TES STEECAL

MSC

E S

Vol. 83, No. 5 MAY 1978

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL: MORAL BACKLASH . 3

THE INFLUENCE OF CALVINISM INBRITAIN 4

by Jasper Ridley

CHINA, REVOLT AGAINST IMPERIALISM 10

by Peter Seltman

FOR THE RECORD . 13

by the General Secretary

DISCUSSION: THE BAADER-MEINHOF EXPERIENCE 16

VIEWPOINT . 18

SOUTH PLACE NEWS . 18

COMING AT CONWAY HALL . 2

Published by

SOUTH FLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYConway Hall Humanist Centre

Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL

-SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

OFFICERS:

Appointed Lecturers: H. J. Blackham, Richard Clements, OBE Lord Brockway, T. F. Evans, Peter Cronin

General Secretary: Peter Cadogan Lettings SecretarylHall Manager: Robyn Miles

Acting Hon Registrar: Robyn Miles Hon Treasurer: C. E. Barralet

Editor, "The Ethical Record": Eric Willoughby Address: Conway Hall Humanist Centre

Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. (Tel: 01-242 8032)

Coming at Conway HallTuesday, May 2

7.00 pm—Discussion introduced by Jim Herrick: Brecht and Becket:The Artist and Society

Sunday, May 711.00 am—Sunday Meeting: TONY ASHENDEN on Body and Mind6.00 pm—Bridge and Scrabble

Tuesday, May 97.00 pm—Discussion introduced by John Tyme: Motorways versus

DemocracySunday, May 14

11.00 am—Sunday Meeting: PROF HENRYK SKOLIMOWSKI onCulture as Healer •

3.00 pm—Forum: The Role and Future of SPES with a panel ofspeakers

6.00 pm—Bridge and ScrabbleTuesday May 16

7.00 pm—Discussion introduced by Avrotestantism, Catholicism

Thursday, May 186.30 pm—Bridge Drive (see South Place

Sunday, May 2111.00 am—Sunday Meeting: MAURICE

Ideas After 19683.00 pm—Sunday Social (See South Place News) .6.00 pm—Bridge and Scrabble

Tuesday, May 237.00 pm—Discussion introduced by Victor Serebriakoff: Why We Need

ElitesSunday, May 28

BANK HOLIDAY: NO MEETINGTuesday, May 30

7.00 pm—Voltaire's 200th Anniversary MeetingWednesday May 316.15 for 7 pm—Annual General MeetingSunday, June 4

11.00 am—Sunday Meeting: W. H. LIDDELL on The Inspiration ofJoan of Arc

Manhatten: Zionism, Pro-

News)

CLEMENTZ on French

2

THE ETHICAL RECORDVol. 83, No. 5 MAY 1978

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society Microfilm and reprints available—details on request

EDITORIAL

Moral BacklashALL THE controversy about therecent blasphemy trial involvingGay News was an inevitable cul-mination of a minority butferocious backlash against pro-gress in recent years. This hasbeen spearheaded by a number ofinfluential people riding on thecrest of the boredom wave. Fromboredom comes discontent andthis, coupled with social advanceswhich may be distasteful to thealready malcontent contingent, isenough to fan the embers of amoral backlash.

When contemporary values dis-satisfy, there is only one road, inthe eyes of the malcontents, andthat is the road back. The onlyviable alternative is the old order,the past, and it is no coincidencethat a reactionary wave often co-incides with a nostalgia boom.

The real alternative is, ofcourse, further social advance,anathema to the moral reac-tionaries who with admirablestrategy (credit where it is due)strike at key issues and those only.Countless "blasphemies" have beenpublished over the last 50 years.There have been a good manysince the formation of the "Festi-val of Light", which seems to bein business to spread intellectualdarkness, but no blasphemy prose-cutions other than the Gay Newswrit, have been issued. Doubtlessit was realised that support couldbe guaranteed from a vociferousminority of the public by tradingon prejudice against homosexu-

ality. And it worked. The incidenthad everything: sex "perversion",literary "outrage", the persecutionof an "underground" publication(echoes of Oz), an implicit attackon religious belief—oh yes, it wasall there.

An old wives' tale describes avery rich man who struggles inpoverty, wears rags, eats scrapsand lives like a tramp, but whoseson abides in luxury—fast cars,big houses, penthouse flats, privateaeroplane, yacht etc. When askedabout this, the old man explained:"My son has a tremendous advan-tage. He has a rich father, I havenot".

Surely this is analagous to theposition of the champions of socialprogress and their opponents. Thememories of the "good old days"will always draw support, but thisis rarely the case with projectswhich offer only "jam tomorrow".Only in the arts does Britishsociety seem to champion adven-turous projects, sometimes againstcriticism. To many, the grantingof government monies to artistswho place building bricks in asquare on the floor, or who pro-duce a blank canvas as "a paintingfrom everyone's imagination"when more long-standing andarguably more deserving artisticfunctions arc only marginally sup-ported (and it might not be out ofplace here to mention our ownSunday evening concerts) is scan-dalous. To others, it is progress.But even this comparison is likelyto solicit support more success-

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fully to the more established andconventional art forms. It is notmerely arguing our own hypotheti-cal case to say that concertswhich- haye been performed formany years are more likely to gainsupport than new art forms. That

is the democratic choice: to selectbetween past, present and futurevested interests. Truly, the path ofthe thinking man is strewn withobstacles. And small wonder it isthat the majority languishes, un-seeing, on the grass verges.

The Influence of Calvinism in BritainBY

JASPER RIDLEY

THE EFFECT of Calvinism on England and Scotland was very different.Scotland became a Calvinist state in 1560, and is still so, at least intheory. England was a Calvinist state for only four years, from 1643 to1647; but Calvinism has had a great effect on its political history.

Martin Luther's attack on the doctrines of the established RomanCatholic Church had been provoked by the action of the pardoner Tetzel.The practice of Tetzel rested on the theory of the Catholic religion thata man would be saved by his good works. The best good works that aman could do was to found hospitals, convents, monasteries or pay moneyfor the maintenance of the Church. So the Pope granted pardons 'or sinsto those who paid.

Against the doctrine of justification by works, Luther therefore putforward the doctrine of justification by faith—that a man would be saved,not by what he did, but by the religious doctrine in which he believed.He declared that no one could buy his way into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Many simple people as well as theologians have been puzzled by theproblem: If God is both all-powerful and all-good, why are people free tocommit evil in this world? The freewillers' answer—that God chooses topermit people to exercise freedom of choice whether to do good or evil,and then either rewards or punishes them for their choice--did notsatisfy Calvin and the predestinarians; because of God is Almighty Hecould if He would, make everybody wish to do good, and if He does notdo so, it must be because He wishes them to choose to do evil.

