THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1 8 « REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 169 No. 5058

LONDON APRIL 17th, 1937

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK . . . . 537

BETTER FEELING IN EUROPE ; THE L.N.U. AND VANITY ; FRENCH POLITICS AND FINANCE ; THE FRENCH EXHIBITION; THE MONTREUX CONFERENCE; ITALO-BR1 FISH RELATIONS ; THE INDIAN DEADLOCK ; JAPANESE CONSTITUTIONALISM ; JAPANESE FASCISM ; MAKING THE ELECTIONS ; WHAT WENT YE OUT TO SEE ? MR. BALDWIN AMONG THE PROPHETS 540 THE UNPOPULAR FRONT.............................. 541

II. The Sorrowful City By ARNOLD LUNN “HE DYED A PAPIST” .............................. 543

By CLARA LONGWORTH DE CHAMBRUN THE KING’S CROWNING. I ll

. . 546

By H. M. GILLETT ROME LETTER .......................................... 547 THE CHURCH ABROAD .............................. 548

CONTENTS

POLITICS IN BELGIUM ......................... 550 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ......................... 552

MILTON AND WORDSWORTH ; THE FIRST OF THE LEAGUE WARS ; ITALY’S CONQUEST OF ABYSSINIA ; BANDITS IN A LANDSCAPE ; TISSUE CULTURE ; THE LEGEND OF ST. COLUMBA ; CHARLES II AND MADAME CARWELL ; MACKAY OF ALL SAINTS ; SHORTER NOTICES A WEEK WITH ST. THOMAS MORE . . 558

By W. J . BLYTON LETTERS TO THE EDITOR..................... 560 TOWN, COUNTRY AND ABROAD . 562 O B IT U A R IE S .............................................563 C H E S S ........................................................ 566 THE CALENDAR .......................................... 568 APOSTOLATE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE .. 568

THE W O R LD W EEK BY WEEK Better Feeling in Europe

The L.N.U. and Vanity

Although little is now said about negotiations for a general security pact, the international situation is now markedly easier all round. French Communist newspapers are full of bitter disappointment at the tone of M. Delbos in his farewell speech at the departure of M. Potemkin, the Russian Ambassador in Paris. M. Delbos underlined the limitations of the Franco-Soviet pact, repeating with emphasis that it is not to be considered a military alliance. This speech was in line with the general tone of French pronouncements, which deal more with the common aims and spirit of France, Britain and, on occasion, the United States. It is the cardinal point of French foreign policy to prefer the friendship of Britain to any other, provided it can be relied on. Since the announcement of British rearmament, the alienation of British opinion has become more than ever in French eyes the supreme blunder o f which a French statesman could be capable. British moderating councils enjoy the more authority from the recent corroboration of facts ; the scare of a German domination of Spain has died away, and Italian hostility looks rather less alarming. It is the prospect of a very strong and quite well disposed Great Britain which reconciles M. Blum to the idea of dropping the now desperate attempts to make of the truncated League o f Nations a coalition, headed by Britain, France and Russia, masking deep military commitments behind international legal terms. Mr. Eden’s speech in Liverpool on Monday, with its warning against dreams of a Pax Germanica, a Pax Gallica, a Pax Italica, or a Pax Britannica, will, we hope, be taken to heart by Viscount Cecil and his League of Nations Union supporters, who still hanker after the idea that this country should take the lead in devising and forcibly imposing straitjackets for the rest of the world. Last week, Lord Cecil appeared in Fleet Street to address selected journalists to tell them how the new peace campaign is sweeping Europe, in preparation for a great meeting in the Albert Hall at the end of the month.

Many years ago now the Foreign Office called for reports from all Ambassadors about the strength of popular support for the League in the countries to which they were accredited, and the answers left no doubt about the lonely pre-eminence of Great Britain in this particular form of idealism. In the small countries it is the responsible ministers, long accustomed to follow the initiative of the Great Powers, and not any movement from below, which has given the Geneva system what support it has received. It is sufficient to enumerate the Great Powers one by one : the United States, with it horror of entanglements ; Japan, Germany and Italy, all for different reasons hostile to the system ; France, translating all international questions into terms of German strength or weakness ; and Russia, offering the Capitalist States peace with one hand and destruction with the other—to see the hollowness of the idea that there is a world public opinion which only needs to be fanned into flame. The Pax Britannica, against which Mr. Eden has uttered his pertinent warning, is a selfflattering Victorian inheritance, and it is from Lord Palmerston and the time when Britain was far richer and stronger than anybody else that the Liberal and Labour Parties derive today. They long to assert a moral superiority by arms, not in the backward parts of the globe, where it can at times be done, but in the heart of Europe. The angry scenes in the House of Commons on Wednesday were due to the exasperation of Opposition leaders, who may indeed on other occasions deride Imperialism and dislike the Navy and the Army, but who would now dearly love to see Great Britain’s battleships escorting food convoys into the harbour of Bilbao. French Politics and Finance

Neither in the social nor in the economic order has M. Blum achieved the “ pause” he promised a month ago, when appealing for subscriptions to the National Defence Loan. Critics of l'expérience Blum are suggesting that the French Treasury coffers, although