Pamphlets issued by the National Council of Labour re Spain : memorandum of interview with the Archbishop of Westminster

              MEMORANDUM OF INTERVIEW.
Date 4th February, 1937.  
Time 3.30 to 5.30
Reference WMC/MT/526
Present Archbishop of Westminster and Sir Walter Citrine.
SUBJECT. 
Pamphlets issued by the National Council of Labour re Spain.
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.
By arrangement, I met the Catholic Archbishop Hinsley of Westminster yesterday, concerning the pamphlets which had been issued by the National Council of Labour.     From the correspondence which the Archbishop had sent me, it was clear that he regarded these pamphlets as an attack upon the Catholic Church.
His principal complaint was that the pamphlets did not distinguish between the Catholic Church, as such, and such other organisations of Catholics as were related in one way or another to the Church but not under its direct authority.
We had a long talk of a most amicable kind, in the course of which I satisfied the Archbishop that the Labour Movement, far from condoning attacks on organised religion, had always endeavoured to exclude any sectarian bitterness from its midst.     We had
always excluded any religious or political text of membership and endeavoured to embrace men of all creeds and politics.       I stated that there was a very intense feeling in Great Britain in the Labour Movement which, due to the Spanish conflict was one between the forces of democracy and fascism, and I also referred to the violent press campaign against the Spanish Government. I said that a number of catholic newspapers, such as the Catholic Herald, the Universe and the Catholic Times, had been very bitter in their denunciation of the Government.      This had led to the assumption among catholics that the Spanish Government deliberately were seeking to destroy religion in Spain and was directly