God divided mankind into the Elect who would be saved and theReprobate who would be damned. God then saw to it that His Electwere good and did good works during their lives, and that the Reprobateswere wicked and did evil during their lives. Why did He do this?Because He loved the Elect and hated the Reprobates. Calvin and hisfollowers denied that God loved all mankind; he loved only His Elect.There was authority for this in the Bible, for "Jacob hath He loved andEsau hath He hated". He had decided that Jacob was one of the Electwho would be saved and Esau was one of the Reprobates who would bedamned.

But if God acted thus, could it be said that He was all-good? Yes, saidthe Calvinists, because by definition a good action was an act which waspleasing to God, and everything that God did must be pleasing to Him.It is true that this leaves some pertinent questions unanswered: whyshould God hate a large number of people before He has created them?And if He wants to make them burn in Hell, why should He need toprovide Himself with an excuse for doing so by making them commitsins during their lives? Calvin could answer this by saying that he did

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not know, because God had not chosen to reveal His reasons for doingthis; for though God was all-powerful and all-good, no one had everclaimed that He was all-revealing. There were those who said that Cal-vinism was an incitement to sin, because the Calvinist believed that as hewas one of the Elect he could commit sins with complete impunity.

The Calvinists had several replies to this charge. First, they said thatif a man was predestined to be saved, he would not, in fact, commitmany sins, because God would cause him to perform good works; andthat if a man persistently sinned, then he was probably not one of theElect. On the other hand, the Calvinists believed that a man couldsometimes sin and nevertheless be one of the Elect; this was proved bythe case of King David in the Old Testament, who on several occasionscommitted sins, yet was God's special servant and therefore, obviously,one of the Elect. If one of the Elect committed a sin, then God wouldoften punish him in this world, as occurred in David's case; God wouldprobably cause his wife to have a miscarriage, or thousands of his sub-jects to die of plague. Finally, the Calvinists pointed out that, far fromtheir predestinarian doctrine encouraging sin, morality was enforced morestrictly in Calvinist Geneva than in any other state in Europe. This is aninteresting fact which should be studied by both theologians and psycholo-gists. Why is it than the sixteenth-century Calvinists and the twentieth-century Chinese Communists, both of who believe that their actions inthis world will not have the slightest effect on their fate after death,subject themselves, and others, to a much stricter and more puritanicalway of life than those who think that if they lead a moral life theywill be rewarded for it in the next world?

In EnglandThe immediate effect in England of Luther's attack on the Papacy

was an intensification of the persecution of Protestants. Henry VIIIremained a completely orthodox Catholic and was conscious of the sub-versive effect on society of the Protestants' denigration of the authorityof the priesthood and the Church. But within a few years he had decidedto divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn; andas the Pope would not give him a divorce he took his subsequent course.

The English Potestants for the first time found a ruler who was pre-pared to support them to a limited extent, at least to the ekient ofdestroying the Papal power. The Protestants therefore became enthusi-astic supporters of the doctrine of royal absolutism. As early as 1525William Tyndale had put forward the English Protestants' view on royalpower in his book The Obedience of a Christian Man, which becamethe accepted doctrine of the Church of England for 150 years. "God inall lands hath put Kings, Governors and rulers in His own stead, to rulethe world through them. Whosoever therefore resisteth them, resistethGod, for they are in the room of God; and they that resist shall receivethe damnation. Even if the King be the greatest tyrant in the world,yet he is unto thee a great benefit of God; the King may at his lust doright and wrong, and shall give account but to God only". No wonderthat Henry VIII, after reading Tyndale's book, declared that "this bookis for me and all Kings to read".

It was Calvinism which was to overthrow this doctrine, but Calvinhimself did not differ much from Tyndale on the question of obedienceto rulers. Calvin was never a revolutionary. But in his book The Insti-tutes of the Christian Religion he did insert a paragraph which wasafterwards given great importance by the Calvinists, though it onlyoccupied one page in the book, which runs to about 600 pages. Calvinthought that it was the duty of a King to make his country and his

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subjects Christians, that is to say Calvinists. But what if the King didnot do so? Then perhaps, wrote Calvin, just as in ancient Sparta therewas a council of leading notables, called ephors, whose duty was to actif the King was incapable of acting, so today, if the King failed to do hisduty in making his country Calvinist, the nobility could act for him.

In 1553 the Catholic Mary Tudor became Queen of England. Many ofthe leading Protestants escaped abroad. Some went to Emden, some toFrankfort, some to Zurich, and some to Calvin's city of Geneva. Amongthem was a Scots priest, John Knox, who had become very prominentat the English Court under Edward VI. Knox played a much moreimportant role than is generally realised in developing the political sideof Calvinist doctrine and the historical development of revolutionarytheory and practice—a much more important role, in fact, than Calvinhimself.

Scotland was a very different country from England. The greatestdifference between the two countries was their attitude to law and order.England under the Tudors was a centralised monarchy with a surprisinglyefficient system of centralised government which, after the delays causedby the slow rate of transport in the sixteenth century, could send ordersto bishops and JPs and local vicars in Cornwall and Northumberland andeverywhere else to preach next Sunday on the text "Render unto Caesarthe things which are Caesar's" or to arrest someone who had been heardsaying something against the King in an inn in a remote village. InScotland, people robbed and murdered almost with impunity; when theywere summoned to appear in Court, they did not attend, and moved to adistrict where they could rely on a friendly local lord or lainl not tohand them over to the officers of the central government.

In January 1554—six months after Mary's accession—Knox went toGeneva and met Calvin. He asked him to answer four theologicalquestions, all of which in effect amounted to one question: Was it per-missible for Protestants to make an armed uprising against a Catholicsovereign? Calvin unhesitatingly said that it was never permissible, butin the course of the next few years Knox put forward the doctrine thatrevolution was justified against a Catholic sovereign. The EnglishProtestants John Ponet and Christopher Goodman also reached the sameconclusion, and advocated revolution against Queen Mary Tudor and hergovernment.

