You will remember that in the final stage of the trial of Sir Thomas More, when, according to William Roper, Sir Thomas had alleged that the law of God overrode the laws of England, and that, in addition, the indictment, which relied on the word ‘maliciously’ to bring More under the Statute, was faulty, the Chancellor, Audley, momentarily shaken by his predecessor’s eloquence and known legal wisdom, turned to his colleague the Chief Justice, Sir John Fitzjames, and asked him what he thought of the indictment. Fitzjames was not to be caught. ‘My lords all, by St Julian’, he replied, ‘I must needs confess that if the acte of parliament be not unlawful, then is not the indictment in my conscience insufficient.’ Thus saying, he threw the case back upon the Act of Supremacy, with the implication that a Statute was beyond the reach of criticism.

As it happens, the latest of all Tudor historians, in a remarkable survey that appeared only a few months ago, gave it as his opinion that in the years 1530-3 a great revolution in legal and political theory and practice was achieved in England: that Parliament—that is, of course, the king in Parliament—became then both in theory and practice what it has ever since remained, the self-sufficient, omnicompetent legislative body. That this was so in foro externo was proclaimed and understood at the time. The legislative competition of the Church, whether in the form of ancient canon law or new decretals, or in the form of conciliar decrees in England, had been for the future eliminated by Henry VIII.

The Holy See, ten years ago, re-established the Catholic hierarchy in China, shortly after the creation of the first Chinese cardinal, His Eminence Cardinal Thomas Tien. Three of the nineteen archbishops, including those of the capital, Nanking, and the national cultural centre, Peking, were native Chinese. Twenty-nine of the hundred and forty-five ecclesiastical territories (dioceses and apostolic prefectures) were governed by native Chinese.

A long, exhausting war had just ended; a war from which the nation had emerged morally enhanced but materially handicapped. The native clergy were comparatively numerous (2,500 priests) and able to assume ever-increasing responsibility. The missionaries who had been interned by the Japanese resumed their work with fresh enthusiasm and missionary reinforcements began to arrive. It was easy to imagine that the evangelization of China, whose population represents a quarter of humanity, would continue to receive the fullest support from nearly all missionary congregations and societies. The members of these missionary groups come from all the European countries, except the Orthodox ones, from North America, and even from South America (Colombia). The chances for the increase of Christianity seemed good, in spite of the civil war and the Communist occupation of vast northern and central areas where religious activity was restricted.

The flood of literature on automation which has appeared in recent months has left no one in doubt as to the importance of the subject. Most of the discussion, unfortunately, has been of the effects of automation rather than of automation itself; the public has not been allowed to acquire any background knowledge, with the result that automation remains mysterious and menacing. I came across an example of this recently, when I was asked to take part in some Staff Association negotiations on the introduction of machines into office work ‘in case they try to blind us with science’. In fact all the science needed could have been explained in five minutes, and it would then have been clear that in this case there was no need for anxiety.

Until recently it was not easy for the layman to obtain reliable information on the many topics which are grouped under the heading of automation, but this situation has been much improved by the publication of an official survey which is a model of lucidity and careful writing. This survey picks out three streams of technical progress: automatic data-processing, automatic machining, and automatic process-control. I shall discuss each of these in turn, describing first examples of the equipment involved and afterwards the kind of effect which this equipment is having.

We begin with automatic data-processing, which in its most advanced form is carried out by electronic digital computers or ‘brains’. These computers are perhaps the most remarkable of automatic machines.