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England they appear to have something better to do?
The American conservative might reasonably feel that he is en–
titled to an answer on this score, and it is indeed a matter of general
curiosity. The answer of course is complex. Very roughly it might
be said that there are current in the political imagination of the West
today three large generous articulated visions of society magnetic
enough in their appeal to pull modern man
off
his historical course,
to make him want to reverse his steps or at any rate to stay them
and to curse those who would jostle him on. These visions are of the
Catholic Society, the Aristocratic Society, and the Middle-Class So–
ciety. Why is it that whereas in the traditionally more rationalistic
parts of the world, on the continent of Europe and in the United
States, these visions claim many addicts, among the mists of England
-above a certain level at any rate-they count for nothing? The
reasons vary, I think, in each case.
Take Catholicism first.
It
is certainly not enough to say that
Britain is a Protestant country: on the contrary, the Roman Catholic
Church is an increasingly powerful force in the religious life of the
country-just after the war, for instance, there were three million
Catholic Easter communicants to two and a half million of the
Church of England. At quite a number of points, some of them of
importance, new converts are being won. But just for this very
reason, the Catholic Church is singularly self-effacing in the matter
of politics, particularly in any general form. There are, I think, only
two traces of a political character in the 'racial memory' of the
English: a scorn for Egyptians, and a fear of Catholicism when con–
joined with politics. Like all memories, while they are dormant, they
lie so low that they are thought to be dead. But touch them and
they bite. Part of the traditional wisdom of the Catholic Church
is that it knows things of this sort. Consider for a moment the organi–
zation of the Catholic press
in
England-the way it is carefully
'tiered' so that for each class in the country there is a separate paper
and each paper carries among other things the particular political
views attuned to its particular class. Here we have a symbol of
general Catholic strategy in England. Books may appear-as they do
-on the political views of Newman or Belloc, and may even have–
as they do-some considerable measure of success, but ultimately
they count for nothing: they are intended as sweets rather than as