From France to Scotland

In the year 1558 two Princes of the house of Bourbon—Antoine deBourbon, King of Navarre, and his brother Louis de Bourbon, Princede Condé—became Protestants and prepared for civil war against theKing of France and the Catholics. Their ally Admiral Coligny wrote toCalvin and asked him whether they would be justified in fighting withthe Bourbons against their Catholic King. Calvin said No: "Better thatwe should all perish a hundred times than that we should cause the nameof Christianity and the Gospel to be exposed to such shame" as to fightagainst the King, he wrote to Coligny. But the French Calvinistsnevertheless did fight against the King and began the Wars of Religionin France, arguing from Calvin's doctrine of the Spartan ephors: as theKing refused to give the true religion to his subjects, these Princes ofthe Blood, the Bourbons, were entitled and indeed bound to do so. Knoxadopted the same argument at the same time in his Appellation to theNobility of Scotland; though he did not specifically refer to ephors, hetold the Scottish Lords of the Congregation, as they were beginning tobe called, that as the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, refused to act, itwas their duty to overthrow the Mass and make Scotland Protestant.

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But Knox went further. He appealed directly to the common people. of•

Scotland, as well as to the nobles, and told them that it was their dutyalso to rise in revolt against their Catholic rulers. He justified his argu-ment by examples from the Old Testament. God had not merely punishedPharaoh for his persecution of the children of Israel; He had sentplagues on all the people of Egypt, and had drowned Pharaoh's soldiersin the Red Sea. The soldiers and the Egyptian people were not to blamefor Pharaoh's actions; why then did God punish them as well asPharaoh? Because, said Knox, they sinned in not making a revolutionagainst Pharaoh. This was indeed a new doctrine to preach to a nationthat had been brought up on the teachings of the medieval Church andof Tyndale. Queen Mary Tudor responded by ordering that anyone whowas found in possession of Knox's books should be put to death.

Next year Knox returned to Scotland to put his theories into practice.His sermon at Perth on Ascension Day in 1559 started a popular revolu-tion, and the Protestant lords took over the leadership of it. TheCalvinists were victorious in Scotland only because Queen Elizabeth Iof England sent troops to assist them against the French soldiers whomthe King of France sent to suppress the revolution. The result was thatScotland became a Calvinist state and an English satellite instead of aFrench satellite. But though Elizabeth used the Calvinists as her agentsin Scotland, she would not tolerate their revolutionary doctrines inEngland.

The Role of the Vernacular Bible

The Calvinists therefore found themselves in conflict not •only withPapist but also with Protestant sovereigns. How could they justify this?They had to find a higher authority whom they could enlist on theirside. They found it in the Bible. When they were denounced, in sermons,pamphlets and by their judges at heresy trials for inventing doctrineswhich had no authority except their own fantastical imaginings; when theLord Protector, the Duke of Somerset, told them in 1548 that "it is thepart of a godly man not to think himself wiser than the King's Majestyand his Council, but patiently to expect and to conform himself", theycould reply that there was a higher authority than either Pope or King—the Word of God as revealed in Scripture and only in Scripture.

The more extreme and revolutinary a Protestant was, the more hechallenged all other established authority, the more he had to rely on astrict 'and literal interpretation of the Bible, because he was not intellec-tually ready, nor would it have been politically possible, openly torepudiate all authority except his own reason, which was precisely thecrime of which he was accused by his enemies. So, while he rigidlyobserved the Sabbath day, as the Book of Exodus commanded him, hewould not observe Christmas Day, and denounced those who do assert,with no authority from Scripture, that Our Lord was born on thetwenty-fifth day of December.

The Calvinists found some terrible things in the Old Testament. Theyfound "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", and because of thisburned thousands of witches, though no more than were burned byCatholics who did not read the Bible. They found that God had orderedHis chosen people—that is to say, His Elect—to exterminate theAmalekites and the Midanites.

They also found, in the New Testament, that Christ commandedthem to forgive their enemies, to turn the other cheek. But Christ hadsaid "Love your enemies", not "Love God's enemies"; and the Cal-vinists drew a distinction between private wrongs and wrongs against God

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and His Elect, that is to say, wrongs against the Calvinist Party. Butthe Bible clearly laid down that God wished His enemies to be exter-minated, and this played a terrible part in Calvinist theory and practice,especially in Scotland. There were many Kings in the sixteenth century,like there are dictators in the twentieth century, who coolly consideredwhether it would be politically expedient to exterminate their politicalopponents, but the Calvinists are the only people in modern history whohave taught, as a religious principle, that it was sinful not to exterminatetheir political opponents. The sin of Saul, for which he was deposed byGod, was to spare the city of Amalek when God had told him to kill allthe inhabitants. Whenever the Scottish government defeated an anti-Calvinist revolt, and the defeated rebels were sentenced to death, and itwas known that the government was considering whether to commutethe death sentence, the ministers of the Church of Scotland, in everypulpit, demanded that God's enemies should be executed, and that thegovernment should not commit the sin of Saul by sparing Amalek.

The Protestant emphasis on literal interpretation of the Bible did notprevent the English and Scottish Calvinist refugees at Geneva in 1558from producing the famous Geneva Bible, which was not only a trans-lation, but was also adorned with footnotes which run to nearly twicethe length of the Biblical text itself. These gave a Calvinist interpretationto the Word of God. Thus in the famous passage so often quoted by thetheologians of the Church of England, where David finds Saul asleep ina cave but does not kill him, because, as he says, "Who can stretch forthhis hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?", Knox and hisfriends added the footnote: "To wit, in his own private cause; for Jehuslew two Kings at God's appointment". The Geneva Bible, which wasreprinted in 140 editions between 1560 and 1644, was the most formidableinstrument of revolutionary propaganda in both England and Scotland.

In England

When Elizabeth I died, King James VI of Scotland became King ofEngland. James had already had considerable success in bridling thepower of the Calvinist Church in Scotland. Even more strongly thanElizabeth he threw his authority behind the anti-Puritan and anti-Calvinist factions in the Church of England. James, and even more hisson Charles 1, came into conflict with the English House of Commons.At this stage, the leadership of the struggle against the King and hisgovernment passed from the Puritan divines to lay lawyers and gentlemen,and other issues arose—the challenge to the King's right to levy taxeswithout the consent of Parliament and his right to imprison MPs andother gentlemen without due process of law. But though the lawyers andMPs in the House of Commons now cited Magna Carta and the judg-ments of Chief Justice Coke rather than Biblical texts, they were mostof them Calvinists in religion and the religious issue was very prominentin their minds.

