ON HUSHING THINGS UP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11062, 13 May 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

ON HUSHING THINGS UP.

[by lIEITANXICUS.] If be afraid of the truth is a sure sign of a weak nature, mentally and morally. It does not matter in the least from what cause tho fear arises— shame or from selfinterest, or pride, or a hundred other reasonsit stamps at once the, moral coward, the crooked soul, the pusillanimous heart, the depraved mind. Xo man of sound healthy moral principle is ever afraid of the truth, no matter how unpleasant that truth may be, or however calculated to damage his material gains or '""'Jspccts. "Out with it." he says, "(here is nothing like honesty and straightforward dealing. I don't believe in equivocation and lying. Speak the truth and shame the devil." Bui. there appears to be ground for believing that fear of truth when it conflicts with our personal interests, either directly or generally, is growing, and that the cynical, Machiavellian spirit of placing materialistic aims before the moralities is spreading. In business, in society, in polities, there is p. constant suppression of truth. A philosopher from Mars, observing our ways and habits on this earth, would probably arrive at the conclusion that one-half of the world consisted of liars and tho other

half of fools. There was more reverence for truth in pagan Athens than (hero is to-day in 1899 anno Domini. Euripides, it will be remembered. introduced a character in one of his tragedies, who, being reminded of an oath ho had taken, replied, " I swore with my mouth, but not with my heart." This cynical sentiment caused an uproar in the theatre. Socrates, who was present, and who was a friend of tho poet, left disgusted. Modem audiences are not so easily shocked. In the political world truthfulness is at a sad discount. Our public men are not believed. No one would hang a cat on the sworn statement of a politician of the new type. His chief business appears to be to lie to keen his party in power. So, too, with Ministers. They say what it suits them to say, whether it squares with the facts or not. Some time ago an Englishwoman, who ha;: lived in Paris for many years, and who in her avocation us the correspondent of a ■Teat London daily, has been accustomed to watch French men closely, declared that it. was really unfortunate for Franco that her statesmen cared so little about truth. lint it is not statesmen alone who show this indifference. Look at her generals, her judges, her journalists, over the Dreyfus affair! They have all been lying with tho facility and readiness of invention of an Irish cardriver.

Nor is it in France only that men car? so little about truth. The marks of the mire are everywhere. Modern democracies arc not virtuous. They are lax and easygoing. They do not. judge their leaders by too severe a standard. 1 hey laugh at a lie, and chuckle at an equivocation, when the lie and the equivocation are on their side. And their leaders, taking their cue from their followers, are never afraid of being called to book for any deliberate misstatement made for the purpose of damaging their common enemy. Thus falsehood has come to be an everyday weapon in political warfare, as it was once supposed to bo the chief stock-in- of an ambassador.

The question whether by. the moral lawno departure from the exact correspondence o£ statement to fact., which, roughly speaking, constitutes truthfulness, is ever permitted, is one that I am not disposed to dogmatise about. It is conceivable that under certain circumstances and conditions a strong ease could be mado out for the offender— such a situation, for instance, as that which closes tlio sad story of Fantine in "Les Miserablcs." It will bo remembered that Jean Valjean, on escaping from prison, made for his house, in which lay the corpse of Fantine, watched by two nuns, one of them Sister Simplice. He was followed by Javert, the inspector oi police, a man in whose eyes a nun was a being who never sinned. Valjean was in the same chamber as Sister Simplice, when the voice of the inspector was heard demanding admission. Jean Valjean blew out one of the tapers which lighted the room, and concealed himself in a corner. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table. The door opened. Javert entered. The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying. Javert perceived the sister, and stopped abashed. This was the Sister Simplice who had never lied in her life. Javert knew this, and venerated her, especially on account of it. " Sister," said ho, " are you alono in this room?" There was a fearful instant of suspense to the unhappy convict in the corner. The sister raised her eyes, and replied "Yes." Then Javert continued, " Excuse me, if I persist, it is my duty—you have not seen this evening a person, a man — has escaped, and we are in search of him— Valjean— have not seen him?" The sister answered " No." She lied. Two lies in succession, one upon another, without hesitation, quickly, as if she were an adept in it. " Your pardon," said Javert, and ho withdrew, bowing reverently. Did she do wrong? She had saved a pure and noble soul from unmerited punishment. Who will not re-echo the prayer of the author, " Oh, holy maiden ! for many years thou hast been no more in this world, thou hast joined thy sisters, the virgins, and thy brethren, the angels in glory; may, this falsehood be remembered to thee in Paradise." Sister Simplice followed a healthy human instinct. But there is a vast difference between her noble lie and the ignoble untruths which are so rife, and which are sapping the foundations of moral character and duty. It is not calumny nor treachery, as Ruskin says, that does the largest sum of mischief in the world; they are continually crushed, and felt only in being conquered. But it is the glistening and softly-spoken lie, the amiable fallacy, the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful , lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself that cast that black mystery over humanity, through which any man who pierces -we thank as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert. But the blackest evil of all this tampering with veracity is the immoral practice of hushing things up, and keeping truth carefully covered with a cloak lest it deprive us of this or that source of gain. This is the gospel of moral turpitude, which finds a fitting apotheosis in ..the filth and lucre of Hooleyism—a gospol which has, unfortunately, its shallow-pated preachers among ourselves. In the past New Zealand has suffered more than will probably ever be known from this foolish and cowardly and immoral doctrine of hushing things up-from the policy of concealment, and of suppressing the truth. "Mum's the word" was the order of the day, through many a year, with what frightful consequences to institutions and to individuals we know at least in part. Who can doubt now that had the truth been allowed to escape from its box many things that have had to be deplored would not have occurred! Concealment, like a worm in the bud, produces rottenness and decay .Truth alone is strength. are some people who never learr But there are some people who never learn anything, and whom experience; does not make wise. And 80 despite the rum and

wreck wrought in the past by the practice of hushing things up, we have "still the ready advocates of the same old folly, who glory in the shameful and shameless boast that they have done their best to stifle truth, and maintain a. conspiracy of silence, If our interests will not. stand the light ot day. if they have to be bolstered up by murdering truth, and by recourse to methods at once mean and degrading, they are not worth fighting for. Let us have no hushing up. Let us have tho courage of truth. Let us act with honour and high spirit. Let us serve our selves last, as the dying Wolsey said, rather than blunt our moral sense. Let us bo flank and fearless; then whatever record leaps to light we nevir shall be shamed. Let US say with Mark Anthony— Who tells 1110 li nc. though in his talc lie death, 1 fear him 1:3 he Haltered.