THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 169 No. 5054

LONDON MARCH 20th, 1937

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK . . .397

GERMANY AND RUSSIA BOTH IMPREGNABLE ; ORDER AND ARMS ; THE HANKERING AFTER A WORLD ORDER!; THE LETTER OF THE COVENANT ; ANOTHER CASE OF LEGAL LITERALISM ; FRENCH CAPITAL AND LABOUR ; "GOVERNMENT OF THE MASSES” ; THE BELGIAN POLITICAL DUEL ; VAN ZEELAND’S MANIFESTO ; AUSTRIAN POLICY ; THE CHANCELLOR ON LAND SETTLEMENT ; A JUDGE ON THE DIVORCE LAWS

THE TREASON OF THE CLERKS . . 400 A JOURNEY THROUGH SPAIN . 401 SPANISH LETTER .......................................... 403 PALM SUNDAY .......................................... 404 AT WHAT HOUR WAS CHRIST

CRUCIFIED ?

Bv DOM BASIL WHELAN, O.S.B. ROME LETTER

405

408

DUBLIN LETTER .......................................... 409

THE CHURCH ABROAD

BOOKS OF THE WEEK ......................... 412

EDMUND LESTER, S.J. ; CATHERINE TEKAKW1THA ; IN CHRIST’S OWN COUNTRY ; TIME AND ETERNITY IN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT ; THE PROPHETS AND THE RISE OF JUDAISM ; LES SAINTS IRLANDAIS HORS D’lRELANDE : THE PAULINE EPISTLES ; THE FOUNDRESS OF THE SISTERS OF THE ASSUMPTION ; WESTMINSTER ABBEY THEN AND NOW

410

THE PORTUGUESE BISHOPS

LETTER FROM THE DOMINICAN

. . 418

MASTER GENERAL .............................. 418 TOWN AND COUNTRY 420 LETTERS TO THE ED IT O R .............................. 422 O B I T U A R I E S ..................................................... 425 APOSTOLATE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 426 THE CALENDAR .......................................... 427 CHESS AND CROSSWORD.............................. 428

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK Germany and Russia both Impregnable

The Friends’ House in the Euston Road is becoming to this generation what Exeter Hall was to the Victorians, a place where the moral law is laid down and the world told its duty. It is not surprising that the Soviet Ambassador, M. Maisky, found the Friends’ House a suitable place at which to expound the foreign policy of Soviet Russia, and in particular to hurl some calculated defiance at the Germans and the Japanese. “ We are strong enough to repel any attack on our territories on the part of any foreign power or any combination of powers, and we can do this single-handed. There may be those who doubt my words, who may believe that I am bluffing, but I warn them that they would be unwise to try their strength against ours, for maybe they would realize our strength too late.’ ’ This declaration, the statement that the two frontiers, East and West, of Soviet Russia, “ had been made well nigh impregnable by great fortifications, by large armies, well equipped with all the modern appliances of war, and by a huge air force,” inevitably robbed of much of its point the later part of the speech, which talked about re-invigorating the discredited conception of collective security. From time to time heads of the new Russian State make it plain that they know they have little or nothing to fear from foreign enemies, and if they did not make it plain, history and geography convey the same idea. There can be no question of the world being asked to protect an interesting but fragile Socialist experiment which might otherwise be destroyed by malignant enemies. The Russians are well able to protect themselves in their own huge quarter of the globe, and it is ludicrous to hear proposals for a Western pact being at once ruled out of court on the ground that they may leave Russia out in the cold. Order and Arms

General Goering has spoken in a vein similar to M. Maisky’s. He has spoken not less resoundingly of

Germany as a granite rock, invincible through the unity of will of its people. Both these declarations should be welcomed, for it is obviously desirable to have as many impregnable countries as possible. The reasoning, now so generally accepted in Great Britain, that it will be for the peace of the world that Great Britain shall be strongly armed, has a wider application. We still have ringing in our ears echoes of the speeches which became common form in the years of preparation for the great abortive Disarmament Conference of 1930, speeches which claimed that the world had no alternative but the League with its legal provisions, coupled with general disarmament, or general catastrophe. The truth is that though no one denies the grave dangers of the present time, those dangers have been visibly diminished by the general abandonment of the attempt to fetter the world in the straight waistcoat of Genevan regulations. At the root of the rearmament lies the failure of the victorious allies to disarm, and they did not disarm in the 1920’s beyond a certain discreet point, because their armaments were the security for the continuance of the settlement imposed at Versailles. It was in many ways a bad settlement, particularly in its glorification of extreme nationalism in middle Europe, but, such as it was, it was order, and Europe gained from there being a French army behind it. A world without great armaments would be a world in which the knuckleduster, the sawn-off shot gun, and the private army would attain a wholly new importance, shaking the foundations of States everywhere. The Hankering after a World Order

While the Germans and the Russians make these speeches to each other, while M. Blum throws in occasional reminders of the great military strength of France, it is important in this country to recognize that these are the years and the months during which an immensely critical decision is being taken. There are a dangerous number of people of weight in the country