BLUE-PRINT FOR THE 'SIXTIES

" MATER ET MAGISTRA ", the Encyclical Letter of Pope John XXIII on the social order, published last week, is a great-hearted appeal to Moderates to redress the balance of a world divided between prosperous and backward nations, a privileged few and starving millions, the wealth of the city and the want of the struggling countryside.
Every line of its 25,000word long text confirms and develops the principles of Leo XIII's " Rerum Novarum " (whose 70th anniversary it commemorates) and Pius XI's "Quadragesimo Anno", and applies them in a detailed and practical way to the problems of the 1960's.
THE ENCYCLICAL CALLS
FOR:
1. Aid without strings of any kind to be given by advanced nations to under-developed countries, with full respect for the aided peoples' national character and political rights, and with no attempt to use this aid to establish a new form of
colonialism.
2. The development of voluntary co-operative projects, and the harmonious partnership of the individual, the intermediary group, and the State— in such a way that the Slate helps without absorbing, and owns property itself only when absolutely necessary. 3. Measures to equalise the standard of living of the rural and agricultural areas with that of the industrial cities.
4. Shares for workers in the profits and management of the employing industries; and an extension of private ownership for all classes. The importance of this Is not diminished by the tendency, nowadays, to rely more on the fruits of work than on the fruits of inherited property. or on the various social security schemes.
Here are the principal points of the encyclical, summarised section by section:—