Ste,— Mr. Lunn answers one challenge by issuing four, on new topics. This promises a correspondence as long as the Lunn-Haldane letters, though hardly, I fear, equally edifying. 1 ans'wer : • 1.—Yes, the Irish Censor did excise from our papers something that appeared in the Orsserratore. Some days earlier, he had silenced certain charges by the other side. If he published the answer to those cherges, he would have also to open the charges that he had decided to suppress.
2.—Yes, he did delete from the public Press part of a Bishop's pastoral which contained things that are deleted whoever says them, in accordance with the set policy to prevent violent Press debates. There was no interference, of course, with the Bishop's
address to his own people. The Bishop himself has made no complaint.
1-1 did not hear of this but accept Mr. Lunn's report that the Censor forbade the re-opening of a terrible feud of 20 years ago. The Hierarchy in Synod solemnly asked for this feud to be forgiven and for
gotten. It would be un-Christian at any time, and irresponsible at the present, to reopen it.
4.—I deny any comparison whatever between the Irish censor's measures, devised to uphold the policy on which all parties are agreed, arid Gestapo methods—ie., party dictatorship, maintained by a party police. • There must be hard cases, but an outsider ehould not make the Censor's task harder by searching for three such cases and putting them forward with false suggestions. The argument in the Healy case is that Mr. Healy was carried away a prisoner front Ireland tor the fault of being distasteful to Orange bigots, Powers rightly given to the State for public interests were used,
it is contended, for party vengeance. Mr. Healy is riot anti-English. He is incapable of Fifth Column sentiments or activities. He is the recognised lay leader of Catholics of the most moderate views in Ulster, and is trusted by the Hierarchy, The action taken against him is taken against every Catholic and patriot.
Many people here would he glad to regard this as a blunder, if it were remedied
by ft quick release. Mr. Lunn, however, says: " Oh, it can be.no mistake—England did it," They are content to sec England's honour and interests handed over to Orangcism.
YOUR IRISH CORRESPONDENT.
Our Irish Correspondent also writes In answer to another letter: I was an intimate personal friend of Father Cahill, S.J., for twenty years. He said, and wrote to me, the things that I set down. Visiting me in the country, he lamented the urban bias of the Ritighacht. He repeatedly said that peasants would quit the land if they were not adscript to it—repeatedly, because I differed on this point and argued it for years—and he commended Herr Hitler's measures to forbid peasant alienation of the land, measures that I do not approve. His favourite plan for cattier tenants of religious estates was published. It is not I who " suggest" that Credit Socialism derives from Major Douglas, but Father Cahill who said it, in the years when he was studying Douglas, and was troubled by the notion that Douglas is a Jew (entirely incorrect, I believe): and he expressed his trouble about the monetary interpretation of history in a letter after the CH. discussion.
THE MERCHANT SERVICE
Sin.—in the current issue of the CATHOLIC HERALD Commander Bower, M.P., is reported as saying, " One must admit that to our shame as a nation the Merchant Service has been allowed to become in many ways the Cinderella of the sea, and it is time that this state of affairs was remedied."
In this connection it is interesting to recall the statement of the distinguished soldier and very lovable man, the late General Sir William Butler: " I heve sailed in many good and bad vessels in my time. but I can truthfully declare that I have never sailed with a had sea-captain. I do not mean only in !he sense of his profession: I mean the man himself. He is the very hest man this Finfire m °duces. the salt of the sea, and the soul of the land are in him. . If England holds to her captains she will pull through in the end."
I. McNarearte. M.D.
3, Holland Road, Kensington, W.14.
ARMY SHOWS
SIR, — As a member of H.M. Forces, 1 can endorse every word of your correspondent of August 22. I have been at this camp almost six months and have yet to
find anyone to talk or discuss with. One thing we can be thankful for though is that we do get some decent shows sent round to us. For instance, we had a visit from the Pilgrim Players who provided us with " Murder in the Cathedral " and " Tobias and the Angel." On three occasions we have had modern plays, and last winter, once a week there was a lecture or an educational film followed by a discussion. Once a fortnight there is a socalled variety show by F.N.S.A. and some contain that amount of dirt which some ,producers seem to think (providing they do think') must be the essential theme of shows for the Forces. Still, I would not say that all these shows are " blue," on the contrary, some of them are very good. It is the fact that there are large numbers of W.A.A.F.s present when these dubious jokes are cracked,
JACK SYKES.
Hunts.
SOVIET CONDITIONS
Ste—It is unfortunate that Mr. Baikaloff should have made our controversy seem as though it were mainly about the perfection, or imperfection, of Stalin's epeech on a certain occasion; which is really of very little importance. Whether his opinion or mine on that minor matter is the correct one does not really affect the relative correctness of our differing views about conditions in the U.S.S.R., to which he has referred again, in your issue of August 15, in most unfavourable terms . . in terms which are, moreover, in flat contradiction to what most observers now in that country are writing. If he is correct in his assumption that the Soviet peoples are discontented with their existing regime, it would seem rather extraordinary, surely, that the Soviet Government should be handing out arms to them with no discrimination, as can be seen in the News Reels now showing in this country.
I would point out, in conclusion, that my remark about the " testimony " of Mr. John Scott was to the effect that the marked change in the character of his contributions to the News-Chronicle since that journal changed from an anti-Soviet to a more-orless pro-Soviet attitude, suggested that his views " are not entirely objective."
EDGAR P. YOUNG, Commander, R.N.