Despite the mounting criticism of Charles l's despotic policy inEngland, it is quite possible that the King might have succeeded in sup-pressing the opposition for very many years if it had not been tor theScottish Calvinists, who were now known as Presbyterians. The Englishrevolution and Civil War began in Scotland when Charles tried tosuppress the religious services of John Knox's Book of Common Orderand impose a new service which was closer to the English Anglicanservice of the Book of Common Prayer. The Scots rose in armed revolt.The King led an army against the Scots, there was fighting, and theScots won, and at Ripon in October 1640 dictated peace terms to the

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King. He was forced to summon the Parliament which became the LongParliament. Parliament abolished his despotic power and executed nis twoministers, Strafford and Laud.

But when, two years later, Charles tried to regain the power that hehad lost and began the Civil War, the Scottish Presbyterians at firststayed neutral. The war went badly for the Parliament in the first year,and Parliament appealed to the Scots for aid. The Scots said they wouldonly intervene if England became a Calvinist and Presbyterian state.The Parliamentary leaders agreed, and in '1643 passed legislation whichmade the Church of England a Presbyterian Church. The Scots thenentered the English Civil War and played a decisive part in the victoryof Parliament up to 1645. Presbyterianism seemed to have triumphedin England as well as in Scotland.

Reaction Against Calvinism

The triumph was short-lived. The Calvinists, to use a modern politicalexpression, were about to be outflanked on their Left, and to give wayto those more extreme Protestant sects which they denounced asAnabaptists. The fight between Calvinists and Anabaptists went back tothe days when the Unitarian theologian Michael Servetus was con-demned as a heretic by Calvin and burned in Geneva in 1553. By 1644,in Cromwell's army, extreme religious groups, who were known as theIndependents, were advocating religious toleration for all except RomanCatholics, and the right of every Christian to pray and preach as hewould, and the abolition of the priesthood as well as of episcopacy. ThePresbyterians as always condemned religious toleration, and demandedthe suppression of the Independent sects. The Independents won. In1648 they drove the Presbyterians out of the House of Commons byPride's Purge, executed Charles I, and proclaimed a republic. Thisshocked the Scottish Presbyterians, because there was nothing about arepublic in the Bible. When the Old Testament prophets deposed wickedKings they replaced them with new Kings, not with a republic. So theScottish Presbyterians fought for Charles I I against Cromwell at Dunbarand Worcester, and played the leading part in bringing about theRestoration in 1660. Once safely on the throne, Charles 11 crushed them.

The 28 years of his reign and of James II and VII saw the finalstruggle of the Scottish Calvinist Church to exercise its right and duty ofrevolution against wicked Kings. Outraged at the restoration of bishops,they rose in rebellion, and at their armed prayer meetings in the hillsof South-West Scotland their ministers declared that the King was ex-communicated and deposed by the Calvinist Church and that they, thepersecuted Elect, were fighting for God against the Reprobates. Thegovernment broke them by savage repression, torture, and summaryexecutions. The last prominent rebel leader, the 26-year-old JamesRenwick, was captured and executed in 1688, a few months before theRevolution in England—carried through not by Calvinists or Anabaptistszealots, but by Whig landowners of the Church of England—drove outJames and put William of Orange on the throne of England and Scotland.

And this is really the end of the story of Calvinism in England andScotland. After 1688 the Calvinist Church of Scotland adapted itself, aswell as did the Zwinglian and Erastian Churah iof England, to the com-mercial and social systems of the eighteenth century. The Church ofScotland became dominated by the party known as the Moderates, whoadapted Calvinist practice, if not Calvinist theory, to the easy-going andselfish outlook of the eighteenth-century landowner and merchant. Indeed,the learned historians of the Scottish Church, Andrew Drummond and

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James Bulloch, in their book The Scottish Church 1688-1843, which waspublished in 1973, go so far as to suggest that by 1750 Scotland couldno longer be called a Calvinist country in any real sense of the term.By 1860 the Church of Scotland, though still able to prevent theopening of the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens on a Sunday, could notstop Sunday trains from running north of the Border for the convenienceof commerce and industry and the profits of the English and Scottishshareholders of the railway companies.

Calvinism in Scotland has had a few lasting influences which haveonly recently ceased to be of importance. Divorce, which was notauthorised in England till 1857, came in Scotland in 1560. Universal stateeducation, to which Calvinists had always attached very great importance,came in Scotland in 1696, while England had to wait till 1870. But inessentials, the social structure in England and Scotland has been thesame for the last 250 years.

(Summary of a lecture given on November 20)

China, Revolt Against ImperialismBY

PETER SELTMAN

"We study Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, yet the methodsof many of our comrades in studying Marx, Engels, Lenin andStalin are in direct opposition to those of Marx, Engels, Leninand Stalin. That is to say, they violate a fundamental principle

. the union of theory and practice . . . They do not . . . studythe logic of the Chinese revolution, . . . the characteristics ofthe Chinese economy, . . . the strategy of the Chinese revolu-tion, . . . the military characteristics of China . . . Seventeenand eighteen year old babies are taught to nibble on Das Kapitaland Anti-Duhring. Thus, many students develop an abnormaloutlook: they have no interest in Chinese problems and pay noheed to Party instructions. Their inclination is to regard whatthey have learned from their teachers as never changing dogmas."

"Party Reform Documents, 1942-4", in Mac'sChina, Boyd Compton (Ed.) Washington, 1952.

THE PERIOD from 1865-1911 was marked by a massive increase of foreignpenetration and attempts by the Chinese to resist this. Relatively littlenative industry and commerce grew, but what did gave some hope tocertain elements among intellectuals and other strata for a revived China.In 1898 an attempt was made at a Palace revolution, and for about threemonths (the Hundred Days Reform), a programme for reform for thewhole of China was prepared. But this attempt failed. The dowager-empress, Tzu-Elsi, temporarily deposed, returned and reeked a brutalrevenge on the reformers.

In the first ten years of the twentieth century we see evidence of a newnational movment, later known as the Kuo Min-tang, led by the youngdoctor, Sun Yat-sen, increasingly agitating and organising in the coastalareas. Two almost accidental events in 1911 precipitated the so-called"1911 Revolution" (the Army mutiny at Wuhan in Central China andthe popular opposition to a railway construction in Szechuan, in south-

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west China). The fall of the empire in that year, however, did not leadto an effective republic since one of the imperial generals, Yuan Shi-Kai,made himself virtual dictator in the North, while Sun Yat-sen, in theinterests of unity, withdrew from the presidential candidature.

