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THERE may not be many aspects
of the world scene to cheer us at this opening of a new year, but we can at least hail recent developments in Cyprus with enthusiasm.
At some point the horrible round of murders, executions, reprisals, and jailings had to be brought to an end. But it needed someone who was imaginative, humane, and big to do it. Sir Hugh Foot, the new Governor, appears to be such a man. For
The Christmas amnesty, the visits to hospitals and asylums. the personal contacts with ordinary folk—all these would seem to be the best, and almost certainly the only, way in which to break the disastrous vicious circle which has been a substitute for sane policies
in Cyprus. Even were it to fail, this charitable, honourable course would still be worth trying.
Sir Hugh Foot should surely have the prayers of all Christians as he talks with Mr. Macmillan and Mr.Lennox Boyd this week in London,
Seoul scheme
THOSE readers who have links
with the Sacred Heart nuns will be particularly interested in a letter I have received from Mother A. Giesen who is ni Scout, S. Korea.
I told some months ago how a small group of the Sacred Heart nuns who run an excellent girls' college in Tokyo had gone over to Seoul to start similar and muchneeded work there.
They occupied a tumble-down, disused seminary and, after some months of "camping out" last summer, got it straight and eventually started their school. Readers of this column helped with gifts and prayers. From my own onthe-spot knowledge of the situation in Korea, 1 would say that this is a work of really tremendous importance.
Now Mother Giesen writes to tell me that they are trying to establish a library for the school which is already functioning and, more particularly, for the girls' college which they hope to start in the near future.
For this Mother Mc Hardy-Flint needs suitable books: "autobiographies, good novels, books on travel, sociology, etc." They would like also to start a small fund for the purchase of text books and library books here in Britain, where prices are much lower than in the U.S.—whieh is where most of the Englishlanguage books circulating in Korea come from. Any books or donations should go direct to Rev. Mother Patterson, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, who will send them on to the Korea mission.
Concentration
FOR some years, the British Communist Party's. industrial department has been working to make the Sheffield district the
"jumping-off ground " for their penetration on a national scale of the Amalgamated Engineering Union.
The tactic follows a familiar course. A particular area—in this case the strategically important one of Sheffield—is selected for a special "concentration."
It is cultivated by the most experienced men in the party; the Communists already working there are nursed, coached and developed in every possible way. Their successes and failures are regularly discussed at headquarters, from which advice and every sort of assistance is given regardless of cost in time or effort. The whole thing is planned and directed like a military campaign.
One gain follows another, until in due course the party has an effective "base" from which to spread out.
This is the tactic which has been used with great success in the A.E.U. in the Sheffield area. Consequently, Sheffield has for some time been the initiator of Communist policies in the A.E.U. and in other fields of activity too.
It was not by accident, for example, that the steel city was chosen for the famous " peace conference" which the Communists were compelled by the Home Office to abandon and which was eventually held in Warsaw.
Idiotic
THE fight for and against the.
Communist domination of this key organisation in a vitally important area has centred upon the election of the District President who for years was Mr. Herbert Howarth, one of the Communist Party's foremost men in industry.
After a visit to Sheffield last November, I stressed in this column the importance of this election to Catholics and others who see the dangers of Communism.
Last week it was announced that he had been defeated by Mr. E. L. Law. This was a heartening break-through, the result of a great deal of hard work. It meant that Mr. Howarth would forfeit his seat on the district committee, on the divisional committee, and on the very important national committee. which the party is fighting hard to
capture. .
Now another member of the committee, Mr. Herbert Parker, described as an " affiliated member of the Labour Party." has given up his seal in favour of Mr. Howarth. who is thus reinstated at every level.
Any member of a union who pays the political levy is an "affiliated member of the Labour Party " (Communist Party members, for example, usually come within this category) and so the
label conveys little. It is not for me to pronounce upon the motives behind this misguided and quite disastrous action. But members of the A.F.U. should surely raise their voices in protest. .