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THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA VOL. 182 No. 5397 PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER LONDON, OCTOBER 16th, 1943 SIXPENCE CATHOLICS AND THE WHITE PAPER Three Months of Discussion on the Education Proposals THE HOLY SEE AND THE ITALIAN CRISIS Events in the Vatican City A TORY MANIFESTO Some Strong and Weak Points in a Conservative Formulation o f Policy THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Azores and the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance The action o f Portugal in letting G reat Britain use the Azores as a sea and a i r base is a valuable strategical concession, bu t a t this stage o f the war it is perhaps even more valuable as a political gesture. I t is a frank avowal to the world th a t Portugal, which has never desired a German victory, now does no t fear th a t there is any possibility o f one. The concession o f th e Azores would have been o f much greater im portance even a year ago, but even a year ago it would have been much to o dangerous fo r Portugal. I t was n o t to our in te rest to ask the Portuguese to do anything which might have brought th e Germans in to the Peninsula. The Anglo-American occupation o f French N o r th Africa— which has established us on the European mainland, broken th e Axis, and detached Ita ly from Germany—would no t have been possible bu t for the neutrality o f Spain and Portugal. In retrospect, it will be seen to have been one o f the many great blunders o f the Germans th a t they never safeguarded themselves adequately against th a t great Allied stroke o f November, 1942, which, in conjunction with th e German failure a t Stalingrad, makes November, 1942, the historic turning poin t o f the whole war. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance weathered the crisis, and has emerged all the stronger. We know th a t the Portuguese under D r. S a la zar’s leadership have always been our friends, and they know th a t we understood the difficulty and danger o f their position, and did not w ant them to do anything before we could safeguard them, as we now can. Both countries have the same underlying interest, symbolized in the operations which will be conducted from the Azores, which now become one more link in th e strong chain o f bases which unite America and Europe and enable the strength o f the New World to be yet more effectively applied to the resto ra tio n o f the old. The great advantage to Portugal is th a t by this friendly action, taken while it is still a valuable concession, D r. S a la zar’s Government establishes a claim, putting its country in to a different category from the ostentatiously indifferent neutrals. To the Germans, D r . Salazar’s action is one more sign o f a world opinion which increasingly discounts Germ an prospects. Within the Reich The Swiss Press, which has th roughout maintained a rem arkably sturdy independence, is printing these days very candid accounts o f what is going on inside Germany, where it becomes increasingly clear th a t the Party will before long be fighting an open battle fo r survival. Das Volksrecht, o f Zurich, has been printing in the early p a r t o f th is month the impressions o f a Swiss traveller which reflect the now wide-spread disillusionm ent and disbelief o f civilian Germany, and o f Germ an soldiers, in the Party leadership. “ Near Berlin we were joined by evacuated Berliners returning home. We started a conversation about the bombardments. One woman showed a National Socialist attitude. She was told off, and finally, when she was at a loss as to what to say, she declared with tears in her eyes that in future she would say nothing, as everybody pounced upon her the moment she opened her mouth.” The underlying reason for the Anglo-Portuguese alliance is th a t both peoples are sea-faring, trading peoples, with world-wide interests, an d therefore share common interests in peace, and particularly in the freedom o f the seas. As the shape o f the post-w ar world begins to loom in the clouds, and men peer ahead, it emerges very plainly th a t the Allies o f this war are the nucleus o f much in ternational organization tomorrow. The H o t Springs Conference gave b irth a t one remove to UNRRA, which will soon be learning to walk. The Portu guese, with th e h colonies and their prim ary products, will be fully concerned in th e many plans to guarantee prim ary production in Africa and elsewhere, to stabilize prices and markets. A t first there will be great shortages o f everything, bu t th e next stage will be abundance o f certain things, and the question o f discrim inating and allocating proportions in the secured markets. A t th a t stage, i f no t a t the first stage, it may be very im portan t to be an Ally. Britain and America have made it plain th a t they are not withdrawing from Asia, and would hold it a most retrograde course, for the world is too small, and the line o f the fu tu re is the line o f UNRRA and the United N ations, envisaging the world as one—Asia, Europe, and America in particular as an interacting whole. What Portugal holds in Asia today is bu t a fragm ent o f what was th e first o f th e European Empires, bu t the Portu guese share the common European interest in maintaining the European presence in the F a r East. The standard o f living in Portugal, as in England, is a preoccupation o f the Government intim ately bound up with in te rnational policy. In various bombed cities, he reports, there was a virtual mass flight, including even officials, and this was the cause o f H im m ler’s appointm ent as Reichminister o f the Interior. More and more Party officials are insuring themselves :— “ A high Party official for example, lives in my grocer’s house, to whose occupants the Party officer’s wife once said, ‘You, too, know that my husband has always behaved correctly, and never hurt anybody. Nothing has happened even to you, although you were a leading Social Democrat’. ” The names o f th e bro th er and sister Scholl, from Düsseldorf—-the young Munich University students who were recently executed by a P eople’s C ourt fo r opposition to the regime—are known to everybody in Western Germany. I t is no t surprising i f H itler in his latest speech, a t a gathering from which the A rm y leaders were notably absent, spoke about the big “ if s” on which everything depends, and made the chief and biggest “ i f the will to victory o f the German people is firm and unwavering to the end. ’’ The Nazi leaders continually draw encouragem ent from their political history between 1919 and 1933, when the odds against their success often seemed hopelessly heavy. We may observe th a t political success won inside Germany was won while working all the tim e on one kind o f material, the Germ an people, and provides no parallel for th e struggle in which the Party is now engaged against non-Germ ans. H itler has a profound understanding o f his own people in their strength and their weaknesses, for he is one o f them, and an exceedingly representative German. But he is in nothing more representative than in his failure to understand other countries and people.

