The Cross & the Plough, V. 15, No. 4, 1948
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The rC oss and the Plough Special Collections Journals
1948 The rC oss & the Plough, V. 15, No. 4, 1948 Catholic Land Federation of England and Wales
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This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections Journals at Carroll Collected. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Cross and the Plough by an authorized administrator of Carroll Collected. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 'ttbe ~rgan of tbe (tatboltc 1anb mol'ement of £nglanb anb 100\ales QUARTERLY TWOPENCE CHRISTMAS 1948 CONTENTS THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS 2 A NOTE ABOUT THINGS AND THEIR MAKING: 'by Philip Hagreen 3 THINGS. NEW AND OLD: by The. Rev. H. E. G. Rope, M.A. 5 A CHRISTMAS NEED: by H.R. 6 THE LAST OF THE REALISTS: G. K. CHESTERTON AND HIS WORK, Part IV: by Harold Robbins 7 CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE 15 PROFESSOR DOGSBODY'S GHOST 16
Vol. 15 No. 4 anb 'ttbe Plougb ~be eross There arc many and recent records. farmer who, in his last year of tenancy, com Purely at random, we may mention The plied with a request of his County Agricul ~lisbed by the CatholiC Land Federation of England and \Vales l . .J Delectable Duchy, by Q., especially the chap at Weeford Cottage, Hill, Sutton Coldfield tural Committee to sow 31 acres of his farm ters The Paupers and A Golden Wedding. with a corn crop for the third year in suc Th ..1!-....: d writing of The Cross t~nd The Plough are entirely honorary. Under the Poor Law which was modified e Ull~YOD an }e 'bill' of th . th cession. ot unnaturally, the landowner Contributed articles are on the so respons1 ty elt au ors well within living memory, and which ended claimed for compensation for this violation of . ~ s~bscnption: One Shilling a Y~ only yesterday, the Poor had nothing to look the niles of good husbandry. The N .F.U. forward to but the workhouse, and the separ warns farmers to wait for a specific direction ation of husband and wife in the evening of by the Committee (as apart from a specious their days. 1·equest), otherwise the Law will prevail. This evil system was founded, tolerated Cheers. and perpetuated by the Best People. And SUBSIDIES we know of other organised bodies for whom The N.F.U. (which seems, uneasily, to no active protest is on record. be realising that trouble is ahead) has a para othing that i happening now equals graph in its Information Service for Novem the cruelty of that regime : and wherever the ber, 1948 (p. 186) contrasting answers to two truth may lie, it seems that, like Warren parliamentary questions on Domestic and Hastings, the Poor may stand astonished at General Food Subsidies. their own moderation. We extract the following representative BLOWING THE GAFF items. It will be seen that the bulk of the The Ministry of Agriculture's Weekly enormous subsidies paid out of the taxes for News Service of 12th October, 1948 (No. food, are not going into the farmers' pockets, 473), has a lengthy discussion on the recent but into those of ordinary commercial profit infestation of Take-all, which, as everyone eers. A very great deal even of the smaller knows, is associated close! y with the over sums goes into those same commercial pock frequent growing of corn. After a lengthy ets. This should be remembered. discussion the sheet says smugly : "If poss Home-Grown ible, avoid growing wheat and barley more Total Subsidy Food Subsidy Item £million £million than two years in succession on the same Bacon land." 15·4 5·4 Bread 63·7 12.8 AND BLOWING THE GAFF Butter 36.8 7·3 Unfortunately for the Ministry, th e Sugar 19·7 7·3 National Farmers' Onion has also a News >II Sheet. In its issue for 9th November, 1948 We tender to all our readers our Best Wishes (No. 43) the Union refers to the case of a for the Holy Season. A NOTE ABOUT THINGS AND THEIR MAKING By PHILIP HAGREEN ST. Augustine spoke of beauty as splendor the requirements and conditions of the work ordinis, which is perhaps as near to a and of the character of the workman. and definition as we can have. St. Thomas spoke also an appetite that desires and enjoys only of beauty as id quod visum placet, and this that which is most suitable. Human nature is commonly quoted as St. Thomas's defini being as it is, the things which have been tion of it. Actually, it is a statement of how called beautiful include the voluptuous and the cadaverous, the brutal and the sentimen beauty is enjoyed-not by being used or con tal, the grandiose and the trivial. A glance sumed or possessed, but simply by being per round any Catholic Church will show the ceived. Those who try to use the phrase as a curse which falls on those who seek what definition have to assume that the beholder pleases them, or what they think will please of a work of art has a right understanding of others, instead of seeking rightness in making.
