WORLD OUTLOOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 277, 22 November 1934, Page 9

WORLD OUTLOOK.

FATHER MARTINDALE

JESUIT REVIEW

EXPERIMENTS IN AUTHORITY.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Wednesday.

On his way to Melbourne to attend the national Eueharistic Congress, the Le\. lather C. C. Martindalc, celebrated Jesuit priest and classical scholar, .arrived at Wellington to-day by the Rangitano from England. Father Martindalc, who is president of the l'edera 1 tion of Catholic Societies in the Universities of Great Britain, visited St. Patrick ii College, Silverstream, to-day, and leaves to-morrow for Auckland. He previously visited New Zealand in 1928.

"Having recently flown from the Argentine over the Andes and then from Santiago in Chile, all up the west coast of jSouth America to Panama and then for three weeks seen nothing but the water of the PaciJic, 1 am completely baffled when trying to express, the effect that this New Zealand loveliness makes 011 111 c. and yet it is hard at first to talk of anything else,'' Father Martindale said to-day in an interview after he had come ashore.

"From Buenos Aires to Mcndoza, the Argentine pampa strctsjics, illimitable grass and hardly any trees, then the titanic crags and snows of the Andes. But as we (lew at 18,000 feet (you had to bo given oxygen) and the aeroplane tumbled about a lot you could not. admire the scenery too comfortably, ami most of the country as far as Ecuador it* absolutely naked rock and dust and ghastly to contemplate. So it is twice over joy to be looking at this beauty of green trees and grass and so crystal blue a sky. "Welcome Home." "One shout that readied me as the Rangitano tied up was unsurpassably kind, 'Welcome home,' and certainly that h what it feels like. Incidentally, I travelled with Mr. C. W. Clifford, who is a grandson of the Clifford so famous in your early history."

When asked for a few words about the European situation, Father Martindale said: "This is too complex for a •few words.' I may single out one matter, which seems to be substantial, and it applies also to the United States of America. Underlying various movements that you hear of is undoubtedly a desire for authority in life.

"Governments liad come to scorn so heirless and to have macle such a mess of things that you might have thought that pe.ople would just cut, loose and do as they pleased, and there was a period of what I can call 'laxity,' general licentiousness in which the idea of law and even convention seemed about to disappear. Oddly enough, I think it is the younger generation who revolted against this. Individuals and Authority. "They saw quite clearly that 'lawless' existence, and particularly the years in which they had let everything slide, were wasted years, hence both in private morab»and public life you witness a swing back to the notion of.authority and experiments in authority being everywhere tried, but as a rule together with the assumption that the old authoritative systems had failed.

"One extreme experiment is, of course, tlie Russian one, which is, at the moment, confessedly, coercion carried to the nth degree by a small hand of men. The theory is no less, of course, that after a .while all power will be got rid of because every individual will wholly sink himself into the common weal and automatically do what he should in a purely unselfish way. The idea w fantastic, but it accounts for the kind of authority you find in Russia. "Another experiment is Mussolini's. Another very muddle-headed (which Mussolini's certainly is not) is Hitler's. You see yet another in the United States of America, and England is characteristically fumbling around with the idea of Fascism or with anything that shall remodel Parliament." Due Here To-morrow. Father C. C. Martindale is due to reach Auckland to-morrow morning by the Limited express. He will be the guest of his Lordship Bishop Liston throughout his visit. He will speak at Mass at 11 a.m. 011 Sunday 111 St. Patrick's Cathedral, and again in the evening at 7.30. On Monday lie will address a rally of men at the cathedral, and is due to sail for Sydney by the Aorangi later the same evening.