o An Airman Beans
Look Very Like Bullets
SUGGESTION FOR " SAFE PORTS" Nationalist Opinion
PUBLIC OPINION IN ENGLAND AND ALL OVER THE WORLD CONTINUES TO BE STIRRED BY THE BOMBING TO WHICH BRITISH SHIPS HAVE BEEN SUBJECTED IN THE PORTS OF RED SPAIN.
General Franco has informed H.M. Government that British ships are not singled out for attack but that they must expect to be bombed from the air if they enter Spanish ports which he regards as military objectives.
IT 11AS BEEN PROVED THAT SHIPS NOT SAILING UNDER THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT FLAG HAVE BEEN BRINGING INTO THE COUNTRY SUPPLIES OF AMMUNITION WHICH HAD BEEN DISGUISED AS ORDINARY MERCIIANDISE.
How are Franco's bombers to tell the difference between ships that are carrying beans and others carrying cartridges? asks our Special Correspondent in Spain who gives below a summary of the problem seen from the Nationalist point of view.
The only solution seems to be that put forward by General Franco himself this week in which he asks for the creation of a neutral port available for ships which are guaranteed to be carrying a legal cargo.
This suggestion is not expected to meet with the approval of the Barcelona Government who, if they co-operated in such a plan, would certainly lose one of their best means of obtaining anti-Franco opinion in England and other countries.
BOMBSHELL BREAKS IN BELFAST Increase of Native Catholic Population
The census taken in Northern Ireland last year reveals an important increase in the Catholic population of Belfast.
Out of a population of 438,086 in Belfast in 1937, the Catholics numbered 104,372, being a percentage of 23.8.
This is an increase of .8 per cent. since the census taken in 1926.
According to the Irish News, this is the first time Catholics have shown a percentage increase since 1861. In contrast, the Presbyterians showed a percentage decrease of 1.6. the Church of Ireland, of .1, while Methodists showed an increase of .7.
The Catholics thus have the largest increase of any religious body in Belfast.
No " Peaceful Penetration "
The story that " peaceful penetration " was responsible for the increase in the Catholic population is disproved by the figures: of the total population of Belfast, 60 per cent. were horn in the County Borough, 13 per cent. in Antrim and Down, and 7 per cent. in the four other counties of Northern Ireland. Only 4i per. cent. were born in Eire.
Only 11,336 Catholics out of the total Catholic population of 104,372 were born outside Northern Ireland.
Catholic Press Badges in Italy
For some years in Italy there has taken place the equivalent of our Press Sunday. A special day has been chosen on which in all the churches the people have been exhorted to support more generously the Catholic press.
The results have been not too encouraging. however, so this summer the youth organisations of Catholic Action have undertaken to sell badges symbolical of the power of the Catholic press, to all who support it. 11 is hoped that this will have a good propaganda effect in impressing upon the people the actuality of the press.—C.P.