Until I read Black Friday, a pamphlet published by the
National Union of Protestants, I had not realised how many of our troubles were due to the fact that Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Pope in the Vatican on April 13th, 1951, " under servile and unconstitutional conditions." This frightful occurrence was responsible for (among other the loss of the Affray ' and various other naval calamities ; these include the Persian oil dispute, " for " (as the pamphleteers un- answerably point out) "-of what value is an oil-burning ship with- out the necessary fuel? " Our ills are also in some way—hem the argument goes off at a bit of a tangent—connected with the late Mr. Ernest Bevin, who " began life with a Christian back- ground, but when he came to mix with the great of the earth all these gracious influences were brushed aside for cocktails, rich fare and Sunday political meetings." Others who draw pretty heavy fire are poor Mr. Beverley Nichols (" this new Bala= riding upon the ass of newspaper circulation "), Mr. Winston Churchill, who, having wantonly visited the Vatican, has earned " political oblivion," and General MacArthur, who was given an autographed photograph of the Pope and naturally got the sack as a result. Altogether, Black Friday is a splendid compilation, in the good old exclamatory, inconsequent tradition of British pamphleteering.
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