Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgium's Socialist Premier, is usually several jumps ahead of political trouble. Last week he was caught off guard. Paul Struye, Spaak 's Minister of Justice, had just commuted the death sentence of two Belgian collaborators. When Socialists joined Communist deputies in protest, Struye, a member of the Catholic party, handed in his resignation, bringing down the coalition cabinet of Socialists and Catholics.
"This is not a political crisis," he declared, "It is a crisis for our consciences." Out of 1,166 Belgian traitors sentenced to death since the liberation, 232 had already been shot. Struye (himself a Resistance...