The next few years until 1919 saw an increasing chaos descend onChina, uninterfered with by foreign powers who were too absorbed in theFirst World War. The one exception to this fact was Japan who madethe first attempt to take China over in the twentieth century, issuing, in1915, "the Twenty-one Demands", which constituted a plan for the totaltakeover of Chinese government and administration. By 1919 the War was •over, and the victors endorsed Japan's claim at Versailles. The subsequentpopular uproar in China against this (the May 4 Movement) producedthe first nationalist (KMT) enclave in Kwangtung province in the Southand the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party. The latter, of course,was also in part a response to the international impact of the BolshevikRevolution of 1917.

The second decade of the twentieth century in China was marked bythe attempted military conquest of the North from the South (1926-7,the Northern Expedition) and, with the death of Sun Yat-sen (1925), whohad become very favourably disposed towards a Soviet alliance, thesuccessful takeover of the KMT by the anti-communist elements led byChiang Kai-shek. Chiang's coup in 1927 in Nanking ended the six yearlong alliance of the Communist Party and the KMT. From this year,there were not only two main forces in China claiming to represent thenational revolution, but one of these forces, the Communist Party itself,was internally divided on whether to follow a Bolshevik pattern of revolu-tion or to develop a uniquely Chinese path.

Japan Invades

The decades of the 1930's and 1940's are marked in China by thestruggle in the Communist Party between these two lines on one hand,and the impact on the Chinese Revolution as a whole of the Japaneseinvasions in 1931 and 1937 on the other. In these years as well, theChiang Kai-shek government exercised nominal control only over Chinaand itself developed more and more into a personal dictatorship of ChiangKai-shek himself and the richest families thcn existing in China. In thisperiod Mao Tsetung emerged as the leading exponent of the "Chinese"line and in the course of successful military confrontations with bothChiang Kai-shek and the Japanese, including the famous Long March,undertaken in 1934-35, Mao's base at Yenan in North China became,by 1945, the main political-military centre of Chinese Communism.

However, the underground Party in the city region of China retainedits strength, and in the course of the last confrontation with ChiangKai-shek and the KMT (1946-49), the "city" wing of the Party, ledprincipally by Liu Shao-chi, and mainly oriented towards BolshevikRussian methods, and the "rural" wing of the Communist Party ofChina, led by Mao Tsetung, and basing itself on a peasant-worker-national capitalist alliance, acted in unity.

But after the taking of power, in 1949, the division between the twowings of the Communist Party in China re-emerged, and the subsequentquarter of a century has seen the development of the bitter conflictbetween these wings to resolve the question as to which line of develop-ment the Chinese Revolution should take. The main milestones in thecourse of this struggle are the 1956-58 upheaval in China followingKhrushchev's de-Stalinisation, whereby the "city" wing, from 1949 morein control of the Party and government than the Maoists, found itselfdivided; the 1965-71 "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in which

II

the Maoists, in alliance with those emerging from the impact on the"city" wing of de-Stalinisation, and who can be described as "modernisers"(leading figure in latter years Chou En-lai), finally put paid to the oldBolshevik leadership, and overthrew Liu Shao-chi himself; the period1972 to the present, during which the "modernisers", concerned withthe development of China materially, economically and technically, seemfinally to have terminated the old, peasant-orientated military ideologyof Mao Tsetung.

After MaoWe shall have to wait a long time to get full details of the last five

years. However, certain recent events tell their own story. It is strikingthat, within only one month of the death of Mao Tsetung in 1976,arrests were made of leading Maoists including his wife, Chiang Ching,and a campaign was opened which effectively introduced a rapid andcontinuing break with fundamental Maoist policies in an increasingnumber of fields. At the moment these fields are restricted to Chinainternally, and there is a suggestion that relationships with the rest ofthe world may, under the new regime, follow more of a Maoist patternthan not. So far the father figure image of Mao Tsetung himself hasbeen retained, although there is already evidence that it is principallylip service that is to be paid to his memory. It remains to be seen whetherthis continues or whether some form of de-Maoism will be institutedsimilar to the de-Stalinisation that occurred in the 1950's in the SovietUnion.

The speed with which a "de-Maoist" process is going on in Chinastrongly suggests that deep and long-term preparations have been on-going long before Mao's death. It is possible that the "Lin Piao affair",as it is sometimes called, whereby this leading military figure, Lin Piao(the military leadership are very prominent at the moment in China),was, after a honeymoon as "Chairman Mao's closest comrade in arms",attacked, vilified ("a swindler like Liu Shao-chi—Red Flag, chief Partyorgan), and probably assassinated, marks the turning point in 1971. Fromthis date the alliance of Maoists and "modernisers" probably ended andthe final dénoument began.

It is difficult to summarise such a complex and tortuous history asthe Chinese Revolution over the last half century or so, but broadlyone can say that, emerging from the given conditions of old China,together with the foreign penetrations of 150 years, the pattern of de-velopment of the Revolution that emerged was virtually a built-incircumstance. This pattern was principally exemplified by:

the failure of the original nationalist movement, because its socialbacking in terms of an effective and influential capital-owning stratumwas too weak;the effect of the Russian Revolution of 1917 on China. This was toproduce, firstly, a theory of repetition which foundered because theCommunist Party was in no position to dictate terms to the NationalParty, the KNIT, especially when this had been taken over by amilitary dictator, Chiang Kai-shek. And, secondly,because of the vastness and backwardness of China, the • emergenceof a "new" political line by the Communists based on the peasantsas a major revolutionary force, and the principle expression of therevolution in a military form;the inevitable division in the Communist Party of China arising fromthis between the classical, Moscow-oriented Marxists and the"Chinese" Communists, a division underscored by the Japanese in-vasion, which reinforced the isolation of the big city area of China

• from the rural interior, by the military occupation of the former.

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The development out of these basic factors we have traced. There isno doubt that the Maoist line in the circumstances of the 1930's and 1940'swas the one most likely to succeed at that time. The problems reallybegan to emerge with the successful taking of power in 1949. From thenon, the Chinese Revolution was no longer predominantly a political-military one but an economic-social one involving the transformation ofChina as rapidly as possible into a modern, technologically developed andorganised nation-state. In the last analysis, the Maoist line could notachieve this, based as it was on an apotheosis of the peasantry. To trans-form China means transforming the peasantry. To transform thepeasantry means to go beyond the core ideology which was so importantto the success of Maoism in the first instance. However, because thereputation and very success of Maoism at a crucial stage of the Revolu-tion was so great, this has meant a bitter and long drawn-out strugglebetween those who are capable of building a new China and those wholaid the foundations for such an edifice.

Mao Tsetung woke the peasants up and was largely responsible forleading them, and other sections of Chinese society, to the victory of1949. It now rests with the "modernising" collective leadership, drawingtheir inspiration from Chou En-lai's influence in previous years, to bringChina into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. When this happens,to paraphrase Napoleon's famous remark, the "sleeping lion" will indeedawake.

