THE AUSTRIAN ASSASSINATIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 474, 18 July 1914, Page 6

THE AUSTRIAN ASSASSINATIONS.

FERDINAND'S FE#R OF FREEMASONRY. His Death a Blessing Rather than a Misfortune. The puerile piffle and pawky is, the favorite son of the servant platitudes that have been poured of the servants of God — the pecuout m the Australian press over liarly favorite prince of the Prithe murder of the Archduke Louis soner of the Vatican, as Ferdinand Ferdinand of Austria and his mor- was f 6nd of proclaiming the Pope ganatic wife, are a disgrace to hu- of Rome to be. The Pope and Romanity. What do Australians man Curia had many plausible, if know or care about the dead not good arieL solid, reasons, for reArchduke? Little, if anything at garding Ferdinand's prospective all. Yet one could almost imagine accession to the Austrian throne that by the demise of the poor, pis- with, peculiar favor. A few of tolled Ferdinand some great these reasons are to be stated, benefactor of mankind, some bene- • • ♦ fieent Prince like the Roman Em- First of all, Ferdinand was a peror, Titus, affectionately desig- strong and sincere believer m the nated the delight and happiness old doctrine of the divine right of of the human race, had been bru- Kings, a doctrine which, though tally done to death by some Ariar- long since exploded, accords well chist, or vulgar notoriety-seeking with the dogma and discipline of assassin. Such, however, is not the Roman Catholic Church, which the case; the very opposite is the is ever, ready to concede divine truth. sanction to those monarchs who • * * - are loyal and obedient sons of the To tell the truth is not always Church. Then Ferdinand was a popular or profitable to the pub- great admirer of that great and licist^ It- is, moreover, seldom brilliant militant Catholic organipleasant to do so, because truth is sation, The Society of Jesus— tHe so often contrary and hostile to backbone and mainstay of the that sort of shoddy sentiment now Church, which would long since being lavished over the bier of this have dwindled and, perhaps, dismurdered man. But such \senti- appeared but for the wonderful ment must not be allowed to pass work of resistance to the so-called nroster here as public opinion. Sud- Reformation, which they rolled den death shocks everybody, back to its present Protestant whether due to natural or un- limits, where it has stopped' ever natural causes : but the sudden since. No Catholic countri& have death: of an Imperial Archduke turned Protestant since thc/Refor--1 should not be more shocking than mation: when they forsake the the sudden death; of a Royal Arch Catholic faith, they do not 7 become Mason: Death Is no respecter of Protestant perverts, but either persons: and God's lightning Atheists, Agnostics, or Rationstrikes prince- and peasant alike, alists — generally the latter, [t is only the deaths of great and • • • good men — arch-benefactors, arch- It was said of Ferdinand that if philanthropists— that call for wide- he had not been a lay Jesuit, he spread expressions of sincere sor- would have made a go6d .member row - , . of the Order of St. Dominic, and S^? BM i'? eil!l 1"* : Freemasonry was a bugbear Fer: SSST^r m / Sy^' dinand'feared it/as the enemy oi SSEdv IT^S re ° dered m " his dynasty. He was right. FreeSSdiTT^^^ 06 -! 11 ?" maso^ the strongest organisa. ™ ™ + w V ° ° n % en ? U !L- t0 *** «*W men ?n the whole SS2L*V One * orld < next to that of 'the Roman Hungary for any considerable . Catholic church, while not the jT^^.ff h ™ d , e^ th »■ a enemy of constitutional monarchy, calamity for liberty Had Servian M hEn land and M £ or Sfcv patriotism been more pa- is^he determined foe of that form tient, and permitted him to reign, of monarc j?y which rests its sanethere is not the slightest doubt that tion on clrarch ailtaor ity and rehis regime would have precipitated eognitionr-on priest rather than a revolution. That revolution People. ; Yes, Ferdinand, the poor would have been an explosion of mentally-palsied freak, was sane pent-up racial, religious, and politi- enough ;to see that Freemasonry cal antagonisms which would have wa s the f foe of his dynasty, divided and dismembered the Aus- t ...• *.-.., ...» trian Empire, constitutionally the He liad seen the work of the weakest racially, and the least Freemasons of France' during the stable of all the Powers within the last hundred years; m successive existing European comity. revolutions; m Spain and Portu- ■& a y.A- j *. * j t * x.