3 The simple truth about beauty is that it No two works of art are exactly similar, is an attribute of God. It is a sign of God's for no two human beings are alike and none think that there are liberal handiwork. Beauty cannot come from ant of them is quite as he was yesterday. The arts and servile Now this is absurd. Art-right making arts, or fine arts and mere crafts. where but God. God has seen that ~s perfection of each work of art is peculiar to -is the making of what God wants us to Along with this false distinction we creation is very good, and we ca~ see that ~t itself. This is true of God's art, for every ha"e make in the way he wishes us to make it. inherited another which is even more harm is very beautiful. Wherever God s purpose lS one of his blades of grass is specially fitted If it were not this it would be sin. ful. This is a wrong idea of the distinction fulfilled beauty is shown, whether we can for its function. Patience, fortitude, between doing and making. The distinction modesty, obedience, see it or not. To put this simple truth in another way: etc.-these are the rules . . may be truly defined, but is it a distinction of art as they are of God's creatures, sustained by h1s will Man must make. It is his duty to God and conduct. that has any bearing on a man's conduct and obedient to his laws, act on one another. to his neighbour that he should make rightly. ? I-bs man any less responsibility to God and Impatience, slackness, self-assertion, The wind sets the waves in rhythm and the Right making is God's work done by man, dis his neighbour as a maker than as a doer? obedience, etc.-these are the faults of waves churn pebbles to roundness .and spr~d so it has something of God's beauty. Creative art as We are told that doing is governed br they are of manners. sand to smoothness. All is changmg contm work is intended to develop the maker. It prudence, and iliat making is governed by ually, but the change is from b~a~ty to exercises his will and his judgment, it refines Making is God's province now, as it was art. We know that Prudence is the Queen beauty. The spider's web and the b1:d s nest his senses, and it gives full play and discipline in the beginning and as it was in Nazareth. of the moral virtues; but a list of the moral This cannot fail in beauty, for these creatures make to his imagination. The maker is concerned province has been invaded and God's virtues does not include art. No-one suggests according to God's will. to perfect the thing he is making, rule usurped. If we can do little in the w:l\ . and the that ilie artist is at any time outside the realm Man is created with ability to make, w1th most important effect of that of rebellion, at least we need not aquiesce. is to perfect the of Prudence, but there is a strong suggestion the instincts of a maker and with the need maker. We can still pray for God's kingdom to come that his art is. and not that the enemy's and duty of spending most of his life in At tl1e present time this simple truth is rule may be blessed. making. It may be doubted whether any generally denied, or its application is despair human activity is without an element ~f ed of. . Making is ~very where displaced by THINGS OLD AND NEW making. A cow eats, but a man orders h1s mechantcal productiOn, and what is called By THE REV. H. E. G. eating so that he makes a meal. A beast may art is governed by aesthetics-that is, by ROPE, M.A. IN READING travel, but a man may so order his travelling pleasure-seeking. Men are almost all em Fr. McNabb's briefly elo- and his endeavours to provide justice easily quent and timely that he makes a journey. We naturally use ployed in sub-human work. Their creative Life of St. Elizabeth of and speedily for his subjects, he became ilie Portugal I was startled the word when we speak of man's higher faculties are undeveloped and their senses by ilie following Justinian of Portugal. His energy made Por words: "Moorish invasion acts. The word poet means maker, and we and imaginations undisciplined through lack had almost de tugal an agricultural country of the first stroyed the arts of think of poetry as a product of man's higher of right use. peace. The Arabs, who order. He reclaimed the sand dunes along had never shown much instinct faculties. Above all, man makes his prayer. That sins of greed and injustice