The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-04-03


NATIONS-EUROPE is NOT DY-
ING; SHE is TORTURED, Ex-
HAUSTED, CONFUSED-NEED OF
RECONSTRUCTION IN EVERY
LAND-RlCH FAIL TO SEE NEW
ERA OF LABOR.
Mr.. Frank Comerford, we'll known
Chicago lawyer, thus writes of condi-
tons in Europe:
The New Order.
The most obvious thing in Europe is
the changed attitude of the people,
and yet there are many, particularly
in the conservative, employing class,
who refuse to see. There are none so
blind as these. While they close their
eyes and minds to the obvious, the
change goes on. 1t is not idle rhetoric
| to say that new great forces are at
work. Of course you cannot see the
| forces any more than you can see the
| grass growing, but you can see the
| effects. You can measure the charac-
| ter of the forces.
| Everywhere | found people talking
about a new Order. Men separated
| talking the same ideas. 1t startled
me to hear the same ideas up in the
| Balkans that l had heard in France
| and England. | did not meet any one
who was able to give me clear, COM
| plete meaning of the phrase, but it is
| on the lips of every one. 1t has a
meaning, and time will produce plan
The people are forward looking-they
are thinking, waiting for something to
| happen. They have faith that it will
| happen and that it will bring great
good to the human race. Every one
seems confident that some great COM
| pensation must and will come out of
the siege of suffering through which
they have passed. If they were not
so earnest. so sane, so determined
about it I should have interpreted
their enthusiasm as fantasy.
The Scoffers.
A meaningless minority Of reaction
| aries scOrn and scott at all talk of a
new Order. These are the backward
looking men of big business, the
standpattcrs in politics. They arc
out Of touch with the tines; they
| think the real world is tho little circle
in which they live. They are the
barnacles on big business. They
smugly set down all talk of change as
BOlshevism. Fortunately the real lead
ers Of business are breaking away
from this point of view. Progressive,
human and open minded, they see and
! know that unrest is a problem and
it must be solved, They are paying
heed to the complaints of the work
ers. They admit that there is justice
back o. the complaints: Instead OF
urging coercion, they are talking con
come, they want to meet it
New Order Must Come.
A new Order will come The one
question that is bothering the minds
of men who are awake to the change
is, will it come through revolution or
through evolution. The greatest
friend of revolution is the stubborn
employer who refuses to see the
change, accept things as they are, and
insists upon the use Of force as the
only cure for unrest.
Money is a gross thing when com.
pared with human life. TO mention
| io1 IN hn
breath with her dead and wounded
, seems sordid, but it is an everyday
world and in it money has it's logical
place. Since the war some people are
thinking that money has had too i'm
Dortant place in the world. 1t has
been charged with pushing man out OF
his place, but bills must be paid and
Europe needs money. The war cost
billions and billions Of dollars. Mil
lions of men had to be clad and shOd
billions and billions of cartridges and
=, shells, rifles, cannons airplanes, ships
were made. Europe owes the money
How will she pay it; where will she
get it? 1t is a question that even the
Wisest and most optimistic Of men il
Europe hesitate to answer Some
wonder, is there an answer?
France and England.
Europe has borrowed until her in
terest charge today is almost as large
? as her whole cost of governmental ad
t ministration was a few years ago.
l heard Lloyd George say that England
e faced a yearly interest charge of three
. hundred million pounds. Another Off
t cial told me that this interest charge
that England must pay each year il
nearly one hundred million pounds
year larger than the cost OF admins
tratiOn was at the time of the Bee
war Only the other day her interes
was due on some loans from thu
| United States and she was forced t.
default, and our government charged
= the interest to the principal and passe,
:. the day of payment on. In the mean
time the pound has gone down il
value.
II France is in even a worse plight
n The banks are loaded with govern
I. ment paper. She has made no Pre-
o vision by taxation to pay her debt
n was told on every hand that any effoI
}. to impose a tax would bring on a revC
a luton. 1t is said that her debt ha
$ reached the startling figure of S64