COLUMNAweve.wwi NjfrH the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell giving, in his speech to the T.U.C. last week, a qualified support to co-partnership and profit-sharing schemes, each of the three political parties is now committed to a greater or lesser extent to the idea, at least.
And with the limit of redistribution of wealth for all practical las opposed to purely psychological) purposes already all-but reached, they arc, one would imagine, hound to give it increasing attention, if present economic problems are to be solved.
Here is something which. properly applied, makes nonsense of the class war—which is why the Communists oppose it so angrily whereever it is tried. It is wholly consistent with Christian social teaching, and would he a feature of any society based on the social encyclicals.
To anyone still *new enough to he able to see ourselves as others see us, there always seems something odd about the spectacle of Catholics pursuing violently-opposing policies and even accepting conflicting principles, within the various parties, with no outward sign that they are in fact united on the things that matter most.
Now, however, we have a situation where they can all be working in the same direction, on at least one major point of policy, within their respective parties. as loyal party members. It surely strengthens the claim that a strong Christian centre, which cut across the party frontiers, would reduce inter-party bitterness, bring a more Christian spirit to our political life. and make for a continuity of effort which is destroyed when we go from one extreme to the other as one Government follows another with the swing of the political pendulum.
HAVING to condense and heavily " cut " to fit our limited news space the Australian Bishops' excellent statement on Asiatic problems, which analyses their nature and puts forward highly practical remedies which would materially aid the East whilst spiritually strengthening the West, went very much against the grain last press day.
I am all the more delighted, therefore, that we have decided to run it at much greater length this week. I hope that it will be cut out and put on many factory walls, notice boards, and other positions, which are so often left to the enemies of the Church.
Sooner or later, I suppose, it will reach our Catholic bookshops in pamphlet form. Look out for it.
To anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, Christian or pagan, who is interested in world affairs and the solution of one of the world's most pressing problems, this is necessary reading.
For the man who, genuinely or for the less worthy purposes of debate, insists upon asking, "Why doesn't your Church have something to say about the material well being of the millions of Asiatics who exist. on the edge of starvation?" it is an answer with no come-hack.
I MET the other day a woman who has an idea and has worked for it unceasingly, refus ing to be put off despite every dis
couragement, for the past nine years.
She is a coloured West Indian. Miss Alma La Badre, who dreams of ending inter-racial strife by means of a better understanding by white and coloured folk of each other's outlook.
I ler father was white, her mother black. She has seen colour prejudice at work from both sides. But she also saw, and was inspired by. a white woman who, by her Christian example, broke it down among both sections of the West Indian community.
Her idea has been to start a wellproduced, modern-type illustrated magazine which would present the one half of the world to the other half. She has spent nine years in London interviewing the mighty. getting the help of the technical experts and winning people for her idea. But she is still looking for the necessary financial and moral backing to guarantee the success of her venture.
I don't pretend to know whether those who have tried to discourage her have been justified or not (although her scheme seems sound enough to me). But 1 found her pertinacity stimulating and was heartened to find a move of this type coming from her side of the fence, as it were.
DEPARTMENT of hard realism: One of our "popular" bigcirculation Sunday papers is serialising Cardinal Spellman's book The Foundling, in its Irish edition, whilst at the same time in the editions for its English readers it provides a sexsoaked serial of the type now fashionable in such papers. The first instalment of the one was illustrated by a drawing of a statue of Our Lady; the other is hacked up with appropriate illustrations of the other type. Heigh ho.