should for tl1e quiet the coasts by planting them with pine-forests. He fundamental routine of agriculture, makes his acts of faith, etc., as he makes gradually have produced this system and had left So greatly did agriculture ilirive that, the fields of Portugal so untilled his Confession and makes his Communion. smirched the whole world with its ugliness that English although ilie population increased, there was land workers had to be fetched But man has free will and is apt to sin. is not to be wondered at. What is surprising to give back always enough home-grown wheat for the If he makes Portugal to the plough. When we according to God's will, what he is that such hideous violation of the rights of read of people. He (r) reclaimed land, (2) became makes how Saint Elizabeth founded girl has beauty; it takes its place in God's God and man should have been achieved orphanages himself a land-tiller, and (3) organised agri to teach women land-work, umverse. without resistance, or and how she or cultural villages. The Queen built an institu even protest, from ganized This is the simple truth about art, for art churchmen. and joined in spinning groups we are tion at Coimbra, perhaps the first Agricultural is the right on our way to trace the inspiration of way of making such things as it This failure has, no doubt, many reasons her College! It was for young orphan girls. They is right to make. husband's wise agricultural policy." (Intr. were When man makes rightly, and many excuses. I am going to suggest trained in farming to enable them to he is acting pp. 13-14). as God's agent and the thing one reason which may have hampered church rnarry the sons of farmers, and were provid made shows by its It struck me that we might well be fain ed at beauty that God willed it. men in the past and which makes them help their wedding with farms on her im To be (had our rulers the wisdom) to ask our oldest rightly made, a thing must be appro less in face of industrialism to-day. mense estate. Don Diniz has been called the priate to its purpose; ally to do the same good offices for England, Labourer; it must be made of Learned men are constantly reminding St. Elizabeth the Patroness of suitable material, s-ince the nation's peril has become clear even Labourers." and the material must be us of our debt to ancient Greece. Undoubt (ii. 30-1). fashioned in ways suitable to many who but yesterday scouted its very Evidently the to its nature. Suit edly we have received a great deal from that royal pair were, in the able tools and processes must notion. So the royal husband of a saint jargon of the politicians, be used, and all source. What we owe for it depends on its "reactionaries," nay must be done in manner known for one of the greatest of peace-makers "fascists" I Yet suitable to the worth. Now, however great the philosophy their policy spells prosperity, maker. This last was an ardent furtherer (with her) of tillage, by the testimony rightness means that the and the art of Greece, they of antiquity and Christian are vitiated by and fosterer of the peasant. It may work involved must be appropriate work for slavery. This reassure tradition alike, reaffirmed with insistent philosophy and this art have the secular-minded that, man-a creature fallen and redeemed, a although on the stress by Pius XII to-day. The new prophet~ percolated through Christian philosophy and whole an excellent sinner but a candidate for eternal union with ruler, this believing king scorned the family and the nation is perish Christian art, and after two thousand years was God. It also means that it must be appro far enough from saintly living. ing, iliey reviled and desecrated marriage of that cleansing they still bring with them "The priate to the particular man, whether reign of King Diniz has been called under lying pretext of improving the h~ be a the poison of slavery. Even those who see race, genius or a dullard. the golden :-tge of Portugal. By his wise laws which is destroying itself by ilieir slaverv as an evil th:Jt should be abolished teaching. 4 s They promised abundance and gave us what In son:e sort he discovered. India to Eng we see, they sent myriads t o death under the land, but It may be doubted if he ever dis THE LAST OF THE REALISTS watchword of the " freedo m" they were plan covered England. If oak and ash and thorn ning to abolish and the homes to be filched survive it will not be. the fault, surely, o f G. K. CHESTERTON AND HIS WORK those who found the1r profit in uplifting By HAROLD R OBBINS from them. In every case their blatant Continued from Vol. 15, No. 3 All rights are reserved to the author attempt to counter n ature, that is the ordin those " lesser breeds without the law" who ------ance of G od, by a just n emesis brought about had any possessions worth lifting, tore out Chapter 8 the polar contrary of their promises. The the oaks of England by the roots with their machinery, and m ade their homeland THE GREAT DEFERMENT prophets served M ammon, w ho has in effect But i/, in no matte?