Judgements & Prophecies

Self Government The Right of Every Colony

MONSIGNOR ENRICO CHAPPOULIE, Bishop of Angers, in Paris' LE MONDE:

Colonization is justified morally to the extent to which it constitutes a service rendered by the colonial power to the people which one day she put under her authority. We mean by this service, primarily education, both moral and material. The end of a well-conducted education must be the emancipation of the educated subject, who has become capable of governing himself through the very activity of his teachers. The Church, therefore, could not accept taking sides with those who hold colonialism as a permanent fact, who lean both on the prestige and material advantages which the mother country draws from her colony and on the pessimistic judgment [that] colored people [are] inferior to their European masters and incapable of ever finding their own happiness in freedom.

However, fruit does not ripen everywhere at the same moment. It is unreasonable to treat, for example, Viet Nam, a land with an old civilization, and a group of mountain tribes from Laos or Africa, still only partly emerged from primitive savageness, in the same way. By wanting to shake off guardianship too quickly--assuming that this guardian is honest and not a tyrant--a population risks falling into anarchy. But to want to hold out in spite of all opposition, faced with a native elite reasonably capable of taking the reins of authority, the colonial power runs the risk of terrible explosions and surely her brutal eviction.

RED CHINA RECOGNITION MAY BE INEVITABLE

DAVID J. DALLIN, anti-Communist author, in the NEW LEADER:

Two Chinas have been in existence for several years and there is little prospect of their merging in the near future. So long as this situation prevails, we shall have to reject the idea of one China, because we cannot turn over the eight million people on Formosa to Communist rule. Nor should our recognition of Peking, if this should occur, affect our close ties with the Republic of China government.

Because we do not recognize the Chinese Communist government, every occasion on which we negotiate with it is regarded by our citizens as a humiliation, and in the Communist capitals as a source of fiendish satisfaction. Negotiations at Geneva concerning U.S. prisoners are being artificially dragged out by Peking's envoys merely to prolong the delight of seeing de facto recognition enforced on the "stubborn" Americans.

We all know the Chinese Communist regime is dictatorial, inhumane, terroristic and slave-driving. But diplomatic recognition and membership in the United Nations cannot be viewed as rewards for democratic virtue.

It is wrong to exaggerate the significance of diplomatic recognition, and it is doubly wrong to concentrate on it in our relations with the Soviet bloc. The Communists have several ways to press us--release of prisoners, trade, travel, etc. If we continue in the present vein, we will remain on the defensive, and the years to come will merely witness one retreat after another.

Nonrecognition of Peking was the only possible course for the United States as long as the Chinese Communists participated as aggressors in the Korean War, trained officers and men for the aggressive war in Indo-China, and assisted in supplying arms from Czechoslovakia and Russia to the Ho Chi Minh forces. Now there remain its preparations for a war against Formosa. So long as these continue, recognition is still impossible.

But should the Chinese Communist government sign an armistice or in some other manner pledge to refrain from military operations against Formosa, the last reason for nonrecognition and nonadmission will have been removed. When, under such conditions, Peking adopts normal attitudes toward foreign nationals, liberates them from her jails and permits their exit, when the usual facilities for the functioning of diplomatic representatives are provided in Peking, the time will have come to revise our position on recognition and admission.

STEVENSON WOULD BE DEMOCRATS' BEST CHOICE

Long Island's NEWSDAY:

The Democrats [have] an even chance--or perhaps better--of winning the next election. It is therefore the concern of every American, regardless of party, that the Democrats pick the best candidate. Estes Kefauver has neither the stature nor the articulated political principles which the President of the United States should have. Averell Harriman has not yet shown that he leads rather than is led by the Carmine De Sapio-Tammany Hall Democratic political machine that got him elected.

The most powerful argument for Stevenson is not the shortcomings of other candidates. It is Stevenson himself. In the 1952 campaign, after a brilliant record as governor of Illinois, he brought a new quality and character to American politics. His slogan "talk sense to the American people" was carried out with few compromises. His appeal to the independent voter is great because--like Eisenhower--Stevenson is not primarily a politician.

U.S. SECURITY PROGRAM A BAR TO PROGRESS

LEE A. DUBRIDGE, president of the California Institute of Technology, in THE YALE REVIEW:

How are we going to determine who can be trusted to work in the areas of weapon technology where there are secrets to be kept? By the very nature of the problem criteria cannot be laid down and adopted once and for all. Conditions change. When a war is on and lives are at stake we are, oddly enough, willing to take more of a risk in order to get the job done quickly. People who served competently during the war were disqualified later from classified work. The very term "risk" itself implies a danger not fully defined.

Every human being is to some extent a security risk. No one is perfect; no one is immune to being deceived or blackmailed or tortured into giving information; no one is certain never to commit a slightly careless act in handling secret material. At the same time there are urgent jobs to be done. If we trust no one with secrets, then there will be no secrets--for secrets are invented in the brains of fallible human beings. If we disqualify every competent but slightly "imperfect" scientist from working for the government, then we shall surely fail to survive as a nation in the modern world.

There is a crying need today for a reformulation of the concept of a security risk. You may fire a man convicted of petty larceny; but you should not call in the security board. All we are trying to do is to exclude people who might, directly or indirectly, give information to an enemy.

It is often said that security procedures may be justifiably arbitrary because, in any case, "federal employment is a privilege, not a right." As far as most scientists are concerned, it is neither a privilege nor a right, but only a patriotic duty. Often scientists are not paid at all for their advisory services. Yet the government needs good scientists and ought to offer positive inducements to them.

There is a danger of losing classified information and we must adopt reasonable precautions. There is also a danger of losing the technological race for military security. We need to find a balance between these two risks which is more advantageous than at present to the safety of the U.S.

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