Immediate action. The state of affairs twenty years hence is difficult to conjecture. Those who foresee the break-up of Industrialism are preparing quite logically to go back to the land. Under the circumstances it is beside the point to criticise the smallness of their beginnings or to ask how townsmen can possibly be turned into successful farmers. But a general crash is far from being the only possibility. The centre of gravity is shifting from the congested industrial town, but whether it will move into the country or stop in the outer suburb is another matter. After all, there are various schemes which claim to be able to save our present system of production, although they would completely overhaul the financial system. For this reason, Mr. Foster’s suggestion in the present number of Blackfriars for Catholic housing associations deserves the most serious consideration.

An economic staff. The Army has specialist officers whose function is to adjust fighting power to the economic situation. The Church, too, has its specialists; but, very naturally, they are mostly concerned with principles and diagnosis of conditions. There is room for a more immediate and utilitarian effort. Local government affects our lives more than Parliament does, and although priests are often closely in touch with local developments, there seems to be a place for a council which would inform and advise diocesan authorities on such things as future town planning, the movement of industry, the possibility of a Catholic housing scheme at some strategic point. This is work for laymen, a form of Catholic action which did things, instead of debating social theory. For the times are too urgent to wait for many theoretical conclusions; the centre of Catholic life is a church, and what is a church unless the Catholics are grouped around it?