APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 91, 16 March 1907, Page 1

APOPHTHEGMATIZATIONS.

(By JOHN NORTON.)

NO. IX. AMONG THE FALSE PROPHETS. Edmund Burke, the Bribed Prophet.

tfEINE, THE HEBREW. | The specimens of signal success of modern prophets, collated and connotated m. Nos. VII. and VIII. of this series, about exhaust my list. There is, however, just one other specimen of sufficient importance to justify mention ; and this, for the present, must suffice ; and attention be turned to conspicuous cases of false prophesying m recent times. The last true prophet, then, to be considered, is that bed-ridden Ger-man-Hebrew genius, Heine, who predicted, forty years "before the event" : > The French have more to fear from a liberated (i.e., united> Germany, than from the whole Holy Alliance, together with all the Croats and Cossacks. The indications of coming catastrophe to France must have been very palpable, .to have inspired a pxophecy so precise and positive. Thus it is that m Heine's day, Germany had already given signs of national regeneration and military organisation, from which great events could be reasonably augured. Still even with Bismarck's "blood and iron" policy upon which to base prognostications, it was a far cry from Jena and Anerstadt to Sedan and Metz. There is odo particular circumstance which renders Heine's prophecy the more remarkable : be was a German Jew Hying m France from choice, and enjoying a greater popularity there than he could have anticipated m Germany, for the simple reason that he was more French than German m sentiment and form of liter-} ary expression, and was, therefore,' appreciated and more admired ■by Frenchmen , than by /Germans. That Heine should, m such circumstances, forsee and feel constrained to forecast the military defeat and territorial dismemberment of France by Germany, stamps has prophecy as one of the most singular and sur- .. prising prophetical performances "of modern times. * ' •# * STATESMEN AS SBERS^ Coming now to contrasted cases of false prophecy chronicled by Professor Pearson im "National Life . and Character," it will not be out of place to (quote the judicious observations with which the Professor prefaces his catalogue of forecasts that failed . It will be observed that the mostconspicuous instances of strikingly false prophecies are taken fronv the utterances of statesmen of tho highest rani ; v/hile those predictions which bave been verified belong; as often as not to publicists, or to statesmen, like De Toctqueville, whose philosophy to some extent disqiiaiilicd them for active politics. The reason, however, is probably not to be sought m any special fitness of abstract politic- • for making forecasts of the ■future ; nut m the fact that statesmen are constantly tempted to make predictions of immediate interest, whereas the power of divination among men seems rather to concern itself with general laws. 'According;!? the same man has often; •been' markedly right m his specula- j tions about the distant future, and curiously wroug m predicting the •possibilities of the next few yeafrs. • » c ' y' FALLACIOUS FORECASTERS. ■|. In another and earlier page of his book Professor Pearson, on this ,= $ame sub joe I, observes: ; Evrr since men have committed (' their thoughts to record, it has i..- been a commonplace, exulted m or deplored, according to the temperament of the moralist, that it is v. impossible to predict the future. ;■■•■ History abounds m msniora-iile in- ■..;.. stances' cf the rash forecasts {»ade v. by men, -whose genius and ex- .- perienee entitled their opinions to /« the highest respect. Of such "rash forecasts" he $yes several res Mr striking examples, by ■ men whtose. utterances even to 'this " a y_! O r,g alter time has proved fSreni %o be ialkcious— are regarded as gr&cles fry *feat lar S e Dod y °* P^|P le '

