UESTIONS OF THE WEEK iCatholic Profiles: 781 By Michael, de

in Bedoyere The Coming Economic Crisis MANY rumblings and noises-oft are indicating the coming of as severe an attack of economic indigestion as this country has ever experienced. Commentators are already invoking the troubles which broke the last Labour Government, though there is little in the way of parallei between the two cases. Britain in 1931 was a wealthy country and the crisis of the day could have been met to a large extent by piecisely this milky of a controlled expansion which is being attempted today. Now, our economic troubles can be reduced to a question of simple arithmetic. We consume more than we produce or can buy with our savings; and we propose to consume more and more, while there is danger of our producing less and less at an economic price and a virtual certainty that what we have to buy will cost more and more. This is a position in which many an individual has got himself, but it is unparalleled in the case of a great nation. A neat summarising of the position with figures and everything, will be found in a triter to The Times from Lord Brand which was printed last Saturday. But it contains nothing new. The true position has been obvious for months to any person willing to face the facts.
What can be done about it? It is impossible to calculate the possibilities of pulling through, for these are dependent on too many unknown factors. But certain facts :seem clear enough.
To begin with. it is by no means moved that the Labour Government is
making the situation worse. Those who would imitate America and remove controls are banking on the chance that this step would immensely increase our productive power. Unfortunately this is uncertain, while the removal of contiols would indubitably increase our imports and sky-roeket our prices. In other words, the lifting of the brakes would start us plunging. But if we arc to have the remotest chance of pulling through the coming years, the Government must find ways and means of increasing productivity and lowering its real cost. If it fails in this, it will have failed as badly as any more sanguine administration, mid meanwhile we shall have missed the pleasures of a last orgy.
How the Left will Seek to Profit
THERE is no doubt now thai the Government realises that the honeymoon period of its marriage with the people is well and truly over. It is beginning to let the truth be known—the truth that for the present we cannot afford a full programme of social reform. On the whole it is to be expected that the British people will respond gallantly enough to the call for harder, longer and better work if the truth is allowed to filler through. But there is one great danger.
The extreme Left and Communist tactic is obvious. They will be prepared to back the Government's appeal for more work and less comfort, but only on two conditions. The first will be an intensification of that part of the Socialist programme which will, by nationalisation and other measures, bring our ameal and economic life yet more completely under the control of Whitehall The second will be a reorientation of our foreign policy in the direction indicated by the strong minority at the T.U.C. conference.
To submit to this pressuic would be disastrous, but there is, We think, only one way to avoid the danger. The Government, purged perhaps of one or two of its !itemise's, must have the courage to appeal directly to the people, and very clearly to warn them of this danger. The response of the vast majority of British workers should be sound enough. It is reasonable that Britain should advocate a central position of democratic socialism, both at home and abroad, but the pressure will be, not for a type of social reform with which Christians can honestly cooperate, but for u Marxism that inevitably leads to Communism. There is a world of difference between the two, but we doubt whether this distinction can be clearly brought out unless the Christian basis of any genuine democratic socialism is frankly admitted.
Calling People Names
THE contrast between the recent
declarations of M. Stalin and M. Molotov are widely interpreted to indicate a coming change of policy on the part of the Soviet. It is pointed out that this was in fact the explanation of the contrast between the attitude of M. Litvinov and M. Stalin in 1939, when the Soviet was swapping the democratic horse for the Nazi one. The Economist has just discovered, surely rather late in the day for so well-informed a journal, that the Soviet State " is a brutal and consciousless (sic) tyranny, whose exploitation of the individual is in no way excused by the fact that it is done under the banner of Marxian Socialism "; also, that " externally, it appears to have neither
scruples nor ideals." However, it is extremely troubled to note that it now finds itself in the company of " the reactionaries, the neo-Fascists and the ex-Nazis, the clericals and the conserve
tivWesho ' these bogey-people really are we cannot tell, but we feel sure that they include us. Well, we can at least assure our contemporary that no one will more warmly welcome a change of mind in Russia than ourselves. The world, above all, wants a chance of recovering from the war. Until this recovery takes place, everything is hollow and artificial, save indeed the sufferings of the millions of war victims. As Christians and as levels of the true liberties of the Christianised world (no doubt, this is what makes a " reactionary, neoFascist, clerical and conservative "), we have much indeed against the tyranny and aggressions of Soviet Russia, just as we hen much against her Fifth Columns operating in our midst, but we infinitely prefer to obtain justice and redress by the peaceful way of persuasion, the balancing of true interests and conversion than by war, whether " of nerves" or " declared." We ask only that those who share our old-fashioned prejudices about the importance of religion and civilisation shall prove courageous enough to stand firmly by their convictions and not take a childish refuge in calling their firmest allies by nasty names. Dr. Fisher's Idea of Christian Co-operation
AN American student of the reli
gious Press in his own country has expressed surprise at its apparent disinterest, not only in the outside world, but at what may be happening among other Communions. We agree that he should he shocked in so far as his criticism is well founded. But it is not always easy to comment pleasantly on the activities of other Communions. Thus this week we can only confess ourselves mystified beyond words by the initiative taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury in working towards that degiee of fusion between Anglicanism and Non-Conformity as will enable the one to '' contribute the whole of its
separate ministry to so many at the ministers of the other as may be willing to receive it."