(Summary of a lecture given on May 15)

For the RecordBY

THE GENERAL SECRETARY

A DOZEN of us enjoyed a visit to the fine Blake exhibition at the TateGallery. It occurred to me that a comment might be useful as somethingseems to have been missed by the critics.

Presenting Blake successfully is a very difficult operation. The onlypeople who do it in a way that is beyond criticism are the Trianon Pressof Paris set up by Sir Geoffrey Keynes and his friends of the Blake Trust,and managed by Mr Geoffrey Fawcus. But, then, when one's product isexquisite facsimiles one can hardly go wrong. I met Mr Fawcus at theTate and asked him: "Why Paris?" His reply was a little sad (fromEngland's point of view), he said that it was only in France that craftsmenwho cared enough about the job could be found. In facsimile, of course,Blake speaks for himself.

But when the press, radio, TV and art galleries take Blake on theyare nearly always deficient in some way. The people responsible just don'tdo enough work when it comes to understanding Blake's essential mes-sage. And this exhibition made the extraordinary mistake of trying topresent Blake as a painter without express reference to what it was thathis painting is about. This is impossible.

To appreciate Blake one has to be able to de-code his mythology. All,or almost all, the characters in his mythology are of his own inventionso any amount of previous knowledge is of little help. For this one needsthe assistance of people who have put a lifetime of work into the exercise

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=men like. Harold Bloom, David Erdman and Geoffrey Ashe (whose book Camelot and the Vision of Albion contains a brilliant chapter on Blake).

The exhibition and its beautifully produced catalogue deliberately treatedBlake as an artist only and not as a poet/artist. The result was that hiscommissioned work and his compulsive work, the great epics, were giventhe same treatment and allocation of space. This is absurd! Blake wasnot all-of-a-piece in that fashion.

It would not have been difficult to have explained Blake's acceptanceof the model of Biblical mythology, Dante and Milton (and his rejectionof classical mythology despite his own classical scholarship) as the basisfor the elaboration of his own very special brand of "apocalytic humanism"—Harold Bloom's designation--round the central figures of Albion who isEngland, Jerusalem his emanation, i.e. female spirit, Urizen the embodimentof science, and Los the personification of the arts and passions. Had theexhibition centred on this cardinal feature of Blake then all the sub-sidiary works (and they were subsidiary) would have been seen in perspec-tive. As it was I fear that thousands of people left the building as baffledby Blake as they were when they went in!

No one is to know that Golgonooza is London! You can work it out,but it is a great help to be told!

About the ProgrammeTony Ashenden has been a University lecturer in New Zealand and

Australia. He is engaged in an enterprise that has never before beenaccomplished—directly integrating the study of the body and the brainwith the study of the mind, taking neurology and psychology as one. Itis a new horizon and the very opposite of behaviourism. He has alreadyput years of work into it. He will speak on the 7th.

We shall have a full house on the 14th when Professor Henryk Skol-imowski will be back—and this time his subject is culture as healer. Heis another "original".

Camus is dead. Sartre is fading. The bitter lessons of '68 have beenassimilated and a new generation of remarkable young philosophers isemerging in Paris. They surfaced last year and their work is not yet avail-able in English except in the journal TELOS published in Los Angelesand available from Compendium Books in Camden. But (thanks to TonyAshenden) we have a lead and have located Maurice Clementz of theFrench Lycee in London. He will be at the Hall on Sunday 2Ist. He rangme back to ask whether he should lecture in English or French . . . I re-commended English!

After the Bank Holiday we shall start the next month with Bill Liddell onthe inspiration of Joan of Arc. This occasion is sparked by ProfessorRichard Scorer's interesting opening on this subject at our last AnnualReunion. Joan provoked what some people regard as Shaw's best play:she may be more related to our origins than we now know.

TuesdaysThe theme for the last month of Tuesdays in our season is: Popular

Movements, Elites and Ideologies. Of such a subject there is no end butwith the help of Victor Serebriakoff, John Tyme, Avro Manhatten andJim Herrick we shall at least make a very good beginning. John Tymeis the man who has put the case against the motorways in the headlines,Avro Manhatten's next book—on the Rome-Moscow alliance—is justabout to appear in the US and he is going over there to do a speakingtour in association with its publication. Jim Herrick is the General Sec-retary of the NSS. He read English at Cambridge not so long ago andBrecht and Becket are his special interest. Victor Serebriakoff, of MENSA,

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is author of a recent book Brain that deals with poly-hierarchical net-works. He has some powerful views to propound.

ForumWe have only one Forum in May, the last of the season, because of

the Bank Holiday and we shall be having the customary discussion ofthe role and future of the Society. It will be a good build-up for the AGMlater in the month. At least four people can share the platform and otherswill have time enough to say what they think during the discussion. Ifyou would like to be one of the panel will you let me know? The datewith be the 14th—time 3.0 pm.

AROUND THE SOCIETY

0 The new Assistant Caretaker's name is Charles Wright and he is verywelcome. This leads (once again) to a slight problem over names—hesuggests that he be known as "Chas- so as to avoid confusion with CharlieGray. That seems to solve the problem!

Looking ahead to the IHEU Conference at LSE during the first weekin August, we decided in the April General Committee to invite the Dele-gates to a reception in the Library at 6.30 pm on Wednesday August 2.Our own members will, of course, be very welcome too. The idea is thatwe should be able to meet our friends from all over the world. And anextra bit of news—it will be possible for visitors to attend the conferencefor £5 a day is they so wish, and to go on the outing on the river on theThursday. More details from Kenneth Furness at the BHA.

Other things being equal John d'Entremont's Conway Memorial Lec-ture on Conway should be going out with this Record. The delay wascaused mostly by the appalling state of the post in the US. The proofstook over two months to get to the author. Our thanks and apologies toour most helpful and long suffering printers—Ted Biles and staff at DavidNeil's in Dorking.

On Saturday 20 May from 10.00 am all day Christopher Macy willbe promoting a course on rational emotive therapy with the help of twofellow psychologists Stephen Flett and Windy Dryden. It will take placein Conway Hall and further details are obtainable from Christopher at20 Spring Grove, Loughton, Essex—tel: 01-508 8270—or from me.

