THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 169 No. 5057

LONDON APRIL 10th, 1937

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

. 501

THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST BILBAO ; A LEADER OF LABOUR ; MEN, NOT MEASURES ; THE LIM ITS OF LEGISLATION ; A M IN ISTER’S DIFFICULTIES ; NAZI ACTIVITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA ; THE RIGHTS OF GOVERNMENTS ; THE COMING IM PERIAL CONFERENCE ; THE D ISPUTE AT HARWORTH COLLIERY ; THE THREATENED NATIONAL STRIKE ; THE PRINC IPLES AT STAKE ; TROTSKY IN THE LIMELIGHT HITLER AND LUDENDORFF . 504 YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED 504 THE UNPOPULAR F R O N T ......................... 505

I. Propaganda By ARNOLD LUNN

DUBLIN LETTER .......................................... 509 ROME LETTER 510 THE CHURCH ABROAD .............................. 512 ON “DEMOCRACY” IN SPAIN . 515 BOOKS OF THE WEEK .............................. 516

WE AREN’T SO DUMB ; THE IN IQUITOUS CONTRACT ; NAPOLEON. THE PORTRAIT OF A KING ; A MODERN JO B SPEAKS WITH GOD : DARWIN’S THEORY APPLIED TO [MANKIND : JEAN CHARLIER DE GERSON ; DE NOVISS1MO AUSTRIAE REGIMINE ; IN AN ALPINE VALLEY GRAMOPHONE NOTES ......................... 523 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 524

THE KING’S CROWNING II........................507

By H . M . GILLETT SPANISH LETTER ..................................... 508

TOWN, COUNTRY AND ABROAD

SERMON ON ST. BENEDICT’S DAY . 529

By RONALD KNOX

526

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Offensive Against Bilbao

The declarations of General Mola, calling on the city of Bilbao to surrender, as the Nationalists have determined to end the war in the north, will make it very difficult for the operations against the city to be allowed to languish. Yet its capture is a most formidable undertaking. It lies in a remarkable position surrounded by high hills, and the struggle of Bilbao is the struggle for these heights. It would be a most valuable prize. It is the meeting-place of the chief network of railways in north-western Spain. It is the Sheffield of Spain, and, most important of all, its fall would make it unnecessary for the Nationalists to attempt a naval blockade of the Biscay coast. At present there is still communication by sea, as well as through France, with a short sea journey, and Bilbao remains linked with Valencia. The attempt at rigorous blockade has involved the Nationalists in some trouble with Britain and France, whose flags have been flown as a ruse of war by Red vessels. The British steamer ThorpehaU, which was stopped in the Bay of Biscay, eight miles out, by Nationalist warships, and to whose assistance two British destroyers then went, was on a voyage from Valencia to Bilbao. The growing frequency of these incidents provides the Nationalists with a strong reason for seizing the whole of the Biscay coast if they can. Meanwhile, the French newspapers of the Right, and the Italian newspapers, continue with their detailed charges of the quantities of raw material which are going from France, with official connivance, into Eastern Spain, providing the sinews of war for Valencia. The fall of Bilbao will end the threat to Oviedo, which has held out for the Nationalists against very fierce attacks by the revolutionaries of the Asturias. The centre of the revolt against the Centre Government of 1934. But great as the gains would be, Bilbao is a formidable enterprise ; the Carlists who form so large a part of General Mola’s forces there have a particular reason for wishing to see it fall. Just a hundred years ago it was the failure of three successive Carlist attempts to take Bilbao which settled the failure of the Carlist cause. A Leader of Labour

“ Not one in a hundred of the Spanish people is on the side of General Franco.” This remark comes from the Manchester Guardian's account of a great speech on Spain made by Commander Wedgwood Benn, who has just re-entered Parliament as M.P. for the Gorton division of Manchester, Mr. Belloc’s old Salford seat. Mr. Wedgwood Benn considers the war in Spain a simple case of a foreign invasion, mainly by Italians,» who are, however, he is convinced, “ without guts” and worthless as soldiers. The serious side of what would otherwise be merely a ludicrous description of Spain, is that the man who made such a speech was Secretary of State for India in the Labour Government of 1929-31, where he played a considerable part in framing policy, as in the wording of the White Papers on native policy in East Africa. Some weeks ago the Labour Party issued a short-term programme on which it was hoped to gain the support of many people not ordinarily behind the Party. The proposals outlined were often extremely reasonable, but many people who would support the measures applied in these and kindred programmes cannot do so at present because of their well-rooted distrust of the intelligence of the men who would fill highly responsible positions. Men, Not Measures

Party programmes always envisage the absence of unexpected new issues, but the history of the post-War years shows how each administration is invariably confronted with questions whose overridi ngurgency had not been foreseen. When the 1931 election was fought on the question of the national finances, it was not anticipated that foreign affairs would dominate politics within two years, or that the decisive moments for the League of Nations were at hand. The character of the British Cabinet, and of Sir John Simon at the