whose political pabulum is provided by. the penny papers ; whose history has been written by partisans or theologians, and whose secular sentiments are nourished on sectarian bigotry. Among these false prophets, Professor Pearson gives prominent place to* Lord Shelburne, Burke, Fox, Wellington, and, last but not least, "the Great and Good Mister Gladstone;" who sacrificed Parnell to the •'Nonconformist Conscience," and was, scared from giving Ireland Home I Rule at the only time he ever could have given it, "'by the sight of Kitty O 'Shea's shift." : * * * AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. Lord Mahon, m his history of England, credits Lord Shelburne (whom Professor Person designates ''one of the ablest of English statesmen") with predicting that whenever the independence of America . should be granted, "the sun of England would set, and her glories eclipsed for ever." Yet, strange to say, Lord Shel'burne was the statesman to whom was reserved the duty of actually negotiating the treaty of peace between Britain and her revolted colnics—which had badly beaten and deeply humiliated the "Dear Old Mother Land"— 'by which treaty American Independence, which England had been compelled to. recognise was formally ratified. Then, as if providentially spared to be a witness of the falsification of his own prophecy of British disaster, which he had predicted as the direct and immediate result of American Independence, Lord Shelburne survived until tfhe year m which the battle of Trafalgar established the maritime supremacy of England on an unassailable basis for full one hundred years. As that bestial, bawdy baronet, but charming chronicler, Wraxall, shows m his Memoirs, Lord George , St. Germain shared Lord Shel'burne's opinions on this subject |of English supremacy succumbing to , American ' Independence. St. Germain used language, about the same time, on the subject, very similar to Shel&urne's, m the course of a debate m Parliament on American Affairs. • » «• • PARTISAN PREDICTIONS . It is proper t 0 pause here m order to inquire whether such predictions : of polW/ieians are entitled to rank as j prophecies at all. All politicians arc : ■> partisans ; all partisans are prejudic- j ! ed ; therefore, political prophets only : ! predict what the prejudice of the , predictor dictates, or that which the^ interest of the partisan desires. The j scope of their prophesy ings is confined to the circumscribed sphere of their own affairs. They concern themselves only with the petty affairs of their own paltry politics ;. and. while pretending to forecast the future, arc ; only prostituting' the 'fedrsome functions of prophecy to-, the -purposes of the present, by intimidating opposing factions and encouraging the supporters of their own 1 policy and party. When we remember the heated controversy and party fights waged between the Whig and Tory factions over the revolt of the North American Colonies, and recall the | filibustering fashion m which politicians—without principle or other motives than those of place, power, and plunder— treacherously tergiversated, and traitorously transeiged on the question of North American Independence, m order to secure the support of such a .stubborn, stupid scoundrel of a Sovereign as George the Third, their prophecies are not to be Regarded as the serious' forecasts of the seer. Especially is this the case with the> factious forecasts of such politicians as Lords Shelburne and St. Germain. Their prophecies were probable nrompted by partisanship, and promptly falsified m their own life times. • • • BURKE AS PROPHET AND " PIMP. The most pitiful specimen of the false political prophet of which the | putrid politics of "Good Kins Geor- ! tee's, glorious reign" afford so many j awful examples, was Edmund Burke, [ the -Irish ptimp-pen&ioner or the grea/t-

