"Down with Collard!"

Violence came last week to the usually stolid city of Brussels (pop. 960,000). Tens of thousands of demonstrators fought with police, some 80 were hurt, 1,000 arrested. It was the worst civil disorder since the Leopoldist riots of 1950, which preceded the abdication of King Leopold. At that time Belgium's powerful Roman Catholics were in power, and the Socialists did the rioting. This time the tables were turned, and the Catholics were the attackers.

The seat of the uproar was a familiar but far from extinct political volcano: the conflict over state-school funds between Socialists and anticlericals on the one hand and Belgian Catholics on the other. Last year, when the present Liberal-Socialist government came into office, Socialist Leo Collard, the new Minister of Education, quickly made it clear that he intended to favor secular schools in the allotment of state education subsidies. In the previous Catholic government the principle of equal treatment had been applied to state schools, with some 712,000 pupils, and Catholic schools, with 934,000.

Shouts & Rumbles. The Catholics began to worry. When Minister Collard proposed last December to reduce the parochial-school subsidy by $10 million, to $82 million (v. $170 million for the secular schools) the Catholics' worry grew into ire. "I found that parents in some cities had no choice but to send their children to a Catholic school because there were not enough state schools," Collard --said. "It was our duty to open more state schools . . ." Last week, when the government invoked and won a vote of confidence on its subsidy proposals, Catholics all over Belgium rallied into protest action. First there was a minor tumult of Catholic students in Brussels' streets, then a one-day "strike" of 900,000 Catholic pupils throughout the country. Theo Lefevre, president of the Social Christian (Catholic) Party, next called for a "peaceful and dignified" mass demonstration in the capital at week's end. Alarmed, Socialist Premier Achille van Acker formally banned the demonstration, ordered the railroads to cancel 100 special trains chartered to bring Catholics to the capital. The Catholics simply turned to ordinary trains, cars, buses, or took off on foot, and for a traffic-clogging 24 hours streamed into Brussels by the thousands. On schedule, they converged 100,000 strong for the demonstration--but it was neither peaceful nor dignified for long.

Clubs & Clangs. "Down with Collard!" the crowd began shouting. Rocks, oranges, tomatoes and firecrackers flew at the police as the demonstrators tried to converge in the city's center. Near the North Station mounted police walked their horses into the screaming demonstrators, and fire hoses were turned against the crowd. Police used truncheons and rifle butts to break up group after group.

One man who tried to grab a policeman's club was beaten insensible, and several others were clubbed. The clang of ambulances sounded above the shouts and rumbles. An iron fence collapsed, carrying a knot of shrieking women to the ground.

Checked by fatigue and low spirits and the tireless efficiency of the police, the demonstrators gave up after five violent hours. Their leaders pronounced the display a success, but the government went determinedly ahead with its plan to cut the Catholic school budget.

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