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THE TABLET A WEEKLY n e w s p a p e r a n d r e v ie w ESTABLISHED 1840 PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER VOL. 178 No. 5292 LONDON, OCTOBER 11th, 1941 SIXPENCE IN THIS ISSUE RUSSIAN RESOURCES IN THE URALS The Eastward Shift of Soviet War Industry. By Sir Paul Dukes THE SOVIET, RELIGION AND THE WEST A Test o f British Integrity and Discrimination CONSTITUTIONAL BALANCE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND By Richard O ’Sullivan, K.C. THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Drive on Moscow The new German offensive has been launched in the centre o f the Eastern front, with Moscow as its apparent objective. To this offensive Hitler has attached his own credit in a unique degree, and he has launched it in the last weeks o f the autumn weather. Napoleon began to retreat from Moscow in October. The position o f von Rundstedt in the south is becoming so difficult for the Germans th a t it would not be surprising if they halted their endeavour there for the present. Unless and until they have gained the Crimea, the advance towards Kharkov and Rostov will have that powerful base on its flank. Their lines of supply in the south, moreover, are becoming precarious. I t may be said approximately that in modern warfare, for every seventy-five miles a division advances from its rail base, the number o f transport troops needed to supply it must be doubled. Hitler had good reason, in his speech last week, to pay special tribute to the work o f the Todt organization which is responsible for the colossal task o f supplying and maintaining the German armies. He said that more than 15,000 kilometres of the Russian railways—perhaps 25,000 miles—have already been adapted to the German gauge. So much for one alleged difficulty of the Germans. which you live, your Russian neighbours, the British Empire, and the United States. Hitler repeated that he had wanted good relations with Britain. I f he did, he was not very clever or well advised in the way he set about developing them, for he began with very strong cards. As late as March, 1936, opinion in Britain was almost unanimous in refusing to do anything when he reoccupied the Rhineland. The British so entirely understood th a t the Germans wanted to be masters in their own home, and left it at that. Hitler had to deal with men like Ramsay Macdonald, Earl Baldwin, and Mr. Chamberlain, who all alike had a- great ambition to be remembered as peace-makers. He was on a very easy wicket, and there is, indeed, no people in Europe for whom the English and the Scottish have for generations had a more inveterate partiality than the Germans. All these assets Hitler wasted and threw away, because he believed Ribbentrop when Ribbentrop told him that nothing paid with the English like being very rude and tough, and because, like other lesser Germans, he entirely underestimated the effect in England of calculated cruelties and injustice towards the Jews and other minorities in the Reich. “Political Justice” The speech, with its expressions of H itle r’s personal confidence in divine protection, was preceded by several signs th a t in general the propaganda of the New Order is beginning to abandon the idea of a war for Christendom. Such a sign was a German broadcast in Hungarian, on “ The Origin of the Swastika,” of which the theme was again th a t ‘ ‘the Swastika may be traced back to the old Aryan faith in the power o f the Sun,” while today “ it represents our battle in defence of Aryanism against Bolshevik destruction.” Those who listened to Hitler got the impression of a tired and doubtful and self-exculpating man, and were left wondering whether he has lost some o f his oratorical cunning. I t was incomprehensible why he should bring the minds of his German listeners to the subject of what friends Germany had in the world. That is a sore subject, and the greatest single disproof o f H itle r’s claim that his leadership of Germany has been capable. I t is not capable to have no friends beyond an embarrassed Mussolini, and some rather elusive and evasive Japanese, and to have against you nearly all the Continent upon Meanwhile, the hangings and shootings continue throughout Europe, and occupy the forefront o f the picture. Less is said about the steady daily output of the occupied lands which is taken for the Nazi warmachine, but th a t is the immediate governing reality. “ We have harnessed a Continent,” said Hitler, “ to the service of our State. ’ ’ The people whose bodies and labour have been thus stolen are ruled by what Hitler calls the new, political, justice, which is the quintessence o f Nazi rule, and means th a t the judges are to be men ‘ ‘impregnated with the political will of the Third Reich” ; that is, not concerned with justice at all. The concept o f political justice, the idea that the over-riding interest o f the State alone matters, is not confined to Germany, and is the chief peril of advanced democracy. The second o f the articles from the pen o f Mr. Richard O ’Sullivan on the Catholic foundation o f English justice, which we print this week, suggests a contrast which goes to the heart o f the conflict in this century between Christian and purely political conceptions o f man, and so of justice.