· w hat country, a man is ignorant of and despises the intellectual and a monopoly of the means of ~tt~rance. . "hideous and arid and vile." Something was litera;y foundations of' civilisation, he is very near to being no longer civilised, and the wrong ; t he poet knew not what. England questtan ts then pres~nted oj knowing not only in what degree he can know man, but in In one of his flashes of ms1ght Ruskm what degree he i6 a man. named Saint Thomas More, the very pattern was not what England seemed, "all putty, -Dom Pierre-Celestin Lou Tseng-Tsiang O.S.B . brass and paint," but what she was he never of England's laity, "that great Roman CathO ILBER T CHESTERTON died, one may sent of Distributists. Only one other s uch in lic fa rmer," one who, born a Londoner, be fo und. For him the E nglish were t he Chosen G almost write, in the odour oj sanctity. on cident occurred during the Old Man's lifetime. came a countryman by choice. In his day People, chosen to subdue a nd rule the world 14th June, 1936. I remember w ell asking Greg When Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935, a number ory Macdonald, it must have been about 1935, of strong adherents thought that the paper's London was just beginning to emulate and bring the wild peoples " half devil and whether h e thought the Old Man would write condemnations were too weak. Chesterton Carthage, and her l ater cult of race suicide is half child" to a p roper sen e of their station. on some subject which we both thought import seemed uneac;y in his replies, and claimed to have There was an England, that of St. Boniface ant. "No," he said with a r ueful look, "the Old inside information which would put a different as hideous as those of Tanith and Melcarth. Man hru> gone right up to heaven." He still face on it. No doubt this was that the overt The Whig Legend, now slowly s inking which was once chosen to extend the King~ wrote of current affairs, but his h eart and atten actions of England, with the Fleet and Sane- · in its death-wound, dated England's greatness dom o f Christ, and it is to that England that t:on were elsewh ere. tions, were really prompted by powerful groups r renewal of "He was crucified to his Thought," said a! Gold Lords in this country who did not see from the Tudors, from H enry VIII and above we must look who hope for he Father Vincent, who of all men should know why Italy should grab the valuable raw mater all Elizabeth. Many observers of. the time life. what that means. And several times, in spite ials instead of themselves. This is very likely "For each at u tter need, of his jokes, I looked into his eyes in the last true, but was not of prime importance compared knew better, among them that able Protestant fifteen years, and thought them not the eye> of to the re-entrance of an unhappy practice deem pamphleteer Thomas N ashe, w ho "pointed T rue comrade and true foeman, a happy man. He would not be the first to say ed dead for civlliGed peoples. This lost A. M. to the ruin of Jerusalem as an object-lesson Madonna, intercede." "On with the Motley," when th at was what so Currie to the paper and the League, and all my England is not to perish (which may many expected of him. sympathies were with him. How many more for London, whose sins, he cried, were ripe If It has always been my conviction that little went is mere guesswork. for judgment. Thus he introduces an arraign God forbid) she m ust and will go b ack to of real importance escaped him, whether what The really important division occurred a.fter ment of city life" (H. V. Routh in Camb. her own land and her own traditions, those was happening, or what was going to happen. the Old Man's death, which coincided almost How should he be happy, with that great fore exactly with the opening o{ the Franco Revolt Hist. Eng. Lit., 1934, IV, xvi 324). of Alfred and More. In his Ballad of the knowledge in his mind? P robably he saw exactly in Spain. I remember him on one occasion de It is noteworthy that Kipling, whose W hite H orse Chesterton foretold the r eturn where blindnero, political and industrial, was fending the freedom of Distributists in these barian, who is now snugly installed going to lead his country, not to m ention his terms: "It is possible, although the thought is votaries called