--est enemy to Irish Legislative Liberty and National Independence that ever sat on the throne o€ England. Burke was the rascally rhetorical rouseabout of the Whig robbers and oppressors of his country ; the , oratorical oracle m the Commons of that malignant-mad monarch, George the Third ; and the pander and pimp of any peer or plutocrat who would buy him with a bribe, or pay him with a pension. He was without a doubt the most degraded and dastardly of all the great horde of Hibernian traitors who have disgraced Ireland by fighting for England against their country's freedem. He has been with perfect propriety portrayed as the "Hired Hibernian bully of English aristocracy, and the pensioned bludger of the British monarchy." It is of this Whig-wood-a-nd-water-Joey that Lord Macauly, the brilliant, "lying, literary lasquenet of the same Whig faction, says m his "Essay on Warren Hastings": "He (Burke) had m the highest degree that noble facul'tv, whereby man was able to live m the past and m the future, m the distant and m the unreal." But this is merely the puff of one Whig; pimp and pensioner for another Whig pimp and pensioner. Burke got place, pay and pension for his servile services ; Macauly got the same, -with a peerage added, which latter ""honor" was proffered Burke, who refused it. as he had then no son to inherit it, and his "friends at court" wouldn't recommend an addition to his pension commensurate to the increased expenditure which a peerage - would entail. When pimp praises pensioner, and pensioner praises pimp, a pretty big pinch of very strong salt is required to savor such putrid praises sufficiently to enable them to be swallowed. • • . • BURKES FALSE PROPHECIES. Professor Pearson speaks much more judiciously than the magniloquent Macaulay of the merits of Burke, both as a politician and a prophet, when he says :— He was ripe m years and experience of men when the French Revolution broke out, and his counsels contributed largely to the part wibioh England took m opposing the French Republic. Yet Burke so entirely misconceived the nature of the changes that yrtxz passing under his very eyes, that m 1793 he was most concerned, lest France should be partitioned, like Poland, between a confederacy of hostile powers. Before this, Burke had declared (17fO) m one of his rabid, ranting, raving, roaring, anti-Revolution rhodomontades m the House of Commons, that he considered France as ."not politically exist/ing," and as "expunged out of the system of Europe 1 ." Of course, "a masked pensioner," as his great exposer and denouncer, Thomas Paine, proved Burke to be, ooukl, would, and, indeed, should, think and speak— aye, and even think— like, and. with; those who pay him to speak and write their thoughts. The King' and peers of England, who paid and pensioned Burke, were bitterly and interestedly opposed to the French Revolution. That revolution was a revolt against Monarchy and Aristocracy, based on Heredity and Prescription, and upon Land Monopoly and Class Privilege. Therefore, an imported German hereditary King of England, an aristocratic House of Landlords, and a Plutocratic House of Commons, feared and hated the French Revolution, the success of which might set a bad example to Englishmen had already dethroned two Kines, father and son, and decapitated the father, besides abolishing the House 1 of Lords and • the House of Commons, and proclaiming England a republic under the Protectorate of Cromwell. • * « A PENSIONED PIMP ON A PROSTITUE PRINCESS. Burke was paid to traduce the Revolution and to vilify the Revolutionists who were sacrificing their [li^es to defend their frontiers and firesides from the invading hosts of coalesced Europe. And well did this wretched Irish waster do lite dirty work, even to the extent of shedding crocodile tears over such a polyglot prostitute as Marie Antoinette, wife of that fat, futile fool, Louis the | 'XVI., and prototype of that other j Austrian prostitute, Marie Louise, ! the worthless, wanton wife of Napojleon. Here is how this Hibernian hireling, Burke, obscenely objurgates over the useless, but just execution of an Austrian "putain "-princess, convicted of conspiring against France, which she had helped to ruin : ' It is now sixteen years since I j saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiuess, at Versailles : and surely never liphted on this orb, { which she hardly seemed to touch, i a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the homon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere s!ie just began to move in—skittering like the morning star, full of life, splendor, and iov. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her m a nation of gallant • men, m a nation of men of honor and cavaliers. I thought . that ten thousand swords must have leaped i from their scabbards to 'avenge even I a look that threatened hec witlUn-i

