MYSTERIES OF DEBT ; MUSSOLINI ON CAPITALISM ; THE PRESSURE ON M. BLUM ; THE TROTSKYISTS A CASE OF NATIONALISM.............................. 292 WHY BASQUES FIGHT FRANCO . . 293 THE ROOTS OF MODERN SPAIN (II) .. 295

By MARIA F. DE LAGUNA INHERITANCE : A SCIENTIFIC CONTRO­

VERSY ................................................................. 297 B.v W. R. THOMPSON. F.R.S. ROME LETTER .......................................... 299 DUBLIN LETTER .......................................... 300

CONTENTS

THE CHURCH ABROAD ......................... SPAIN IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS . BOOKS OF THE WEEK .........................

AN ESSAY ON THE NATURE OF ENGLAND ; BARON VON HUGEL ; GOD AND THE MODERN MIND ; A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH TO A.D. 500 ; ANNE OF AUSTRIA ; ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX ; SACKCLOTH AND ASHES ; BRAHMS TOWN AND COUNTRY ......................... LENTEN PASTORALS ......................... LETTERS TO THE EDITOR......................... CHESS AND CROSSWORD.........................

301 302 304

310 312 314 318

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK Excitement in Austria

The German Foreign Minister, Baron von Neurath, went to Vienna because the agreement between Germany and Austria, which was signed last July, has never succeeded in allaying the underlying tension. Feeling is better than it was in the first flush of the Nazi triumph in Germany in 1933, or at the time when Nazis murdered the Austrian Chancellor, Dr. Dollfuss, in 1934. But the two parties in Austria are still ranged against each other, and they chose Baron von Neurath’s visit for demonstration and counter-demonstration. The Fatherland front, which Dr. Dollfuss founded and Schuschnigg leads, is determined to keep its hands free, perhaps to restore the monarchy as a way of rallying a nation so torn by party and giving it a common centre. There are grave objections to a restoration of the Habsburgs because so old a dynasty cannot be expected to look on the events of 1918 as necessarily final. All the new States which have been carved out of the old dual monarchy and hold great slices of the old Hungary, feel themselves threatened by talk of its revival in Austria. But some among them, fearing Germany more, are willing to face that threat, and to revive a ghost in the hopes of frightening a burglar. The Succession States and the Habsburgs

The Czechoslovaks are the most hostile of the secession States to a restoration, though some years ago some of them played with the idea of trying to bring about a loose federal union in central Europe, under a Holy Roman Empire. The Slovaks, Catholics desiring to live in peace, have historical memories not of Austrian but Hungarian oppression, and that important fact is equally true of the Catholic races, the Croat and Slovenes in Jugoslavia. But it is generally assumed that the Hungarians would see in the restored Habsburgs the best chance of recovering some of the lost territories of Hungary. In Hungary it is pointed out that Otto would have to be crowned separately at Budapest, and that there are not the same internal stresses in Hungary to make a case for the restoration. Some Hungarians add that if they wish to offer a crown to anybody there are other and striking possibilities at hand.

If the monarchist restoration takes place it will be the surest sign that the peace of central Europe is in jeopardy, and is considered to call for desperate measures. Meanwhile, the right to invite the Habsburgs is a right from which Austria will not part, because it is plainly an infringement of sovereignty to ask any nation to forswear a particular form of Government. The great activity of the Austrian Nazis and the support they receive from Germany makes it impossible for the Austrians not to discriminate in such matters as what German newspapers are allowed to circulate in Austria, and it is understood that Baron von Neurath met with little response to his various suggestions for better and closer relations between the great German country and the small one. The End of Economy

Amid the easy reassurances with which Mr. Chamberlain makes light of the £1,500,000,000 to be spent on rearmament, it needs no long memory to think of the works either abandoned or never begun because they would cost one or two million pounds. The Empire Marketing Board was by common consent doing a great work, particularly for the scattered colonial empire, but it was abolished in order to save much less than a quarter of a million a year. And throughout England and the colonies rigorous Treasury prohibition has nipped in the bud all manner of hopeful and important undertakings. It is, of course, quite true that there is an imperative character about defence, but there is obviously a dangerous swinging from one extreme to the other when the extreme parsimony of the years since 1931 gives place to such cheerful and ready agreement suddenly to spend so vast a sum. One particular economy, it seems to us, can no longer be defended. We have failed to make our promised annual payments on our debt to the United States for some four years now. It is reasonable to say that before we borrow a great deal more money for new weapons we ought to be punctilious about paying foreigners for the old. The only possible plea is the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number of dollars, but that is a plea which the trade revival has made more and more untenable.