him the bard of E mpire, wrote of the Bar Paper and h is League. painful, that a Distributist might be a total far b etter when he praised Sussex or the in Whitehall, misdirecting labour and much The controversies that were going to split abstainer." The same principle, at least, a.pplled Undercliff, and "the wooded dim blue good else. W e believe, with Chesterton, that his the country from top to bottom would also split to Spain. A decision on the spanish War was one the Paper and the League. The former indeed which everyone had to make for himself. It had ness of the Weald" than when he attuned his triumph will be short, and his failure will because au the English had to m ake decision one nothing to do with Distributism, although one songs to the Music Hall or the Orange drum make way for the return of " Faith and green way or the other. They were not of the essence was left by the R ight with t he impression that fields and honour and the sea." There is no of D!Gtributism, in any case, and the act of mak civilisation was at stake, and that Credo in mings. Even regarding the oversea domin ing a choice at all was destr uctive of Distribut Franconem was shortly to be added to the Nioene ions his best inspiration came from the majes pessi mist l ike your Progressive, there is no ism as a component. Creed. ty of wild wide spaces "and stars to all optimist save he who remains "true to the Mrs. Sheed, technically, is not correct in What personal line the Old Man would have saying that G .K's Weekly ended with h is death taken must be a matter of guooswork. Certainly eternity," the winds of Canada and the ki ndred points of heaven and home." in June, 1936. I t continued as such for some he would not have fallen into the uncritical ploughing rain, the lonely ramparts of the two years l onger, before it became The Weekly adulation or Franco which afflicted his nominal Karroo, and the g lamour of Indian f olklore. Review* under my old friend Reginald Jebb, successors. My own guess is that he would have from whom i t has been very painful to differ. recovered his true 'form of getting well under Little did he imagine that the cause he exalt A CHRISTMAS NEED Actually she is correct, for the paper became the skin of any problem; and that the notion of ed was one with the commercial greed that Perhaps the new affront of savage faces, almost at once an organ of the Right, and by Catholic Spain being preserved by the armed Is driving You far from the H oly Places. that fact ceased to be the organ of Distributism, might of "lousy Moors" from North A'fl'ica would was bleeding England white. Of what avail which rejectG that idiotic d ivision of mankind. have provoked a gale of laughter. In that was it to smite pathways to the ends of all the o matter. Here more instant needs are able I well remember the shock df going to the office pleasant gale delusions would have been swept while Mammon was free to devour To welcome Family- and Beasts-and Stable. of the paper in th e S ummer of 1938, and of see awa-y. earth paper came out strongly and uncom - H.R. ing its windows pla~tered with advertisments of The England's heart? In a happier m oment he The Right Book Club. promisingly on the side of Franco, and this un sang : I must sketch briefly the course of this de fortunate decision split readers and leaguers "But ye must speed for all that ye need, ferment imposed on Distribut!sm. irrevocably in two. Your error, my dear sir, if I m ay say so, As I h ave mentioned in an earlier chapter. Many pe1iodicals, of course, not only sup To Oak, and Ash and Thorn .. . lies in imagini ng that Socialism and privilege there was a small warning cloud at the time of ported Franco during the period of hostilities, but have flogged it ever since for over seven Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good Sirs, are t~o contending principles. They are not the Coal Lock-out in 1926, which should have m ade us very careful not to take Sides on years since the fighting stopped. The pleasing (All of a Midsummer morn) I enem1 es, and in practice it is impossible to m atters wh ich d id not compel the a6Sent or dis- result has been that no notice is taken by out En gland shall bide till Judgment tide have the o ne without the other.