THE TABLET A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

PRO ECCLESIA DEI, PRO REGE ET PATRIA

VOL. 179 No. 5327

PUBLISHED AS A NEWSPAPER

LONDON, JUNE 13th, 1942

SIXPENCE

ENGLAND THROUGH GERMAN EYES

The Growth o f Envy in the Nineteenth Century THE SUPREMACY OF NATIONAL FEELING

The Lessons o f the Past and the Prospects o f Peace RELIGION IN SCOTTISH SCHOOLS

By Colm Brogan

MR. FEIS’ ECONOMIC PLAN FOR EUROPE An American Treasury Official on Post-War World Trade. By Christopher Hollis

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK Milestones o f the War

About now we are completing the second year since the French Armistice, the second year of Italian belligerency, the first year since the German attack on Russia, and the fifth year o f the Japanese attack on China. I t is also six months since the United States have been at war. Surveying the scene a t this stage, it can be seen that, whatever the superficial ebb and flow of events, the powerful underlying current of history is plainly sweeping Germany towards defeat; and once Germany has been defeated, the defeat of Japan must be only a matter of time.

Neither in Germany, nor in occupied, nor in neutral Europe is there any longer at all the same feeling that the Nazi Reich must be accepted as something permanent. This conviction, this looking beyond the present still formidable German strength, is to be found everywhere, and is increasing German difficulties everywhere. In particular it makes it necessary for Hitler to continue to wage offensive war. To pass to the defensive now would be to admit the certainty of eventual defeat. The point will come when the Germans will be attacking for political reasons, and not on exclusively military calculations : and at that point the cleavage between Army and Party will play a very important part in determining the future.

At the moment, the Allied production is not merely ahead of the German ; it is expanding at a more rapid rate, and its output is not being consumed nearly so fast. The great advantage of the new arrangement made by Mr. Nelson and Mr. Lyttelton is that, over the whole field of production, it now becomes possible to arrange for a large short-term production without sacrificing long-term plans ; and the integration arises directly out of the new strategical possibilities which have come to us from a combination of the successful Russian resistance with the unexpectedly rapid development of United States war industries.

in thinking that Finland may yet be weaned from the war. For any less reason Hitler would hardly have gone in person to Finland, instead of summoning Mannerheim to the Reich, as the Hungarian Premier Kallay was summoned a few days later.

But the American declaration of war against the satellite States of South-eastern Europe had other effects also. It was made, and surely not by chance, on the anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, which lost the Hungarians so much of their historic territory after the last war as a result of fighting on the wrong side. Certainly the coincidence was not lost in Budapest, where the old story of Trianon was at once retold, and with it, of course, the story of the historic right of Hungary to the whole of Transylvania ; for the Hungarians, like their Italian friends, appear to be convinced that this is the moment for pressing their irredentist claims. Strife on the Danube

There was some excuse for their outburst of wrath, for in addition to the American reminder, the Rumanian Antonescu had, only a few days previously, broadcast yet another violently anti-Hungarian speech at a demonstration in Transylvania. The occasion was the anniversary of the death of the Metropolitan Andrei Saguna, a Rumanian patriot who was Transylvanian by birth. “ What the mountains of Berchtesgaden mean and will mean to the soldiers of Adolf Hitler,’’ said Antonescu, “ the mountains of our Carpathians mean and will mean to us.” These proceedings were at Cluj, which is now on the Hungarian frontier ; and a full report of them was broadcast from Bucarest in French, so that all Europe might hear of them, and might know how many Rumanians the Hungarians have in concentration camps, and what are the hardships imposed on those of the minority fortunate enough to escape internment.

Shipping remains the least secure factor in the Allied programme, and the one in which the enemy can get the biggest returns for his outlay in men and weapons of attack, and we must expect an ever-increasing German concentration on submarine construction, while the Allied Nations, as their striking power grows, will find no targets more rewarding, if more difficult, than those few sea-ports where, with extreme protection, these craft are built. The United States and Finland

The American declaration of war against Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria, last week, was important chiefly because it was not also a declaration of war against Finland. Mr. Cordell Hull said as much at the week-end ; and Hitler’s arrival to greet Mannerheim in person on his birthday, which took the Finns completely by surprise, was the result of an uneasy feeling in the Reich that the Americans may be right

It is little wonder that the Hungarians were angry ; but they were not too angry to remember to do their part in securing the continued adherence of Finland to the Axis cause ; they despatched to Mannerheim an honorary degree of the University of Szeged. This done, M. Kallay and his political and military advisers were ready to go to see Hitler, to discuss (there can be no doubt) the state of their relations with Rumania, as much as the state of the war against Russia. This growing strife among the satellite States is a clear sign of the growing conviction that the end of the German supremacy is at hand, and that the disposition of frontiers will not, for the future, be dictated beyond appeal in Berlin. Bir Hacheim

On the second anniversary of the French defeat, it must be a consoling thought for Frenchmen that the fierce fighting in Libya is so largely centred round a place held by fighting Frenchmen. Their stand at Bir Hacheim has frustrated the