We would like to have a permanent memorial to Rose Bush in theLibrary and we have a joint enterprise in train with the Humanist Hous-ing Association in pursuit of the same objective. With the help of Rose'snephew Roger the best photo has been located and it will be enlarged, in-dividually treated and framed. The cost will be over £40 and we feel surethat many of Rose's friends will like to contribute. Will you make dona-tions payable to the Society and indicate clearly that they are for thisRose Bush memorial? They will be acknowledged in the Record.

I see that Nick the Knock had a go at me in the last issue. That's fairenough, but the measure of his interest in the subject is that he didn'tcome to my lecture on Lawrence! Still, I can't complain. I've been try-ing to straighten him out since 1961 and I've obviously got a life's workon my hands. You know what they say about the impossible—it takesa little longer!

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o The Tuesday meeting on May 30 will be a joint meeting with theBFIA, RPA and NSS to honour Voltaire on the 200th anniversary of hisdeath—the actual day thereof. The search for VIP speakers has led usinto problems and we cannot announce the platform at the time of writ-ing. We hope to welcome back our bust of Voltaire (smashed by the van-dalism of extreme Zionists two or three years ago) and now repaired bythe good offices of the Curators of the Passmore Edwards Museum.

o A thought for the month (not directed at Nicolas! )"Trouble is an integral part of dealing with human beings. If you arenot prepared to face it, better stick to the latest mechanical toys. Thatway of avoiding trouble is the greatest discovery of the age". DoraRussell: In Defence of Children (1932)

PETER CADOGAN

DISCUSSION

The Baader-Meinhof Experience

ERICII FRIED, the German writer, poet and translator of 24 plays ofShakespeare, who has made a special study of the Baader-Meinhofsituation over the years, explained that in Germany the tendency is forthe Baader-Meinhof people to be regarded not according to the evidence,but according to the political outlook of the observer. Thus, they aredescribed as "desperate criminals" on the one hand and "heroic fighters"on the other.

The Baader-Meinhof group began in 1970 when Baader was sprungfrom jail by his friends. Thcy then went as a group to Jordan where theyreceived training in urban guerilla warfare. Back in Germany, afterthey had begun their operations, the police were not very effective incatching them and a lot of innocent people lost their lives at the handsof the police. The leaders were eventually tried in a special court built atthe cost of thirty million marks.

!Ulrike Meinhof died in prison and, as is the case with the wholephenomenon, there rages endless argument as to how she died. Theofficial version is suicide, but again the public version depended uponpolitical persuasion. It was the same with the three prisoners who diedafter the Schleyer murder and the capture and killing of the groupat Mogadishu after the hijack.

In Mr Fried's opinion the Baader-Meinhof conviction that guerilla warwas an acceptable way of countering the system never made sense andled to some very reactionary regulations. The Baader-Meinhof objectivewas to polarise opinion in Germany, but in this they failed dismally.Instead, the critical public opinion they had hoped to get in support, theyonly antagonised. Nevertheless, in his opinion the prisoners had beensubjected to shameful treatment, their trial was a mockery of justiceand the new laws passed against them were oppressive and unacceptable.

The Baader-Meinhof group blew up a US Army Headquarters inFrankfurt and another American establishment in 1972. When the pressreaction proved hostile to these activities they bombed the SpringerPress and a number of workers were injured. To finance their operations,a bank was robbed and some people were killed. A couple of policemenwere shot in a gun duel. Compared with the what the IRA is responsible

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for, the death toll was negligible, but the hysteria in Germany wasgreater.

The Baader-Meinhof group had a rathcr simple and crude politicalphilosophy. They maintained that Germany had become the main baseof US imperialism and constituted a fascist state. In fact, however, theBaader-Meinhof activity had a result opposite to its proclaimed intention.Instead of serving the people and showing them the oppressive nature ofthe system, public opinion was alienated and demanded ever morestringent action against them, particularly over Mogadishu.

The situation in general had been ill-served by books written about it.There is a book called Hitler's Children by Gillian Beck, a South Africanwho did not know German. The evidence was almost exclusively in theGerman tongue. In England, the London weekly, Time. Out, has pub-lished a good descriptive piece, but that, too, was biased in a favourabledirection and gave the impression that the group was the spearhead of asignificant movement of the Left. However, two foundation members ofthe group have made statements expressly against terrorism; and HorstMahler, their lawyer now in prison, is of the opinion that their activitiesmake for the destruction of the Left.

Erich Fried himself has been accused of being a sympathiser. Thispartly arises out of the use of language. Those who talk about theBaader-Meinhof group are accused of being sympathisers by those who callthem the Baader-Meinhof gang: Also, anyone who argued that the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is something for which there are societal 1 easonsis being accused of being a sympathiser. It is almost impossible to hedetached in Germany today.

The Schleyer kidnapping and murder was tragic. There was no excusefor it, but people who mention the fact that Schleyer had a Nazi recordare accused of being sympathisers.

As for the trial, there can hardly ever have been one, in Mr Fried'sopinion, that so lost its innocence. The law that defendants' correspond-ence with their lawyers was private was frequently broken and new lawsmade to justify this breach. Also, the law that required that all materialto be equally available to both sides was also broken. Lawyers chosenby the defendants were commonly barred from the case and two of themwere actually accused of complicity with terrorism.

Social Origins

The social composition of the group is interesting. In her earlier daysUlrike Meinhof was regarded as the best woman journalist in Germany.Horst Mahler had originally been of the political right, than turnedtowards the left, started the first socialist lawyers' collective and sacrificedhis own legal career.

The Baader-Meinhof group started as an urban guerilla group. Theirviews had never been articulated as a coherent programme although theirgeneral intentions were fairly plain: firstly, to explain from 1970 thatthe state was "fascist"; secondly, to aid the Vietnamese; thirdly, to helpthose in prison for political offences. Because McCarthyism faded inAmerica and never took root in Britain we are liable to think of itas being done and over with. There is, however, a continuing form ofMcCarthyism in Germany. A German student in the audience pointed outthat within the last twelve months no less than 60 students have beensent down from the University of Heidelberg because of their politicalviews.

Anti-authoritariasm in Germany is loaded with hatred. It was anappalling thought that the people who killed Sehleyer had been in his

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company for some weeks. Only dehumanised people could do a thinglike that.

In conclusion he counselled against the too easy use of the word"fascist". "I don't like the word fascism being used of the present interms of the past". In his opinion classical fascism of the Nazi orderwas not a danger. But something else was dangerous in another wayand that was the systematic inducement of conformist behaviour patternsby officialdom, leading to a sapping and breaking of the will. This wasthe serious danger of the new powers given to the law as a consequenceof the Baader-Meinhof activities. Things have become worse instead ofbetter because of the activity of the Baader-Meinhof group.