-Satan, m siders of their views on anything else. Against this atmosphere I muGt. in this place, By Oak, and Ash. and Thorn! " H ell's Bells, by Marmaduke Dixey. • The Weekly R eview ceased publication, as such. in June 1947. adduce testimony. Senor Jose Antonio de 6 7 Aguirre, de jure President of the B ~squ~, is not at least does not change his spots. The attitude of the Holy See dur ing this He showed how a society which based itsel! The human will, as the Old Man was never only a man of courage, but ot h1gh mtegrity. on secondaries, and ignored primaries, must fail tired of saying, is dominant in all respects. Our That does not make his opinions valld: ~t does political row was entirely correct. No approval of the Franco claim or regime was forthcoming of its own lack. We have lived to see the world first, and indeed our only, need is to ce~e to be entitle him to be believed when he test1fies to collapsing under the pressure of fundamental m€.Gmerised by illusions. We are in process af what he knows at first hand. In 1945 he pub during the period of hostilities. It must not be overlooked that it is quite normal and general facts ignored feebly or ignorantly by the econo being smothered by the weight of industrialism lished "Freedom is Flesh and Blood (Gollancz). mists; and in particular by the portentous and its consequent bureaucracy. He was approached twice, as early as 1931,. to for the Holy See to recognise any de facto government that will be recognised. It is always appearance of soH and material erosion. Tnese 50und imposing words, but they mean solicit his support for an anti-Republlcan Rtsmg He showed, in short, how irldustrial society, no more than the will of a few men imposed on (pp. 233-5). . done, for obvious reasons, and it was done in th ls case. The only document urged (and urged whether capitalist or the superficially more the multitude. Not quite so easily and freely as He also says: "I can state categoncally that logical communiGt, must fail af its own neglect in Chesterton's day, but Gtill adequately, we can the victims executed by Franco's regime are far wrongly) as a Papal approval of Franco is a diplomatic letter introducing the Papal Nuncio of fi rst principles. He coUld not have foreseen refi'ain from buying the products of Big Business. more numerous than the victims made to suffer the atomic bomb, which ends all the industrial We also misconceive the nature of bureaucracy. at the hands of certain hangers-on of the Repub appointed to the rebel government after its milit ary success. This letter is in flowery tenns, as dream at a blow. He saw it in principle, and The bureaucrats :u-e not primarily to blame. lic." (p. 232 ). he knew what it would do. They are set up by the politicians a nd their But perhaps more signi~cant still, becaUSe is n ormal in diplomatic letters. It is no more to be adduced as revealing the We are now at the stage which he was fond secret controllers when an Act of Parliament is it destroys entirely any notiOn that the R1ght Papal mind than is of drocribing, where a benighted traveller at the pas:;ect. Being reasonably honest men, they went was more concerned for the welfare of religiOn any other letter of similar purpose. We shoUld cliff-edge must retrace his steps or perish, even to find a day's work for their pay. Hence the than for its own politics, i6 the following: "By have a few surprises if they were all }lublished though all the fashionable and disinterested complications of bureaucracy. But we can still the year 1935, any solution at all was impossible. and many saviours of society would be revealed' advisers say it is impossible t o retrace one's control the politicians, and therefore their work In that year the Pope named Mgr. Tedeschini But honest men take them for what th ey are-.: Gteps. In oth er words, Distributism is now seen and consequences, by the election of decent local (then serving as Papal Nuncio in Spajn) a Car flourishes introducing an ambassador, without as the only alternative, not merely to Communist men to elbow out t he politicia ns. The ravelling dinal, and had granted the power of crowning any exceutive meaning. Industrialism, but to the collapse of everything. is complicated, and the unravelling will not be him with the Cardirlal's Hat to the President of Mr. Eelloc has often said (and rightly) that In G .K.'s W eekly of 31st December, 1932, after simple, but we cannot go into that now. This is the Republic Senor Alcala Zamora. The cere in European affairs generally, "Poland is the one of our periodic warnings, he said: the fimt and essential act of will. mony was ceiebrated with great solemnity at the Test." "Now there is a third body of opinion that We do not deny here, for instance, that Presidential Palace. Only two of the 474 In the matter of Spain we may say with deserves to be given expression at this stage of bureaucracy, like mechanisation, once set in members of the Cortes-myself and the other equal truth: "The t est is t he Basques." decline and fall-a body of opinion that was motion, seems to have