THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 170 No. 5074

LONDON AUGUST 7th, 1937

SIXPENCE

PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

TH E MOVEMENT O F BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY ; TH E FRONT PO PU LA IR E M A JO R ITY ; TH E AGRICUL

TURAL STRIKE ; TH E RECORD O F TH E FRENCH O FF IC E O F WHEAT ; ANNEXATION O F HOPEI ? ; Q U E ST IO N S FOR ANTI-COM M UN ISTS ; O FF IC E FOR CONGRESS LEADERS ; GOVERNMENT ACTION IN

SLUM P S ; TH E WHITE PAPER ON TH E F ILM INDUSTRY: TH E SPINSTERS* PETITION ; TH E PR IC E O F IN DEPENDENCE

177 CATHOLIC LONDON

Bv M IC HAEL TRAPPES-LOM AX

ROME LETTER THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL GUILD

TALKING AT RANDOM

ROCK AND SAND

180

Bv D. W.

FRENCH CATHOLICS AND FRANCO 181 BOOKS OF THE WEEK ......................... WORLD F INANCE ; DEAR YOUTH ; TH E TESTAM ENT 190 THE WORLD CONFERENCE AT O F JO A D ; A H ISTORY O F CYNICISM ; BOOKS AND REVIEW S : ON AND O FF TH E GERMAN LIBRARY

EDINBURGH................................................. 182

L IST

By M . BEVENOT, S .J .

AUSTRIA TODAY

By EDWARD QUINN

THE CHURCH ABROAD

183 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

184

186 186

189

196

202

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Movement of British Foreign Policy

Mr. Eden is careful to reserve freedom of action over the Parliamentary holiday so that the Government can recognize Nationalist Spain without recalling Parliament for the purpose. This recognition is no less inevitable in the long run than the recognition that the Italians hold and rule Abyssinia. Nationalist Spain is a country in no sort of danger of being conquered. It is a country of fourteen million people with whom Greal^ Britain has had very far-reaching and valuable trade relations through the centuries, and it is very important that those relations shall not be handicapped or sacrificed. The British Government’s Non-Intervention Plan has encountered a blank wall of Soviet hostility, M. Maisky having made it plain that the Soviet is not prepared to treat the recognition of belligerent rights pari passu with the withdrawal of volunteers. This stiff Soviet attitude is the result apparently of the representations of the Comintern. Western observers have lately been concentrating all their attention on the growth of the Nationalist and Democratic regime in Russia, and it is perfectly true that the policy of the Franco-Soviet pact is a subordination of a revolutionary purpose to immediate military considerations. The French Communist Party has been checked from headquarters in the interests of the stability of France. The diplomacy of the Soviet is, however, quite in harmony with the new tactics of penetration formally adopted by the Third International after the failure throughout the West of direct revolutionary agitation. But it is in the interests of these very tactics that the Third International is determined to stand by the Spanish Reds. It wants to pose before the Left Parties of the world as the faithful supporter, even in adversity, of the Left Parties in Spain. Nothing would do the cause of international revolution morg harm than an impression that while money and skilled advice and leadership are readily available from Moscow to develop Popular Fronts, and then to transform them, under the name of Democracy, into revolutionary Dictatorships, this help is only forthcoming while prospects are good, and that at a crisis the immediate political advantage of the Soviet Government will always take precedence of international class solidarity. The Soviet Attitude

The Soviet, by holding up the British plan, makes the recognition of the Nationalists inevitable, because the present position, by which there is no effective control of the East coast of Spain, following on the German and Italian withdrawal, cannot endure indefinitely. The position is likely to change in the near future, with the development of the Nationalist offensive in Aragon from Teruel ; that this offensive, in the very heart of the. Valencia Government’s territory, should be possible at all, is a proof that for all the talk of trained people’s armies, striking-power at Valencia’s command is limited to the International Brigade on the Madrid front.

Meanwhile, with the Manchester Guardian expressing its surprise that Russia is able to spare so much in the way of armaments for its Spanish protégées, no excuse remains for talking of the right of the Spanish Government to buy all the arms it requires. The Front Populaire Majority

The ill-mannered treatment of M. Delbos, the French Foreign Minister, at the celebrations in honour of the Socialist leader Jaurès, by Communists inflamed by the speech of a Communist deputy, M. Cogniot, who denounced the Non-Intervention policy of the Government, does not indicate much harmony in the Front Populaire. Demands were made at the Congress of Teachers for increases in pay which would cost the State two milliards of francs, and M. André Delmas, the Secretary, suggested, to ensure the real victory of the Front Populaire, that the Government’s action should nationalize the banks, muzzle the Press, and “ purge” the administration and the army. M. Jouhaux, the President of the C.G.T., was loudly hissed when he appeared to address the Congress. M. Jouhaux has always been in a difficult position since the amalgamation last year of the C.G.T., the trade unions proper,