World Events in a Month

It appears that beautiful spring, with its ferment and its activity, its fragrance and its flowers, is not confined to nature: out of its loveliness and its perfume the hand of the Great Creator spins threads of enchantment and radiance into a carpet of goodness and beauty, spreading the roads — all the roads — with gardens of hope, and opening before mankind the paths of earnest endeavor and work.

And if nature, in its stones and its growth and its living things, finds in spring an occasion to bring forth what it has guarded in its depths of blossom and flowers, and what it has stored in its bosom of resolve and vigor, then it is all the more fitting that the world of man should take from the uprising of its mother the earth an example for an uprising wider in scope, farther in aim, and deeper in effect on the human plane.

And so spring descended upon the countries of East and West bearing in its breast surprises, events, and complications, which could not but do their work and leave their traces. The birth of the United Arab Republic from Egypt and Syria was proclaimed, and the Arab Union from Iraq and Jordan; crises broke out in the relations between one part of the Arab lands and another; relations grew strained between France and Tunisia, and between Morocco and Spain; revolt arose in Indonesia. Then these events turned in their closed circle, to pass once more through their point of departure, and the world was deluged by a mighty torrent of memoranda and replies exchanged between Washington, London, and Paris on the one side and Moscow on the other — all of them dealing with the holding of a summit conference between East and West, the halting of nuclear tests, and other such projects, whose sponsors vie in claiming that theirs is the best for consolidating peace and stability in the world.

Accordingly, the events that have arisen, or that still confront the world, may be summarized as follows.

First — The proclamation of the United Arab Republic from Syria and Egypt.

Second — The proclamation of the Arab Union from Iraq and Jordan.

The rivalry between the two unions, and Saudi Arabia's stance of neutrality and non-alignment toward them, led President Gamal Abdel Nasser to charge, in a speech he delivered in Damascus, that a conspiracy had been contrived aiming at the destruction of the new United Republic — the result of which was the outbreak of a crisis in Arab relations generally, whose clouds it is hoped will disperse, so that serenity may return to the Arab sphere, and amity and solidarity prevail within it, for the good of the East.

Third — The Franco-Tunisian crisis, and the good offices exerted by both Britain and America to resolve it. These efforts have come to a halt, if they have not been extinguished altogether, after the fall of the government of Monsieur Gaillard.

Fourth — The acceptance by the three great Western powers of the holding of a conference of ambassadors in Moscow, on April 17, to prepare the way for a summit conference between East and West. The ambassadors' talks have in fact begun.

Fifth — The enlargement of the North Atlantic forces by ten new divisions, bringing them to thirty divisions, all to be equipped with nuclear weapons. From all this it is plain that the West does not trust the Russians' intentions and their declarations, and prefers to negotiate strong in arms, with its equipment at the ready, rather than to negotiate unarmed and weak.

Sixth — The African conference at Accra, upon which it is worth our casting a serious and attentive glance, in view of the states taking part in it, and of the Asian, African, and Arab questions laid on the table for discussion after they were stirred by the opening speech delivered by President Nkrumah, and by the address of Dr. Muhammad Fawzi, the Egyptian Foreign Minister. Both of them warned against pressure upon the Asian states to align themselves with one of the two international camps, and called for the settlement of the pending international questions, among them the Palestine question.

Seventh — The Indonesian revolt: it has now reached a decisive stage, after the forces of the central government invaded the rebels' strongholds by sea, by land, and by air.

Eighth — Chancellor Adenauer paid an official visit to London, during which he conferred with the British officials on the possibility of reunifying Germany and of equipping it with nuclear weapons.

And until the truth of these current events and these tangled questions comes to light, the diplomatic observers hope — albeit with a touch of pessimism — that minds will turn toward adopting the principle of human interests, so that the leading powers of East and West may work to set peace and concord in the place of discord and strife.