Sir,-May I first take this opportunity of congratulating you on the excellent way in which you persuaded a few of our Catholic M.P.s from both the main parties to comment on the Hungarian and Middle East issues in your last edition. 1, for one, was delighted to have a chance of learning what responsible Catholics, who were really in a position to know, thought concerning the two matters.
It was, however, with a slight feeling of disappointment that I finished reading their respective comments regarding the second of these two problems. For, while it is quite feasible that people should in all conscience hold opposing points of view on such a question, one nevertheless finds it difficult to credit that ALL these gentlemen should have been able to agree with their own parties. Naturally one does not necessarily presume that because people are Catholics they should automatically come to the same conclusions. Moreover one would, of course. expect that the majority of Members would agree with their own side. Indeed, I thought that Mr. Biggs Davidson and Mr. Walter Edwards put the two opposing points of view admirably. But the fact is that this particular situation involved a deeply grave moral issue. Yet these men all Catholics, and all in fuller possession of the facts than most. were everyone of them able in all sincerity to arrive at their own Partiy's point of view.
Is it grossly unfair to wonder whether a few of our Catholic Politicians are Conservatives or Socialists first and Catholics second? One looks to such men for a lead on these occasions: the party viewpoints were there for all to see: the Catholic lead seemed sadly lacking,
P.M.C. George, R.A.
Orsett Camp, Grays. Essex.