Cyril Cusack: If walls have ears and windows seem like eyes, the ancient oak panelling and leaded panes of this Old Hall of Lincoln’s Inn, where we are gathered by the courtesy of the learned Benchers, have stored up a memory of many a legal inquisition into strange territories of human thought and behaviour. If a tongue could be added to them, they could tell of very diverse causes heard and judgments given upon them. But surely they have seldom if ever witnessed a stranger occasion than this, when that very modem example of human ingenuity and skill, the Cinema, pleads its cause as an art through the medium of a medieval disputation. Such a subject might well seem very far removed from the thinkers of the middle ages and their method of enquiry might well appear ill-chosen to examine its claims. In the sphere of visuals it is surely a far cry from the modern film to the crabbed manuscripts and theological preoccupations of the thirteenth century.

Yet, after all, there is a certain fittingness in the occasion. The Cinema, with all that it stands for, is undoubtedly a great force in modern life, and opinion is very divided as to whether it is a force for good or evil, for the advancement of civilisation and culture or for its impeding and destruction. It is well, therefore, that it should be brought to the bar of judgement and, in that case, it is most fitting that its cause should be heard in this Old Hall of one of the oldest Inns of Court in this ancient city of London. For the Cinema is now on trial as to its claim to be an art, and even the highest form of art; and the canons of art, according to which it must be judged, are laws as firm and as ancient as the true laws of human behaviour.

Note: The following article by the Warden of the Residential College for Adult Education at Urchfont Manor, Devizes, was occasioned by the writer being invited to open the discussion after the lecture on science as a substitute for religion by Dr Sherwood Taylor, published in the last issue of Blackfriars. Writing quite evidently from a non-Catholic standpoint the author makes his suggestions with the authority of experience, for he deals constantly with the average man-in-the- street whose suspicions of religion and whose faith in science have turned the present era into a post-Christian age. There are forty million, or 80% of the population of England and Wales, who accept this point of view without question, so that the suggestions on how to meet them in such a way that they may be willing to listen to the Christian point of view are among the most urgent of the day. Catholics still seem a little dazed at the immense avalanche of desertion from Christianity and they often lack experience of the other point of view since they hold on to their own faith with such praiseworthy tenacity. It is therefore with gratitude to the author and with a plea to the Christian reader to consider his words deeply that we present the article as a continuation of the discussion begun by Dr Sherwood Taylor in the last issue of Blackfriars.—-Editor.

A Good deal of time has been spent in the last few years proving that the central doctrines of Christianity are not in conflict with the main theories of modem science. There has, of course, been much genuine conflict between Christianity and the social or philosophic implications, usually materialist, which some scientists have read into their work.

Not long ago General Smuts made a very significant statement about U.N.O. He pointed out that the ‘world vote’ instituted by the United Nations may come to be a coloured majority vote. Already the Nations which administer coloured dependencies are beginning to feel the draught. Britain and Belgium and France are indignant about the ‘back-seat drivers’ of colonial administration. South Africa has felt half a gale already. It is only a matter of time until someone notices, and makes a case of, the treatment of American Negroes, which is legally so sound, but actually leaves so much to be desired. If U.N.O. is going to turn on those that founded it, it is principally in matters of colour. If Western Liberalism as a whole is to lose the confidence of its multi-coloured following, it will be on this question. Nor would a triumph over Russia in war leave things any better—possibly rather worse. For each time the coloured peoples are asked to co-operate in a war they expect additional recognition after it, and anxious war-time promises are then evaded until the coloured peoples lose patience.

This is a very serious matter for Christianity, since the West claims, in a general manner, to represent Christianity. Unless there is a very marked change in the colour situation of the whole world the same process as that which has discredited Christianity with the working class of Western nations will take place in connection with colour bars. Just as the ‘workers’ were taught to identify the Church with capitalism, the enemy; so the coloured peoples will be urged to identify it with colour superiority prejudice. And both have just sufficient grounds in facts of the conduct of Christians, Catholics included, to make the accusation really dangerous.