BELGIAN CATHOLIC PARLIAMENTARIAN VINDICATED

Catholic Herald Was Right
By P. J. O'GRADY
(Our Former Correspondent in Belgium)
Baron de Cartier de Marchienne, Belgian Ambassador to the Court of St. James, last week paid an official call on Viscount Halifax, Foreign Secretary.
As a sequel., two leading organs of the British Press, breaking down their reticence, now report that the ONLY Belgian Ministers ha London entitled to speak on behalf of the Belgian Government are the two members of the Pierlot Cabinet, M. de Vleeschauwer, Minister of Colonies, Catholic, and M. Cute, Minister of Finance, no part:, The Pierlot Government, it can now be announced, is detained in Spain
against its will. Despite this, I am able to state, on sound authority, that the arrival in England of M. Pierlot, the Premier, and of M. Spaak, the Foreign Minister, is still expected.
This confirms all that I hate been asserting in my despatches to the CATHoLiC HERALD during the past months. It is an official confirmation of my reiterated statements that M. Marcel Henri Jaspar is no longer a minister in the Belgian Government and that the self-styled Belgian Parliamentary Committee of Arlington Street has no title whatever to speak and act on behalf of Free Belgians as a would-be diternative Government,
ONE-MAN CABINET
He was expelled from the Pierlot Cabinet on June 25 fast for abandoning his duties as Minister of Health and proceeding to England without authority and setting himself up ee a " One-Man Cabinet " in the cause of Free Belgidne. This expulsion is published, as required by law, in the Munitear Beige of June 25.
The Times now points out, as has been more than once stated in these columns, that the Belgian Constitution fortunately provides for the case of a King who is temporarily debarred from exercising his functions, which devolve automatically upon the Council of Ministers or such among them who are able to exercise them in freedom. It is under the powers of this Act that the Cabinet Council expelled M. Jasper and authorised M. de Vleeschauwer and M. Guts to represent the Belgian Government in London.
AN AUDACIOUS EDITORIAL
The Manchester Guardian. devoted to the Socialist Belgian Leader and President of the If Internationale, and inspired by him, in an audacious editorial, " Belgium in Balk," under pretext of reference to Lord Hailey's
mission to the Belgian Congo, treats M. de Vlecschauwer, Catholic Minister of Colonies, as former " Minister appointed " trustee " of the Congo " as one of the last acts of the Pierlot-Spaak Cabinet."
It states with effrontery that " the PierlotSpank Government—minus three—continue to sit tight in occupied France, and that constitutionally its decisions have no validity," This is the insidious, cynical style of M. Camille Huysman's brilliant pen.