How such au ideal can be squared with the dogmatic foundation of the Church of England is beyond our comprehension, though it is also not our business. But the general moral is. One must make up one's mind whether one belongs to a Divinely-founded Church or a goodwill institution, inspired in its work by the example and words of a great prophet and teacher. And, withobt venturing to try to make up the minds of non-Catholics about this point, we can at least note that everything in the contemporary world suggests that a Church is real and effective. while a goodwill Christian institution is unreal and ineffective, save for the personal life of some of its adherents. What the world needs are men and women founded in the rock of principle and the clear distinction between right and wrong and inspired by faith in a living God and other world values to live and preach the truth. Of vague good will, there is plenty ; of faith and principle, there is Tittle. The co-operation of Christians in the face of secularism and atheism on the mere basis of goodwill will not get us very far. Such degree of cooperation as is possible on the bas's of the truth, in so far as a man is able to see it, is valuable. That is why it seems to us well worth supporting common Christian activity where there is common belief, e.g., in many moral and social questions, but disastrous to try and weaken all parties by a fusion on a level below that of those who profess the fuller faiths.
Arnold Lunn on the Atom Bomb WE suggest that there is a fundamental fallacy in the reasoning of Mr. Arnold Lunn in a letter of his on the Atom Bomb which we publish on page 2. As it is a very common fallacy, it may be well to discuss it.
Mr. Lunn argues, in effect, that since the atom bomb merely increases the number of casualties to be expected from any weapon of war,
there is no qualitative difference between this bomb and, say, the bow and arrow. This argument rests on the premiss that the evil of war lies in the killing or wounding of the individual. Surely if Ibis were the case, it would be odd of Catholics, who can take death in their stride more easily than others for whom death seems the end of all, to make such a Ms abuut itl The main evil of war, we suggest, does not lie in the number of deaths which it may cause, but in the disorder which it creates. War is an irruption into the ordered way of civilised living, and it inevitably strains or breaks sphitual,
moral, cultural and social life. The consequences, as we see tor ourselves to-day, are a permanent lowering of principles and standards, a thrusting of man down nearei to the level of the beast. It may be that in the necessary choice of evils war is not always the worst, but this does no lessen its actual evil.
If the above Sc true, it is obvious that the evil consequences of the use of an atom bomb are a million times greater than the use of the bow and arrow. In Hiroshima, a way of life
was obliterated in a second. The " total " bombing of Germany was a major contribution to the ruin that is Germany to-day, with its fearful consequences for the whole of European stability. These are evil ways of making war, in imitation of Nazi frightfulness, that, in our view, wholly surrender to the temptation to behave like beasts and to treat our fellow-men worse than beasts. The degree and quality of the evil of the means transcend the good of the end.
As regards Mr. Lunn's view that the distinction between soldier and civilian ought to be abolished, we recommend to his attention an article in the current Nineteenth Century, by Mr. Voigt. " Does not the intrusion of the ma:Weal soldiers, or of civilians in un:form, into the conduct of the Second World War represent a lowering of those humane and ethical standards which the rules of war WIC meant to uphold? Does it not also represent a debasement of the art and science of war, without any commensurate advantage, whether military or political," asks Mr. Vogt in a plea, commenting on the illegality of Nuremberg, for a revision of the rules of war to meet modern conditions of warfare?
Popular in America
R some reason or other, the Ameri
can Press seems to have opened its heart to the sociological views of Mgr. Knox, as printed in the Tablet in August. In that paper Mgr. Knox maintains that there is a permanent conflict. between the idea of civilisation and the idea of religion, a view which it seems difficult indeed to square with either the outlook of the Middle Ages or the social policy of the recent Popes. In fact, it is thoroughly postReformation. Christopher Dawson, answering Mgr. Knox. calls it " profoundly unsatisfactory." And when the Monsignor asserts that there was practically no religious content to the Periclean age, one can only refer hint to de Reynolds volumes on Formation of Europe.