BRITAIN'S STORM SIGNALS

...CONSERVATIVE SPOKESMEN have told me that it would be useless to try to unscramble coal and railways, and that they* have no objection to public ownership pi utilities...

...Roosevelt, and to reassure Catholics that passage of a bill like Representative , Barden's will not harm one iota of their rights...

...The British labor movement is facing a supreme test of the wisdom and foresight of its leaders and the discipline and loyalty of: its rank-and-file...

...Morris B. Chapman...

...This in no way infringes upon the right—which we unreservedly uphold—of Catholic, Jew, Protestant or any other religionist to worship his God in fullest freedom, and to bring up a child in a school adhering to his own faith...

...Roosevelt by failing to receive the Democratic nomination for U. S. Senator...

...All these measures would be distasteful...

...Other assets for Labor spokesmen would 'have been full, almost overfull employment, and a lessening in the amount of industrial st*ife" compared with the years after World'War I, These considerations would probably have outweighed, at least for the organized wage earners (and Britain, with about nine million trade unionists out of a total population of 48 million, is a highly unionized country), the effect of a standard of living that is still austere...

...With the unlimited power of a Parliament that is able, as has been said, to do everything except change a woman into a man, and with tight party discipline, it is easier for a party with the large parliamentary majority Labor won in 1945 to push through its program, than it has been for President Truman to get his "Fair Deal" implemented...

...But it is hard, at the moment, to see how some of them can be avoided...

...The general impression is that if an election had been held a year or even six months ago...

...The myth of chivalrous "white riding hood" Is over...

...Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, recently announced the figure as $1,625,000,000...

...Much that Labor has nationalized will remain even if the Conservatives win the next election...

...Only iron and steel remain to be nationalized, and a bill providing for essential state control of iron and steel is before Parliament now...

...Unless a satisfactory solution to this crisis is found, the democratic socialist cause will receive a severe setback and some of the assumptions on which American political and economic policy has been proceeding may have to be revised...

...Reduced to its simplest terms, the Crisis is a matter of inability to earn enough in exports—especially to "hard currency" countries like the United States, Canada, Belgium and Switzerland—to pay for needed imports, even with Marshall Plan aid...

...The Alabama law forbidding the wearing oi masks in public marks the end of an era...

...The present ratiqn, by American standards, is barely enough for one hearty meal a week...

...There is definitely a "run" on sterling, as there is a run on a bank suspected of being in a weak financial position...

...A great army of American libertarians stands ready to defend those rights unto death...

...The Russian historian whose book on Latin America was not sufficiently hostile to the US will have a hard time getting back into the good graces of the Kremlin...

...He'll have to turn over not only a Ifew leaf, but an entire book...

...Road transport would probably go back te •prlvvfe hands should Labor lose office, and private ownership of iron and steel would be maintained or restored...

...Nor will it avail freedom's cause to "persecute," in turn, such valiant foes of tyranny as Herbert H. Lehman;'New York's ex-Governor may be penalized for his gallant defense of Mrs...

...cuts in social services to reduce expenditure and taxation...

...Congress passes so many phony bill's openly and seems to got away with it...

...It has carried out, in the main, the platform on which it was elected in 1945: nationalization of such basic industries as coal, gas, electricity, railways and motor transport, iron and steel...

...Labor . spokesmen also point to the large expansion of public services, the health *ervjo« -relmost entirely paid for by the ttatia^the subsidies which keep rationed food cheap, the' extension of hot school lunches, the spread of factory canteens-rbetter supplied with, meat than expensive hotels^ubaidlied housing and other measures designed to help tjie poorer, classes, .The Labor Government arranged a friendly parting of the ways in India...

...lowering of the value of the pound, which would mean a rise in the cost of living...

...The Cardinal's ill-chosen denunciation can only serve to abet the communist charge that the ' Catholic Church is "reactionary" and itself practices intolerance,* authoritarianism and thought control...

...Roosevelt of being "anti-Catholic" because she opposes federal aid to parochial schools...

...Tito's defiance of the Soviet Union probably had much to do with the approval for a $75,000,000 loan to Yugoslavia from ike World Bank...

...Britons, by choice, are a meat-eating people...

...With constant rumors of devaluation of the pound, the tendency is to press for payments due in dollars and to delay payments involving purchase of sterling because of the possibility that the pound max, be cheaper in the near future...

...Today any sort of redmall * * * Though India's native princes hare had to surrender 75% of their wealth to the itate, they are far from poor...

...Actually, the reverse is true: the rest.of us would be so victimised if compelled to support schools which are, in fact, private and denominational, and to which we could not possibly send our children, although we would be paying for their upkeep...

...The roles of "The Prince and the Pauper" must still be played by two actors...

...BUT THE WINDS OF ECONOMIC recession have begun to blow during these last months, with the result that both the economic and political situations today are distinctly in a state of flux...

...Pen Points The counterfeiters apprehended within tho shadow of tho White House must bo bewildered by the inconsistencies of American law...

...Exhaustion of the dollar and gold reserves which Britain...

...The Labor Government in its last year of office is facing its greatest crisis...

...Britain's reserve of gold and dollars is far below the safety figure of two billion dollars...

...We devoutly hope that a way will be found to heal the breach between Cardinal Spellman and Mrs...

...Factories would stop for lack of essential raw materials and mass unemployment would follow...

...holds as trustee for the entire sterling area (including the whole Commonwealth) would be nothing short of a catastrophe...

...Cardinal Spellman damaged his own and his church's standing when he intemperately accused one as universally loved for her libertarianism as Mrs...

...The Labor Government can claim credit for a number of political, economic and social achievements...

...Britain's already modest standard of living would fall sharply...

...Cardinal Spellman contends that The Barden Bill would in effect make Catholics the victims of "taxation without representation" because under it they could not receive federal funds for their schools...

...I have seldom if ever heard so much good, thoughtful conversation as during the last two weeks here...

...Labor would have received a renewed mandate, > although probably reduced In size...

...Barring some new form of large-scale American aid, Labor will probably have to make severe and unpopular decisions to forestall exhaustion of Britain's reserves...

...What We do oppose is simply the "right" of any minority to compel the majority to support its institutions, which is no "right" at all but a travesty of minority rights...

...My notebook is full of records of talks, excerpts from newspapers and magazines, impressions...

...But may we remind our Catholic co-defenders of liberty that injection of the "persecution complex" into the tense fight for freedom will not aid interfaith relations...

...But the shadow of • impending crisis seems to have limbered up minds and unloosened tongues as never before...

...At a time when Suppression of Catholics is rampant in Soviet areas, it is understandable that some Catholic leaders—like some Jewish leaders under pressure of global persecution ' of their followers—are hypersensitive where church interests are concerned...

...I have always found intelligent Britons of all political shades willing to discuss their na- ' tional problems fully apd frankly with an inquiring visitor...

...Among such decisions might be sharp cuts in imports and more stringent controls...

...generally, Labor's attitude toward the Empire has been progressive and sympathetic to ihe social and economic needs of the dependenFpeoples...

...There are others, for example the Ku Klux Klan, more deserving of Catholic ire...