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THE TABLET A WEEKLY n e w s p a p e r a n d r e v ie w

ESTABLISHED 1840 PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 178 No. 5292

LONDON, OCTOBER 11th, 1941

SIXPENCE

IN THIS ISSUE

RUSSIAN RESOURCES IN THE URALS

The Eastward Shift of Soviet War Industry. By Sir Paul Dukes

THE SOVIET, RELIGION AND THE WEST

A Test o f British Integrity and Discrimination

CONSTITUTIONAL BALANCE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

By Richard O ’Sullivan, K.C.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The Drive on Moscow

The new German offensive has been launched in the centre o f the Eastern front, with Moscow as its apparent objective. To this offensive Hitler has attached his own credit in a unique degree, and he has launched it in the last weeks o f the autumn weather. Napoleon began to retreat from Moscow in October.

The position o f von Rundstedt in the south is becoming so difficult for the Germans th a t it would not be surprising if they halted their endeavour there for the present. Unless and until they have gained the Crimea, the advance towards Kharkov and Rostov will have that powerful base on its flank. Their lines of supply in the south, moreover, are becoming precarious. I t may be said approximately that in modern warfare, for every seventy-five miles a division advances from its rail base, the number o f transport troops needed to supply it must be doubled. Hitler had good reason, in his speech last week, to pay special tribute to the work o f the Todt organization which is responsible for the colossal task o f supplying and maintaining the German armies. He said that more than 15,000 kilometres of the Russian railways—perhaps 25,000 miles—have already been adapted to the German gauge. So much for one alleged difficulty of the Germans.

which you live, your Russian neighbours, the British Empire, and the United States. Hitler repeated that he had wanted good relations with Britain. I f he did, he was not very clever or well advised in the way he set about developing them, for he began with very strong cards. As late as March, 1936, opinion in Britain was almost unanimous in refusing to do anything when he reoccupied the Rhineland. The British so entirely understood th a t the Germans wanted to be masters in their own home, and left it at that. Hitler had to deal with men like Ramsay Macdonald, Earl Baldwin, and Mr. Chamberlain, who all alike had a- great ambition to be remembered as peace-makers. He was on a very easy wicket, and there is, indeed, no people in Europe for whom the English and the Scottish have for generations had a more inveterate partiality than the Germans. All these assets Hitler wasted and threw away, because he believed Ribbentrop when Ribbentrop told him that nothing paid with the English like being very rude and tough, and because, like other lesser Germans, he entirely underestimated the effect in England of calculated cruelties and injustice towards the Jews and other minorities in the Reich. “Political Justice”

The speech, with its expressions of H itle r’s personal confidence in divine protection, was preceded by several signs th a t in general the propaganda of the New Order is beginning to abandon the idea of a war for Christendom. Such a sign was a German broadcast in Hungarian, on “ The Origin of the Swastika,” of which the theme was again th a t ‘ ‘the Swastika may be traced back to the old Aryan faith in the power o f the Sun,” while today “ it represents our battle in defence of Aryanism against Bolshevik destruction.”

Those who listened to Hitler got the impression of a tired and doubtful and self-exculpating man, and were left wondering whether he has lost some o f his oratorical cunning. I t was incomprehensible why he should bring the minds of his German listeners to the subject of what friends Germany had in the world. That is a sore subject, and the greatest single disproof o f H itle r’s claim that his leadership of Germany has been capable. I t is not capable to have no friends beyond an embarrassed Mussolini, and some rather elusive and evasive Japanese, and to have against you nearly all the Continent upon

Meanwhile, the hangings and shootings continue throughout Europe, and occupy the forefront o f the picture. Less is said about the steady daily output of the occupied lands which is taken for the Nazi warmachine, but th a t is the immediate governing reality. “ We have harnessed a Continent,” said Hitler, “ to the service of our State. ’ ’ The people whose bodies and labour have been thus stolen are ruled by what Hitler calls the new, political, justice, which is the quintessence o f Nazi rule, and means th a t the judges are to be men ‘ ‘impregnated with the political will of the Third Reich” ; that is, not concerned with justice at all. The concept o f political justice, the idea that the over-riding interest o f the State alone matters, is not confined to Germany, and is the chief peril of advanced democracy. The second o f the articles from the pen o f Mr. Richard O ’Sullivan on the Catholic foundation o f English justice, which we print this week, suggests a contrast which goes to the heart o f the conflict in this century between Christian and purely political conceptions o f man, and so of justice.

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