PC

(Report of a Discussion held on January 10)

ViewpointCollecting Conway

By now, members of the Society will have received my essay on Mon-cure Conway. I shall welcome comments on this piece or on Conway gen-erally, and any letter sent to me will be answered.

I should also appreciate hearing if any members privately own—orknow others who privately own—manuscript material (letters, diaries, etc)dealing with Conway himself or with life at South Place Chapel.

JOHN D' ENTREMONT

6 West Pomfret Street, Carlisle, Pa 17013, USA

True LanguageAs a professional teacher of truth, I guarantee that my pupils will

make cumulative, hourly, progression in their use and study of their,temporarily, perfect meta language of 850 basic English words. Obviously"space" and "time" which have disappeared into "space-time" will beused with normal inaccuracy but that is, as yet, impossible to avoid asour scientific authorities cannot, as yet, tell us how to define them indi-vidually better than we do at present. Our "truth" now depends on theaccuracy, without rival, of our language and the degree of advance madeby the scientist we consult. No one can be more truthful than we are—in the classroom only, of course—as "truth", a property of sentences,depends on the highest degree of accuracy attained by a language makingstatements about the university describable only by the scientist. In ourchoice of values, we, as individual systems of interests, have no one torely on but ourselvesBelfast. S. B. WYNBURNE

South Place NewsNew Members

We are pleased to welcome: Ms M. Manser, SE3; Ms C. Clee, NIO;Mr J. Mercer, Edinburgh; Mr D. Llywelyn, Cardiff and Mrs V. Price WCI.

RambleSaturday May 13. A day in St Albans, England's living cavalcade of

history—from Belgic village through Roman Garrison to the Water Millbuilt by Francis Bacon's mother (now a working Industrial Museum).

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Bring a packed lunch and meet John Brown at 10.00 at the BookingOffice, St Pancras British Rail Station for the 10.12 (fast) train. TakeCheap Day Return (£1.35) to St Albans City (half price to BR Conces-sion holders).

Mr Marney of The St Albans Association of Hon Guides will conductus over the Verulamium Museum and after a film, talk on Roman Historywith the aid of the very big model of the early settlement.

After lunch we will visit the Abbey and Medieval Town. Tea placesabound. Trains return at 55 minutes past each hour (fast) throughoutthe afternoon and evening for those who do not wish to include the Cur-few Tower and Water Mill.

Bridge Drive

The May Drive will be held on Thursday May 18 at 6.30 pm. Prizeswill be competed for. Refreshments will be served during the break.

Sunday Social

For the Sunday Social on May 21 an interesting Musical Programme hasbeen arranged, with Christopher Macy, Claire Cadogan and the Beebeefamily taking part. The Social is at 3.00 pm and Tea at 4.15 to 4.30 pm.

Annual General Meeting

The AGM will take place at 7.00 pm on Wednesday May 31 and re-freshments will be served from 6.15 pm.

Summer Discussion Group

The Tuesday Evening Discussion Group (Summer 1978) will meet inthe Library, Conway Hall, from June 6 through to September 19. Time:7.00 to 9.00 pm. Chairman of first meeting: Don Grant.

Last year's Summer Discussions were a success, even though they weretoo late for any publicity.

Kindred organisations

The May meeting of Sutton Humanist Group, on the 10th, will featurea talk by Mr John Parkin of London Transport. He will discuss local pub-lic transport problems. The meeting is at Friends' House, Cedar Road,Sutton, Surrey.

The International Humanist and Ethical Union is co-ordinating anappeal in aid of the Vijaywada Atheist Centre, in eastern India. The cen-tre has been extensively damaged by a cyclone, and the library was de-stroyed. Contributions should be sent to Amro Bank, Utrecht, Holland,payable to IHEU, a/c 456398724, or through Giro to a/c 1632969 Utrecht.

The authoress Susan Budd is speaking at a public meeting organisedjointly by the National Secular Society and the Freethought History andBibliography Society on May 8. The meeting is at 9.00 pm in the Library,Conway Hall. Susan Budd wrote Varieties of Unbelief, a study of atheismand agnosticism. The annual general meeting of the British Humanist Asso-tion takes place in London on June 24. For BHA members only, full de-tails of the meeting can be obtained from the head office.

Future Humanist Holidays events include the one or two weeks inAugust at Keswick, Lake District, small party at country cottage in NorthWales comprising a long weekend during June (details of this direct fromBarbara Pilbeam, tel: Rushton Spences 307).

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South Place Ethical SocietyFOUNDED in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement which today advo-cates an ethical humanism, the study and dissemination of ethical principlesbased on humanism, and the cultivation of a rational religious sentimentfree from all theological dogma.

We Invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds andfind themselves in sympathy with our views.

At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds ofcultural activities, including discussions, lectures, concerts, dances, ramblesand socials. A comprehensive reference and lending library 3s available, andall Members and Associates receive the Society's journal, The Ethical Record,free. The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 haveachieved international renown.

Services available to members include Naming Ceremony of Welcome toChildren, Memorial and Funeral Services.

The Story of South Place, by S. K. Ratcliffe, is a history of the Societyand its interesting development within liberal thought.

Membership is by £1 enrolment fee and an annual Subscription.Minimum subscriptions are: Members, LI p.a.; Life Members, £21 (Life

membership is available only to members of at least one year's standing). Itis of help to the Society's officers if members pay their subscriptions byBankers' Order, and it is of further financial benefit to the Society if Deedsof Covenant are entered into. Members are urged to pay more than theminimum subscription whenever possible, as the present amount Is notsufficient to cover the cost of this journal.

A suitable form of bequest for those wishing to benefit the Society bytheir wills is to be found in the Annual Report.

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM

To THE HON. REGISTRAR, SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYCONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRERED LION SQUARE, LONDON WOR 4RL

Being in sympathy with the aims of South Place Ethical Society, I desire to become a Member and I enclose £1 enrolment fee and, as my annualsubscription, the sum of (minimum LI) entitling me (accord-ing to the Rules of the Society) to membership for one year from thedate of enrolment.

NAME (BLOCK LETTERS PLEASE)

ADDRESS

OCCUPATION (disclosure optional)

HOW DID YOU HEAR OF THE SOCIETY?

DATE SIGNATURE

The Ethical Record is posted free to members. The annual charge to subscribers is £1. Matter for publication should reach the Editor, Eric Willoughby, 46 Springfield Road, London El7 8DD, by the 5th of the preceding month.

David Neil & Company Dorkins Surrey