ENGLISHMEN AREN'T FOOLS

Anti-English Attitude of Catholic Press
Stie—We congratulate the Catiudic Herald on having found at last one person who is not afraid to say in public things that we, and indeed many other Catholics, have long wanted to say. Mr. TrappesLomax's article is one of the soundest pieces of criticism we have heard for a long time.
I. We remember our joy on reading a leading article at the time when Abyssinia was in process of being annexed, in which you warned Catholics not to condemn British Imperialism because it was Protestant, and to praise Italian Imperialism because it was supposed to be Catholic. Are you sure you haven't gone back on that position ill spite of de Bonia's book?
2. There is much in what Mr. Trappe-sLomax says about the attitude of the Catholic Press towards non-Catholic economists and financiers. Why always this carping criticism? Can we never assume that they too arc in good faith? As Mr. Trappes-Lomax points out, our unrivalled economic position and the cornparatively easy lot of our poor gives our financial leaders good cause to suppose that they are working on the right lines.
3. A further point. While Ireland and Italy arc always subjects for fulsome adulation in the Catholic Press, any praise for England is always marred by cavilling innuendoes concerning our motives, weed faith, etc. h has truly been remarked that the English Catholic Press consists of American headlines, Irish news and Italian propaganda. So long as many of the Irish in our midst maintain their hostile attitude towards Britain, and Italy supports a government which flaunts divine and human justice, they will both be deservedly unpopular among Englishmen: why then do we Catholics in England go out of our way to prove that the Church in England consists almost entirely of Irishmen and Italians? By all means praise what is good in Ireland and Italy, hut let us give ourselves equal justice, and also not forget that there are other foreign countries besides these two.
4. The anti-English attitude probably reached its peak of stupidity when certain Catholics sneered at such of .our daily papers as The Times, Telegraph, and Morning Post, unfavourably comparing them with the Continental rags. This criticism was not based on their attitude to Spain, Mexico OT Russia; no, they were criticised because they had an attractive and dignified format and were easy and pleasing to read. Truth before beauty: yes; but never criticise beauty as such.
5. Yet another indictment. So long as England represented Imperialism. imperialism as such was wicked. Now that Italy has entered the field our Catholic apologists have had to distinguish; English imperialism is bad, the Italian form is god-given. For a long time Anglo-Saxon amenities, underground railways, baths, etc., have been considered Protestant (in order to excuse the backwardness of socalled Catholic countries, without suggesting that their "dirt, sloth and itrunorality" were perhaps the result of their not being such very good Catholics): now that Mussolini has launched a campaign for the modernising of Rome. our Catholic apologists will doubtless hasten to explain that Roman undergreunds are Catholic, while London ones are essentially PrOtestant.
We should therefore remember: that the fact that we know the Church to be right is no argument against Protestants, who do not admit the premise; that (in others' eyes) we are a small but noisy minority, just one more peevish sect, who get far more than the share due to their numbers from their fellow-countrymen and who enjoy one of the best and fairest governments on earth; and that we should be loyal not only to the King but to our fellow subjects, not only to England but also to things English.
G. E. CALLAGHAN. W. JOLLY.
A. J. SHELDON.
Albertinum, Fribourg, Switzerland.