THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 170 No. 5071

LONDON JULY 17th, 1937

SIXPENCE

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

PRINCIPAL

73

THE BRITISH PLAN ; MR. LANSBURY IN ROME : STALIN IN A HURRY ; THE JAPANESE IN NORTH CHINA ; THE FRENCH FISCAL DECREES ; “TREATING GOD AS AN EQUAL” ; THE VOTES AT THE CONGRESS : THE FRENCH HOTEL STRIKE ; GENERAL HERTZOG'S DEMANDS ; A QUESTION OF NATIVE POLICY ; GANDHI IN OFFICE ; THE I.L.O. ON SLUMPS A SPANISH BALANCE SHEET 76 PALESTINE, ARAB OR JEW 78

By J . M. N. JEFFRIES LEAVES FROM A LOST SEVENTH-

CENTURY B I B L E ............................................ 79 By DOM ADRIAN WELD BLUNDELL, O.S.B. CARDINAL PACELLI AT LISIEUX .. 81 ROME LETTER ............................................ 83

CONTENTS

THE YUGOSLAVIA CONCORDAT

By A. CRISTICH THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM . 85 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ......................... 86

84

WORDS v. THOUGHT ; DEATH IN THE MORNING ; THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES AND NATIONAL SOCIALISM ; INSIDE OU T ; THE SCOTLAND OF QUEEN MARY AND THE RELIGIOUS WARS; EDWARD THOMAS; KING WREN ; CATHOLIC PERIODICALS TALKING AT RANDOM ......................... 93

Bv D.W. THE CHURCH ABROAD ......................... 94 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 96 TOWN AND COUNTRY ......................... 99 O B IT U A R IE S ......................................................101

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The British Plan

From the beginning, the task of the Non-Intervention •Committee has been to prevent the Spanish Civil War from becoming a European War. It has succeeded in that primary purpose, while it has not been particularly successful in limiting the men and armaments which have gone to both sides. The new British proposals, in particular the suggestion that instead of naval patrol there shall be observers in every Spanish port, are open to plenty of criticism as effective suggestions for control. These proposals for harbour observers and for a resumption of land control on the French and Portuguese frontiers are accompanied by proposals to evacuate the foreigners assisting both sides, and then to grant belligerent rights. It is important that these plans should be accepted in principle. Everybody knows that while it would not be difficult for the Italian Government to recall the Italians, and that there are very few Germans to be recalled, the Valencia Government has a large motley collection of more or less denationalized volunteers, recruited largely in France, men who would •obey no Government, very many of them men who have nowhere else in particular to go, and who would readily accept the equally readily extended offer of Spanish citizenship. The Portuguese and French Frontiers continue to reach both sides, and there is no serious doubt that the armaments of Valencia come from, or through, France. For purposes of propaganda among simple people in England, it is still being said that the lawful Government of Spain has been wickedly prevented from obtaining arms ; this statement can still be read in the Daily Herald, often in the very issues which, on other pages, print exulting messages about the numerous and formidable air bombers and artillery now being used in the offensive from Madrid.

That offensive, according to its claim, has recaptured an area ten miles wide and ten miles deep. Spain is much too big for either side to dig and man regular lines, and in consequence it is always possible for either side, when it wants some victories to announce, to occupy a number of villages. The Valencia Government badly needs to take the offensive somewhere for reasons of prestige. It is expected that it will make its most serious onslaught on Huesca on the Aragon front, a town which hitherto has resisted all their attacks, but until it is taken, there can be no question of a serious attack on Saragossa. It has been part of the propaganda of Valencia to pretend that it has large “ people’s armies,” filled with a martial spirit, but hitherto their conscripted troops have not been able to carry out and sustain even minor operations of attack. Mr. Lansbury in Rome

We are rather sorry that the British Government does not more openly recognize the wholly exceptional position of Portugal, whose own fate is quite obviously bound up with that of Spain. The Portuguese know that Italy and Germany are in fact proving the saviours of Portugal, and it is entirely natural for the Portuguese to show active sympathy, as by withdrawing the observers on the land frontier, when Italy and Germany withdrew from the naval patrol. For the French to put themselves on the same footing as the Portuguese, treating the French frontier in the same way, as a reprisal, was a course understandable enough in view of the strong sympathies in the South of France for revolutionary Spain, but it was a mistake from the point o f view of preserving European peace.

Meanwhile it is quite certain that powerful armaments

We are glad that Mr. George Lansbury went to Rome and had a talk with Signor Mussolini, and that he has returned determined to work for Anglo-Italian friendship. How much he has to do in his own party is only too clearly shown in the leading article in the Daily Herald on the day of his return. The article takes the line that all agreements with Fascist Powers are so much waste paper, and that the new British plan for Non-Intervention means nothing because the Italians cannot be trusted to work it in the right spirit. The Daily Herald is so sedulous in misrepresenting Italy, and in pretending, for example, that the gentleman’s agreement between Britain and Italy over the Mediterranean is concerned with the same issues as the Non-intervention agreement, that it has by now no doubt