a hideous life of its own. ~asque representative-were present at the cere Finally, at the end of 1936, there W!ltl the well-informed and anxious years before the gold Ultimately, t his also is an illusion. Let us re. mony. The Rightists refused to go because they disastrous business of the abdication of King standard was abandoned and t he nation was member always and d evoutly, Uncle H umphrey. resented Mgr. Tedeschini's well-meant attempts Edward 8. enlightened •fairly plainly as to its plight. Those It is of consequence that the r ulerG depend at bringing about their collaboration wi th the This was another case where everyone hact who have felt neither more despondent nor le:;s on deceiving the voters, and it is of hope that Republic. The Leftists refused to attend for optimistic during 1932 went out of their way in that field no more than undeception Is Involv fear that their presence might be interpreted as to make his own decision. It was no part of Distributlsm. These crises left the whole country years earlier to warn their hearers that prosper ed. And it iG also of hope that much can be showing clerical leanings." (P. 278) . ity was illusory and that the industrial s ystem done outside politics by every one of us. It is clear that the said Rightists are as a friend of mine said: "emotionally very exhausted." was not merely oppressive but as dangerous to No-one who understands what Chesterton Catholic if the Church will play ball. Otherwise n ational safety as it was t o liberty. They saw was trying to achieve can be unaware that h e it is just too bad. We should not forget that Readers and Leaguers were emotionally that industrialism would continue until ft had became more and more convinced that crash they are the spiritual descendants of Charles V, exhausted too. The war of 1939 to 1945 began gone too far and that the return to sanity would must precede revival. More than logic was who sacked Rome in 1527, and of Philip 2, who with Distributism down and out. How is it to f be along a diffe rent road. They did not oppose needed for most people to see the writing on the made war on the Pope in 1556. That Jeopard be now that hostilities have ceased? the National Government because they regarded wall. Hunger and chaos are hard taskmasters. it as a bulwark (as Cardinal Newman said of bUJt they do teach with effect. He said once, in another institution) against evils greater than a mood of despondency, "Great Alfred In the Chapter 9 itself. And they knew that if immediate difficul darkness of the ninth century, when the Danes HIS PLACE AMONG THE DOCTORS ties were overcome, there would be a better were beating at the door, wrote down in his copy prospect of the realisation of the things they of BoethiuG his denial of the doctrine of fate."• In what unfathomable inward deeps most desired-slow realisation, but realisation He wished passionately that men would see Dwells the last mystery men call liberty. none the less." the red light before it was obscured by the - G . K . Chesterton (To a Lady) I do not propose to discuss the present avalanche. We must surely, he thought, give up I HOPE I have brought out the significance of never like what people expected would happen. situation in any terms more detailed than these: some thmgs in order to keep the great permanen Chesterton's position during the twenty years There has been no per iOd in history where what but I must indicate, however briefly, what is the cies-man and his nature, the family, a suffi between the wars, and the evils the modern actually happened was like t he forecasts assumed only line of 1'anity and persistence. ciency of things, productive property t o keep him world has brought on itself by giving its atten generally to be true in the preceding period. The free. In one of his most touching hymns he tion to manner and excluding matter. It remains future of industrialism, in the general view, was Let us exclude for the moment any question wrote :- to conclude t hese notes by assessing in very brief like a nything but what it turned out to be. The of the welfare of mankind, and consider the pemistence of things by which Tis not that they enrich Thine hands fashion our present position, and by showing lone voices crying in the darkness w ill h ave been alone mankind But they are saved from ours. how the things Chesterton stoOd for are alone j ust enough to make the an?.lysis valid. Only ca n live. It is now quite clear that all political variants of jndustrialism -(A Song of Gifts to God). viable and must continue to grow. the disbelieved h appens. are headed •for, and He rated us, probably, too highly. At a The industrial are very