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WHENEVER the eviction of a
family from their home is threatened, the Daily Worker jumps in to report it and, if what follows is sufficiently vividly written, and if the right sort of pictures are obtained, the increased popularity of the Communists as defenders of those in distress is assured. So too is a jump in the sales of their paper. A new series of evictions last week must have helped them greatly.
Evictions are a barbaric, pathetic business, degrading to all concerned. guaranteed to make rebels of many of those who witness them.
The story of a young lad turned out of his bed, looking barefooted for his socks which had been thrown along with the furniture into the soaking garden, did not make pretty reading on Tuesday morning. Neither did the knowledge that a six year-old hay with a diseased hip. who gets around on crutches, was waiting for similar treatment make for one's peace of mind that day.
I am in a good position to know just how unbalanced such Communist reports can be and I do not claim to know the rights and wrongs of this week's examples. But the sympathies of Christians in particular will tend to go out to those in adversity, even if it is of their own making, and especially to the children who at least arc free from blame, If practical help on such occasions is possible, then it is infinitely better that it should come from Christians, inspired by the love of their fellows. than that it should be left to the Communists to exploit the situation for their own purposes.
Meanwhile. a big contribution to the fight against Communism and for a more C:hristian society would be made by anyone who could devise legislation which would end evictions whilst still safeguarding the principles of social justice for both parties to the dispute.
Essential reading
CONGRATULATIONS to Fr. Illtud Evans, 0.P. editor of Blackfriars, who has devoted the whole of his January issue to the urgent question of Africa. There are contributions on the state of the Church there, the aims of the missions, the multiplicity of nonCatholic sects, education, art and culture.
All are notable for a freshness of approach which I find roost stimulating and heartening. I started to mark outstanding passages to quote here. Soon it became obvious that I would need several columns, at least to hold all the quotes; so the only thing J can do is to urge all who want to be informed upon the things that matter to buy it for themselves.
Out of jail
"FVERYTHING happened so
quickly, and we knew so little of what was being done to others in other parts of the country that we just did not realise the size of it all, It was only when I had come out of jail and had got through to Hong Kong that I had any idea how badly we had been hit—and by then it was too late."
Something of the shock, as well as the tragedy, of the events of the past two years in China, came home to me as the priest newly arrived from Hong Kong described his experiences to me in a Fleet Street cafe the other day.
He undid a parcel containing two big books of photographs—the missionary's equivalent of a family snapshot album. The first photograph was one of a gathering of priests and Bishops. 1 asked who and what they were.
The priest and his companion went through them one by one: "He has
been expelled; the next one is in jail: the next one has not been heard of for months; that one went to jail and died there; that one was a great tragedy, he went out of his mind, poor man, and then took his own life . . ."
And so it went on, row after row of men whose lives had been devoted to building up a glorious edifice 'which now they see being torn down. Page after page of pictures of churches, technical colleges, schools, orphanages, hospitals, every brick of which is evidence of the missionaries' love of their God and of their fellow-men. All are now in the hands of the Communists.
Each one is an argument, too, for Christians taking effective preventive action to ensure that the tragedy of China is not repeated in Africa, India or, for that matter, here in Britain either.
Motor-bike wanted
MEANWHILE, the young priest
, himself is planning to return to Hong Kong at the earliest possible moment. Isor the duties he is to undertake there he will need a motor cycle and is wondering whether readers of this column could help him to get one, which he would take back with him. Can any reader, or readers, oblige?
It will be put to really good use on that bridgehead of the Red Chinese Empire.
THIS is new to me but I'm not quite sure if it is to others—I hope it is, so that readers can get as much fun out of it as I did:
Sheed and Ward Offer sacrifices to the Lord Though not the blood of bulls and goats But Burns and Oates.
It is said to have been perpetrated by Mgr. Ronald Knox.