DOUGLAS HYDE'S COLUMN

Something new from Poona wovweivi!
THERE was a time when in my ignorance I imagined that the only things which came from
Poona were chutney, curry and "Colonel Chin-straps " on a mass-produced scale.
Now I know better, for each month I find myself looking forward to the arrival of my copy of Soda! Action. the little monthly journal of the Indian Institute of Social Order. which also comes from Poona.
It is now nearly twelve months since it started publication, and is, 1 believe, a sign of the increasing attention being paid by Catholics in India to the big social problems of our day.
The current issue deals with Plantation Labour, a subject of direct interest to Indians, and on which much heat has in the past been generated, as I know from my own India League days of twenty-five years ago. 'There is an article explaining the Italian Land Reform, too, which though it is not linked up directly with the same problem in India. has a very real application to Indian conditions.
It is clear that the Institute has its feet on the ground. I hope that that does not sound in any way condescending, but we all know. I imagine, the ease with which Catholic social studies can become so abstract as not to touch real life at any point.
If around it, and other institutes like it, there quickly grows up a live movement of people who, learning the principles thus, go out and apply them in the political parties and mass organisations, there may yet be time for Christians decisively to influence the course of events.
It is true that, as the current election results in India reveal. the dangers are great, and the numbers of Christians available for such work are few. But against that is the fact that under conditions where the majority are illiterate or semi-literate, the educated few can have a far greater influence than would otherwise be possible, as the Communsts of China, Malaya and elsewhere have proved. Those who are engaged in such work need and deserve our thoughts and prayers.
e From their seat'
rr is essential, when we are going
into battle for the Church, that we should be equipped with a good theoretical knowledge of the things for which we stand; that we should be able to put tip a good show in argument or discussion. But often it is the small practical touches which really convince.
A story told by my one-time colleague Walter Holmes, in the Doily Worker one day last week explains what I mean. He told how two Polish Communist sailors in a Chinese port recently wanted to sec the sights. They found that the only means of transport was by bicycle drawn rickshaws. with coolies doing the pedalling. To such Communists the idea was repugnant, so they seated the coolies in the rickshaws and themselves pedalled around happily seeing the town.
Now that, I suggest, was more eloquent than many lectures on dialectical materialism. Had they been Christians it would have been more eloquent, too, than many sermons— or lectures on the inalienable rights of coolies.
It is easy, I know, for the Communist constantly to remember the revolution character of his message, far more difficult for us to remember, over the centuries, that ours is revolutionary too. Yet it was not Karl Marx who said: " He has put down the mighty from their seats. and exalted the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things . . "
Mosel's', life
FOR an unsensational, obviously honest and most certainly very readable description of life in the Soviet capital, I can recom mend Dateline Moscow, published last week by Hynemann (21s.).
Don Dallas, who wrote it, was Reuter's Moscow correspondent from early in 1947 to the spring of 1949. From the great mass of notes he took during that perod, with all the closely observed detail of the trained journalist, he has given us in the first part of the hook which he has called " People," a picture which rings true.
It is not propaganda for one side or the other, although 1 have no doubtthat both "pro" and "anti" will select the hits which seem most useful to them. It is good to come across a credible description of the Soviet scene by an Englishman who has recently lived there.
The second half, called "Ideas", is also useful, but could have been done by someone whose dateline was London, and so lacks that particular quality of the descriptive section, which makes it a must for the library lists of the " politically-conscious."
Headers' generosity
SOMEWHERE in England is a young priest who, recuperating after months in a Chinese jail, is having his recovery speeded up
by the manifold evidences of the generosity Of CATHOLIC: HERALD readers. 1 I asked for a motor-hike for him to take back to Hong Kong. Now he is sorting the offers, which include hikes of a variety of ages, shapes and sizes (one reader has even offered to pay instalments of £4 a week if he cared to get one on hire purchase!)
I asked also for £30, to cover cost of repairs on one of the first which was offered. It is always more difficult to raise a small fund than a large one in a newspaper, because every one is inclined to feel that perhaps
that limited number of donations required is already on the way.
But, with £36 Is, 6d. now in hand, we know that work can be paid for if that machine is that one which is finally chosen, or if another is settled on, cost of transport out to Hong Kong will be more than covered.
I think I have acknowledged personally every donation with which an address wasenclosed but should like to say a public "thank you", too, to all concerned.
As stated
THE Communists, as was to be
expected, did not like the conference of exiled Central and East European statesmen which met in London recently under the auspices of the European Movement. Here are just a few of the things which the current issue of the C ominform journal has to say about them: " A weird gathering detestable from the point of view of every honest person . . . a come-together of traitors and betrayers of their peoples . .. The only thing that this motley, loathsome crew of professional Judases have in common is bestial hatred for their peoples who are building a happy life ..
" Such is the essence of the socalled conference summoned by the bandits' den known as the 'European movement ' . . . This zoo was addressed by Macmillan, British Minister of Housing, who, on behalf of the Government, welcomed the Judases and bandits . ."
As stated above, the Communists did not like the conference.
St. Tito?
SOMEONE recently returned from Yugosalvia tells me that the following story is circu
lating among Yugoslav Catholics: On the Day of Judgment Tito
stood at the head of the queue from Yugoslavia. St. Peter simply asked him his name, then at once directed him to Heaven. But Archbishop Stepinac stepped forward to protest, "Don't you know that that is Tito, the enemy of the Church?" he asked. " Why do you send him to Heaven?"
To which St. Peter replied: "Before Tito came along the churches were empty but when he took over he soon filled them."
And, says my informant, there is some point in the story, for the churches are filled today as at no time in living memory. The Sunday morning scenes in the Catholic areas, as he described them to me, sounded like what one expects of Dublin. with church bells ringing in every direction and crowds making their way down every street to Mass.
It was not for nothing, it seems, that Archbishop Stepinac spent his years in jail.