THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

VOL. 179 No. 5310

LONDON, FEBRUARY 14th, 1942

SIXPENCE

CHINA AND THE COMMON FOE

The Fight for Singapore and Rangoon. By Field-Marshal Lord Birdwood o f Anzac

AFTER THE RIO CONFERENCE How the Influence o f the New World may Redress the Balance in Spain

THE DECLINE OF GERMAN EDUCATION

One Aspect o f Nazism which the Nazis already Regret

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK The’ Future o f the Orient

The arrival o f G eneral Chiang Kai-shek in New Delhi opens a new phase in Eastern relationships. The Governments o f In d ia and China are together responsible fo r the welfare o f a th ird o f the population o f the world. They are responsible fo r the defence o f eight hundred millions o f hum an beings against subservience to th a t military caste in Ja p an a t whose orders Japanese Armies have already penetrated deep in to China and have come, as G eneral Chiang Kai-shek observed, within strik ing distance o f India. China and India are both Empires, n o t nations; and the Japanese, as well as the K uo Min Tang and the Governm ent o f India, are imperialists. But th e la tte r are imperialists in trad itio ns very different to the Japanese, and different also—although less profoundly—to each o ther. The full im plications o f their common interests have now been accepted. In the discussions in which G eneral Chiang Kai-shek is taking part, decisions will be taken which will play a large p a r t in the future o f the war, and principles will be recognized which will play a large p a r t when the war is over in establishing th a t o rder in the East which is the alternative to the vast anti-C hristian to ta litarian ism which th e Japanese have to offer.

Christian origins the politics which prevail in it. Cardinal Manning understood this well enough more th an fifty years ago, writing : “ Empires do no t convert men to Christianity ; but under the material structure o f the imperial power o f Rome the Apostles and their successors created a Christian world, and under the world-wide Empire o f B rita in a new Christian world is rising to repair the ruin o f the o ld .” I t would clearly be a disaster o f the first magnitude for the Church if the Japanese usurped the British power in the F a r East. The High Mortality among Hitler’s Henchmen

The news from the Russian f ro n t continues to be satisfactory, especially from the region o f the Valdai hills, to the south o f Lake Ilmen, where the right claw o f a great pincers movement against the key city o f Smolensk seems to be developing. But it is doubtful whether such a movement could be completed before the thaw, for there is news also o f increasing G erm an resistance. T roops which have been resting in Poland are being b rought back to the fighting zone, and there are already clear signs o f preparations on the G erm an p a r t for th a t renewal o f the offensive which Sir Stafford Cripps thinks is likely about April.

Statem ents from Tokyo ab o u t the natu re o f the new F a r Eastern o rder which the Japanese hope to achieve make it quite clear th a t the slogan “ Asia for the A siatics” is to be applied w ithout compromise. The session o f the Japanese D iet on January 23rd, when the Prim e Minister declared th a t China is still regarded as a “ sister n a t io n ,” and said th a t Japan would welcome peace with the Chinese if they would abandon their Anglo-American connections, was the occasion for o ther elucidations also. A Japanese economic hegemony is planned, and all commercial payments within the “ co-prosperity sphere” will have to be made in yen th rough a Japanese c lea rin g -house; while European trad e w ith the F a r East will be wholly regulated from Tokyo. So much we have already been officially assured.

But the F a r Eastern New O rder is to be fully to ta lita rian , n o t merely economic, in its conception. I t has already been in tim ated in Tokyo th a t western religions will be excluded no less th an o ther western influences. This news come from a Tokyo b roadcast picked up in the United States, and was given only in Japanese. I t is very different from w hat the Japanese are saying in their European p ropaganda, b u t there is no reason to suspect its authenticity, and every reason to fear th a t the fulfilment o f the great vision o f the Church in the F a r East which Pope Pius X I saw depends upon the m ilitary defeat o f Japan. In the war in the F a r East, as in the war in Europe, there a re no grounds fo r certainty th a t i f the Allies win all will be well for the Catholic Church, bu t there are grounds fo r certainty th a t i f the Allies lose, th e future for the Church will be dark indeed. Only now th a t th e British Empire is challenged is it generally perceived how great is the benefit which the Catholic Church derives from its mere existence, however secular its life, however far from their

The success o f the G erm an advance into Russia last summer and au tum n depended entirely on the rem arkable efficiency o f its supply, which was organized on a scale and a t a speed w ithout parallel in military history. This was largely the work o f the Todt Organization, whose head, Reichsminister F ritz Todt, last week-end followed several o f the m ilitary leaders to an unexpected death. He, like F ield-M arshal von Reichenau, was a Nazi o f long standing ; he had jo ined the in fan t Party so long ago as 1922. The T odt Organization will continue quite efficiently w ithout him, o f course, and the prospects for the spring offensive are no t changed, b u t his death is still significant.

Another among H i t le r ’s oldest associates has lately been dropped, so quietly as to make no splash a t all in the headlines. This is Josef Wagner, Reich Price Commissar since 1936, and as such a very im portant man in the economic life o f Nazi Germany, being a regulator o f incomes. H is appointment as Gauleiter o f the critical G au o f Silesia after the June “ P u rg e” o f 1934, and the fact th a t he was the only member o f the Party ever to be Gauleiter sim ultaneously in Silesia and Southern Westphalia, the centres o f heavy in dustry in the extreme east and west o f the Reich, show how high was the F ü h re r ’s confidence in him. Last m on th this henchman o f H itler also was unobtrusively deprived o f all his offices. D eaths in accidents and th rough sudden illness, and little-advertised removals from office—W agner’s going was n o t mentioned in the G erm an Press except indirectly in the announcem ent o f his successors—have now become so numerous am ong old Party-M embers, th a t one may reasonably ask whether another “ p u rg e” is in process.

Goebbels last week devoted his weekly article in Das Reich to the theme o f national unity, saying th a t the only possibility o f a German defeat lies in the d isruption o f G e rm any’s