suit. But. the age of chivalry is •gone. That of sophisters, economists, and ,.ea4(?iilai»ssAijas(-succee,d«i*, TH3 PICTURE AND THE PAINTER. ■ .; Without a* doubt, this is at once the most*, gorgeous and infamous panegyric on a prostitute, princely or plebeian, ever penned by the prostituted pen of a pensioned pimp. Let us look at the painter, and at the subject of the picture. Both were prostitutes m , their separate spheres, and after their kind. Of the tw9, the prostituted princess is to be preferred aiul pitied before the prostituted politician. It was only an Irish political prostitute like Burke who could be procured to pen such a preposterous panegyric on such a notorious prostitute as Marie Antoinette. But that an Irishman, at suoh a time, and on such a subject, could fee bribed to the perpetration of suoh brutal and bestial baseness would not be believed to-day, had not Burke demonstrated its possibity. The horror of this hideous, howling hullabaloo over such an unchaste and unhappy wanton as Marie Antoinettey-this paramour of princes, peers, politicians and peasants, to 0 —this reckless gambler and swindling spendthrift— this chouser, of her husband and cheater of her tradesmen— this deceitful dealer m diamonds and dispenser of fatuous feasts while French men and French women and children were starving m tatters by millions— was made by an Irishman at the very time when his own country, Ireland, was the . scene of the most awful political oppression, social destitution and degradation, and religious persecution. • » • A CONCUPISCENT CONSPIRATOR. Burk© knew, as well as any ru&n or woman m the world, that Marie Antoinette was a wanion and a w&ore. He was well aware that it was her monstrous, immoral orgies, her monumental monetary extravagance, coupled with her cruel 'contempt for the ■ sufferings of the subjects of her silly spouse (which subjects she sportively said, might eat cake if they could not get bread), that contributed as much as anything else, m her own time, to precipitate the crisis and the downfall of the monarchy. and her own and her husband's death under the guillotine at the hands of National justice. Let it not be lost sight of, that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were as fairly tried and as justly executed as Charles I. But Marie Antoinette was more guilty I/ban her stupid husband, whom she cozened and cajoled into those criminal courses against the National. Sovereignty of which he was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal. She was guilty of grave crimes of which he was innocent. She had swindled the nation of vast sums of money, which she had either spent on scandalous pleasures, or m bribing the enemies of the people ; her husband was probably innocent f participation m these crimes. She was convicted of oonspiring with the coalesced Kings of Austria, Prussia, and Sweden to bring their armies into France to suppress the revolution with the sword. She it was who counselled and incited those curled chevaliers, about whom Burke so snottishly snivelled, to draw their SAVords ,upon the unarmed mob. and to slaughter them m cold blood, as • they actually did on more than one 'occasion— in spite of Burkes lying lamentations to the contrary. * * * POR-NIO PRINCESS AND BAWDY BEAUTY. And this is, or was, precisely the pornic princess, the bawdy beauty, about whom Burke bellowed so batiijct'ically for the salic of - British ; boodle. ''This hived -Hibernian howler lot maudlin mendacities did h.is dirty <. ■ business, too, at the very .time when j 'his own country, and countrymen, I- and countrywomen, were befcnp oppressed and robbed> by princes, peers, and prelates under a callous, coldblooded svste.m. of ■calculated cruelty similar to that which, m France, 'had brought about the Revolution, jwith all its. attendant retributive crimes and horrors. What a falsa prophet Burke proved himself to be, has already been shown ; and sufificicnt has already -been -said -to show that this man Burke, so much belauded by Macaulay and' other political pretorians of the Whig regime, was nothing more than a bribed and .blatant blackguard. Had Burke lived m our day, he would have been cither a Dublin Castle Hack, or an Official Claquer m, the House' of Commons, who, for a foe,, would have black"•unrdfid Charles Stewart P^rn-ell as he did Thomas Paine ; who would .have praised the English Land System m Ireland,' as a divine dispensation, and denounced Michael Davitt and the Land League as of the Devil; and have wept crocodile I>ears over tlva terrible fate which overtook that worst of Irish landlords, the late I Lord Clanricarde, who was popped off ; while ricUng oh his; -jaunting car aroong the tenants whose lands he had robbed, and whos*. wives and daugn* ters he had-' insulted. /Rii.is is probably what Burke. the..periurous Irish •pensioner , would" have "Hone "had- '*be 1 survived to these times. And' this

is the type of Irish patriot that Englishmen hold up to Irishmen for s their admiration and imitation ! , • • n It is because Ireland has had so many Edmund Burkes m the past that she has not got Home Rule to-day. Perth, Western Australia, Thursday, February 14, 190?..