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THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 182 No. 5397

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

LONDON, OCTOBER 16th, 1943

SIXPENCE

CATHOLICS AND THE WHITE PAPER Three Months of Discussion on the Education Proposals THE HOLY SEE AND THE ITALIAN CRISIS

Events in the Vatican City A TORY MANIFESTO

Some Strong and Weak Points in a Conservative Formulation o f Policy

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Azores and the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance

The action o f Portugal in letting G reat Britain use the Azores as a sea and a i r base is a valuable strategical concession, bu t a t this stage o f the war it is perhaps even more valuable as a political gesture. I t is a frank avowal to the world th a t Portugal, which has never desired a German victory, now does no t fear th a t there is any possibility o f one. The concession o f th e Azores would have been o f much greater im portance even a year ago, but even a year ago it would have been much to o dangerous fo r Portugal. I t was n o t to our in te rest to ask the Portuguese to do anything which might have brought th e Germans in to the Peninsula. The Anglo-American occupation o f French N o r th Africa— which has established us on the European mainland, broken th e Axis, and detached Ita ly from Germany—would no t have been possible bu t for the neutrality o f Spain and Portugal. In retrospect, it will be seen to have been one o f the many great blunders o f the Germans th a t they never safeguarded themselves adequately against th a t great Allied stroke o f November, 1942, which, in conjunction with th e German failure a t Stalingrad, makes November, 1942, the historic turning poin t o f the whole war. The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance weathered the crisis, and has emerged all the stronger. We know th a t the Portuguese under D r. S a la zar’s leadership have always been our friends, and they know th a t we understood the difficulty and danger o f their position, and did not w ant them to do anything before we could safeguard them, as we now can.

Both countries have the same underlying interest, symbolized in the operations which will be conducted from the Azores, which now become one more link in th e strong chain o f bases which unite America and Europe and enable the strength o f the New World to be yet more effectively applied to the resto ra tio n o f the old. The great advantage to Portugal is th a t by this friendly action, taken while it is still a valuable concession, D r. S a la zar’s Government establishes a claim, putting its country in to a different category from the ostentatiously indifferent neutrals. To the Germans, D r . Salazar’s action is one more sign o f a world opinion which increasingly discounts Germ an prospects. Within the Reich

The Swiss Press, which has th roughout maintained a rem arkably sturdy independence, is printing these days very candid accounts o f what is going on inside Germany, where it becomes increasingly clear th a t the Party will before long be fighting an open battle fo r survival. Das Volksrecht, o f Zurich, has been printing in the early p a r t o f th is month the impressions o f a Swiss traveller which reflect the now wide-spread disillusionm ent and disbelief o f civilian Germany, and o f Germ an soldiers, in the Party leadership.

“ Near Berlin we were joined by evacuated Berliners returning home. We started a conversation about the bombardments. One woman showed a National Socialist attitude. She was told off, and finally, when she was at a loss as to what to say, she declared with tears in her eyes that in future she would say nothing, as everybody pounced upon her the moment she opened her mouth.”

The underlying reason for the Anglo-Portuguese alliance is th a t both peoples are sea-faring, trading peoples, with world-wide interests, an d therefore share common interests in peace, and particularly in the freedom o f the seas. As the shape o f the post-w ar world begins to loom in the clouds, and men peer ahead, it emerges very plainly th a t the Allies o f this war are the nucleus o f much in ternational organization tomorrow.

The H o t Springs Conference gave b irth a t one remove to UNRRA, which will soon be learning to walk. The Portu guese, with th e h colonies and their prim ary products, will be fully concerned in th e many plans to guarantee prim ary production in Africa and elsewhere, to stabilize prices and markets. A t first there will be great shortages o f everything, bu t th e next stage will be abundance o f certain things, and the question o f discrim inating and allocating proportions in the secured markets. A t th a t stage, i f no t a t the first stage, it may be very im portan t to be an Ally. Britain and America have made it plain th a t they are not withdrawing from Asia, and would hold it a most retrograde course, for the world is too small, and the line o f the fu tu re is the line o f UNRRA and the United N ations, envisaging the world as one—Asia, Europe, and America in particular as an interacting whole.

What Portugal holds in Asia today is bu t a fragm ent o f what was th e first o f th e European Empires, bu t the Portu guese share the common European interest in maintaining the European presence in the F a r East. The standard o f living in Portugal, as in England, is a preoccupation o f the Government intim ately bound up with in te rnational policy.

In various bombed cities, he reports, there was a virtual mass flight, including even officials, and this was the cause o f H im m ler’s appointm ent as Reichminister o f the Interior. More and more Party officials are insuring themselves :—

“ A high Party official for example, lives in my grocer’s house, to whose occupants the Party officer’s wife once said, ‘You, too, know that my husband has always behaved correctly, and never hurt anybody. Nothing has happened even to you, although you were a leading Social Democrat’. ”

The names o f th e bro th er and sister Scholl, from Düsseldorf—-the young Munich University students who were recently executed by a P eople’s C ourt fo r opposition to the regime—are known to everybody in Western Germany.

I t is no t surprising i f H itler in his latest speech, a t a gathering from which the A rm y leaders were notably absent, spoke about the big “ if s” on which everything depends, and made the chief and biggest “ i f the will to victory o f the German people is firm and unwavering to the end. ’’ The Nazi leaders continually draw encouragem ent from their political history between 1919 and 1933, when the odds against their success often seemed hopelessly heavy.

We may observe th a t political success won inside Germany was won while working all the tim e on one kind o f material, the Germ an people, and provides no parallel for th e struggle in which the Party is now engaged against non-Germ ans. H itler has a profound understanding o f his own people in their strength and their weaknesses, for he is one o f them, and an exceedingly representative German. But he is in nothing more representative than in his failure to understand other countries and people.

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