near to, disaster by the exhaustion of world, on the contrary, after He showed, at a time when Capitalist Indus moment when the very physical world is crash the most destructive war in history, and with things. It is now quite c'ear that both capitalist ing around us; when the atomic trialism and Socialism seemed to be at each and communist industrialism have made the bomb (and Its greater dCGtruction impending, is like the Bour_ other's throats, that logically they peers) promises and ensures the destruction of bons. It has learned nothing and forgo are the same. brave show they have made by LIVING ON tten We have lived to see all the Parties falling over all the industrial panoply; when societies are nothing_ It has committed the unforgivable sin. CAPITAL. I mean that machine-facture has not appalled by the vision of a world based on It has ignored the nature of t hings. one another to espouse the Communist solution concealed hitherto its unsound basis by the con as when they all welcomed the hysteria about trade; at such a moment we can see, as he saw As Chesterton said in The Flying Inn: stant expansion of foreign markets which are twenty years ago, that men will not cease to be what is improperly called Social Security, in now in their last ~age of possible expansion. It "It is the truth," answerect Crooke, looking 1943 and later. b£Gotted until they must. back at him with equal steadiness. "Do you was this expansion which appeared to contradict The Early Bird catches the Wmm. think you made the world, that you shoUld make the forecasts of Cobbett. Actually his facts The Worm that dieth not. He showed t hat unemployment was a neces were not contradicted: they were only delayed. it over again GO easily?" sary feature af machine-facture solved only by - (Hygiene). "The world was made badly, " said Philip total war; we have lived to see it both fulfilled Parallel with this process is the undoubted Our world, then, may well destroy itself. with a ten-ible note in h is voice: "and I will and exhausted by a ~ec ond World War which fact that industrialism has lived only-that is, What can we do to replace it. we who honour a make it over again." alone has found work for everybody. We have has only kept its supporters and victims physic prophet even in his own country? Everything predicted by him and his group also seen the general preparations for world ally alive-by a ruthless exhaustion of the soils There is his vision of the ultimate societv of has come true, and no other predictions have t rade on the new industrial scale: it will hold (and raw materials> of the world. Here also, simple things based on the final truths of iife: come true. during the short periOd while the world refits. beyonu doubt or peradventure, industrialism has I remember once, in what seemed to me a After that it must certainly result in stalemate been LIVING ON CAPITAL. • Is It Too Late? terrible :>.nalysis. he said that the future was or a third and final war. ' 9 and there i6 the way to get there. He was never of power have been deJtroyed by the very prin tired of pointing ciples out the deep difference between they brought into being. The outstanding social feature in this eoUB whole these two objects: how the goal I suggest, therefore, try for the past amount or theoo payments would not m_v o1ves one set that Dlstributism is to twelve years has been the exis suffice to regain of ultimate values, but the road mvolves be seen clearly e s the only tence of a body of men and our distant markets, captured USl!lg remedy for the ills women, varying by better-equipped or nearer the stones of the pavement. "I am not a fanatlc; and diSaSters involved by all other existing from one to three millions strong (but competitors; and never the practice itself would lead to abuses only and I think . that machines may . ~ of con expedients. In this startling situation, with fa-lling 'below the smaller figur~ ) , for whom the too siderable use m destroymg every industrial familiar to the working classes. It is the very machme1y. (Qut lme i dotted, and every t crossed, by the portent organ1satwn of SOCiety carl find no definition oj Sanity , p . 171 ). of the atomic bomb, means of livelihood. o! the Unemployment Problem that those who wish culture to there are already more men But what the superficial tend always survive must bestir The cause ot this ~l HIS is not the place to give in detail the gist In the broadcast on 1st September, 1944, the T of the social Encyclicals. It may be of fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the second interest, however, to point out that since Pope World War, His Holiness made explicit what llil