No Statesman ever insisted more often or more stoutly that he was a practical man than Edmund Burke. On almost every page of his writings he proclaims his distaste for theory and abstraction. But he could seldom leave a question without a fling at the theory of it. This was unfortunate, for his theoretical efforts, though often dazzling, were rarely convincing. The examination of the body of his doctrine on any subject, taken as a whole, is likely to leave the reader echoing the sentiments of Mr. Pitt, who said after looking through one of Burke's publications that it was like other rhapsodies from the same pen: he found in it much to admire and nothing to agree with.

In An article published in the July 1942 number of the Review of Politics, I suggested that contemporary learned men who deny the existence of truth, virtue, or beauty, are led into a dilemma. Either they must confine truth to positive science, where the results are always tentative and incomplete with respect to the universe in which human beings have to move, or else they must believe that people generally will be inclined towards good and wise actions even though learning refuses to admit the existence of standards, apart from the rules of conduct that can be derived from positive science. The second view, we suggested, involves the admission that impersonal standards do exist, independent of positive science. We might conclude that the nourishment of these standards by means of the intellect, and with the help of results obtained by science, ought to be the supreme task of learning.

“Russian policy is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” Winston Churchill stated. But Joseph Stalin claimed: “Our policy is simple and clear.” These statements which apparently contradict each other can be reconciled. For the mysterious character of the Russian foreign policy is the result, precisely, of the apparent clearness of its principles. Since its birth, the Soviet regime has always described itself as the standard-bearer of the Marxian doctrine and the Communist world revolution; yet this aim has always permitted the use of the most varied methods. Glaring contradictions in practice were defended by the same slogans and formulas. On the one hand, the Soviet regime, apparently sacrificed Russia to the world revolution; on the other hand, it seemed to put the world revolution into the service of the proletarian fatherland. The Soviet regime utilized the German opposition to the status quo created by the treaty of Versailles as well as the French fear of German imperialism and of Germany's attempts to obtain mastery in Europe and throughout the world. The Soviet regime for years regarded moderate Socialists as its most hated enemies, but later it tried to cooperate with them in the anti-Fascist Popular Front. The leaders of the Soviets sometimes proclaimed that the world revolution was around the corner but that belief has not prevented them at other times from regarding it only as a remote possibility in a far distant future.

We Shall describe first the attitude of the hierarchy towards the Vichy regime just after the armistice, secondly the political and religious resistance of a certain number of lay Catholics to this regime, and finally how this will to temporal independence by Catholic citizens (with the exception of some Catholic leaders who did not grasp the significance of the Pétain government) resulted in a general opposition to the totalitarian pretensions of the “French State.”

Most people today mean not one but two things, when they speak of “Economic Policy”. Sometimes they mean the attainment of economic ends by means of political techniques: the “economic” concept of economic policy. Or again they mean the attainment of noneconomic, political ends by means of economic techniques: the “political” concept of economic policy. The first concept is the one the professional economist would be likely to use; and it is the only one current in economic theory. The other, the “political” concept, is that of practical politics today. It is not only war economics—whether of the Democracies or of the Nazis—that is based on a “political” economic policy but also many plans for the future such as, for instance, the Beveridge Report. For the “security” to which this and similar plans aspire, is not an economic concept but a political and social one; and it is “economic security” only because its realization is sought through economic means.

Modern financial history records two fundamental changes in the concept of taxation. While, from the 16th to the 18th century, tax collection was considered as an expedient in times of emergency and even an abuse which as soon as possible should be replaced by income derived from public property, particularly domains, and by voluntary contributions, common opinion has gradually acquiesced in its permanent character. Current taxation is the inseparable twin of the modern State. This is as true for socialist as for capitalist countries. It is significant that even Soviet Russia, in spite of her vigorous collectivization, had to admit that the government could be more easily financed by current compulsory contributions than by the yield of public enterprises. After a brief diversion into the Utopian tax-free stage during the years 1920 and 1921, she regretfully returned, under the auspices of the New Economic Policy (NEP), to a broad scheme of direct and indirect taxation. Moreover, the recent suggestion of a follower of Mr. Keynes that taxation be stripped of its traditional function since the raising of revenue “can be brought about so much more easily by printing the money.” seems not to have made any deep impression on public opinion. Except for times of emergency and wars, governments are condemned for borrowing a large proportion of their needs.

Analysis of current phrases as they apply to social problems yields unexpected results. In the modern scene language is carefully gauged to convey impressions and assumptions quite as well as obvious meanings. We are all aware of this phenomenon in the political world, in the domain of campaign oratory, and in the field of organized propaganda. But certain areas have not been so much explored, and the question of race relations, a field that from the Catholic side has been largely neglected, happens to be particularly well-stocked with just this type of expression.