- gal, also, and evea more recently, Ferdinand stood for -reaction and last, but not least, m Italy! and repression. He was prepared and dreaded its disintegrating and to use the^nfluence of the throne destroying influence on the monand the armed force behind it, for s tro US structure of the clericallytne purpose of resisting the popu- cemented and priest-propped monlar aspirations towards racial and grel monarchy of Austria. Alrehgious emancipation; and to ready, with the aid of the Freesuppress with slaughter and stifle masons, the Caesarean sceptre of m blood the social and political im- the Holy Roman Empire had been provement of the people. The transferred from the Hapsburg dead duke— who, by the way, was grip of Catholic Austria to the a mere fluke as heir-apparent to Hohenzollern keeping of Protestthe throne— was m his way an ant Prussia, when the Freemasons . nven greater freak than the seye- got to work to readjust matters ral other half-mad Hapsburg dukes between Church and State m Italy, who, by their own hands or those Cavour, Garibaldi, and the Carof others, have preceded him on bonari, moved and munitioned by the way to violent death. * the Masons, made short work of * * * the Temporal Power and PossesThe unfortunate Ferdinand was sions of the Pope; and drove Ausjust sane enough to seem not to ho. tria out of Italy, to the patriotic mad; but mad enough to believe cry of "Italia Irredenta!" sincerely that he had \>een divinely • • • designated to play a mediaeval It was not willingly that Victor role m the Dual Monarchy m this Emmanuel followed the lead of the Twentieth Century. Instead of gallant Garibaldi ; or submitted to that he should have been placed the patriotic policy of Cavour. under some sort of moral re- He did his best to discredit and straint, if not put into a defeat "the man m the Red Shirt," strait waistcoat, for any good and would have done his best to that could come of him as a raon- frustrate the policy of Cavour, arch or ruler of men. To put it only that he feaned -he would have plainly, his demented arch-ducal shared the same fate as Ferdinand, prospective predecessors on the and that of his own son and succesthroue, who either killed them- sor, Humbert, at Monza. Victor selves, got killed, or ran away and Emmanuel was afraid of being shot got drowned at sea, or wrecked, or stabbed by the Carbonari, who and eaten by cannibals, were mild were within an aoe of snuffing out madmen, or harmless hiuatics. com- that arch-traitor, Louis Napoleon pared with this frenzied Ferdin- of France, whom thpy were inainand, who, without being either ly instrumental m driving into war pious or religious, was a fanatic with Prussia, and selling him at who was prepared to do and dare Metz, like a bullock at Smithfield anything and risk everything for and then driving out of France. ' the sake of restoring the spiritual * '• ♦ and temporal supremacy of the These and a thousand other Roman Catholic Church, not only strong reasons made Ferdinand throughout 'Austria-Hungary, but bate Freemasonry as much as the over the whole Continent. _ devil is said to dread holy water. Bo thai as it may, there is good On the moral or religious aspect reason to believe that, had ho of such aspirations it m not for lived to sit ou the Austro-Hunga-revcrent rationalists to expatiate, rian throne, ho would have made A man's religion is to him a sacred a desperate attempt to force on a thing. Real religion is based upon conflict between Church and State faith ; and without faith, we're coalesced" against Freemasonry told Uiat it is impos.sjblc to please The attempt was foredoomed to God by believing, ami that he that as miserable anddiaaatroußafaUnre beheveth not shall be damned. as overtook similar attempts m Thin mysterious faith, the only France and Italy, nnd a* is even, mire and safe way of sa vation, has now? overtaking similar, but fecbbecn luridJy, if not luminously, i er , attempts m Spain and Portudescribcd by that greatest of nil Ral an(l Belgium. He would prothe^poßtlw, S t Paul the I rince bably have broken up the monof Protestants, thus: "Faith is the nrn ul «»>hi-n » »«,.ii ' r i CortTinatcly. no further: ke f °f lta />". ?* » Democratic • i • Republic, like that of France, and The dead Ferdinand/was a fana- finally have found himself a refutfea -tic of the faith; who[ as stated, f»*om his country, if not m a madwhile not being really ' religious, house, tfrfcu m some eleemosynary was a devoted non oit the Roman asylum accorded m some ProtesCatholic Church, and the favored tant country, dominated by Free"bcstvus servi sorvorim Dei," that masons, like Knglaud, where Uxo

konstifciitional tfommy "King is the titular head of the Freemasons. • • • So to sum up, it can with some semblance of truth "be said that the sudden, sad, and tragic death of the Archduke Ferdinand comes to Austria as a blessing rather than a misfortune. It will enable her to give a more impartial attention to the great Home Rule problem which is now perplexing her, and* threatening to .disrupt the polyglot dual Monarchy into a dozen different, hostile, "warring sections. Without either presuming to blame or praise the patriot purpose of the wild young Servian who shot the Archduke and his morganatic wife, ; it is. perhaps, permissible to observe that the Slav agitation against Austrian -rule now going an both within and without the bounds of the Anstro-Hungarian Empire is the big question — betiind which looms the menacing figure 6f the Russian Colossus — m which Austria will- probably meet aer Imperial doom. Austria has a iozen Irish Home Rule questions within herself to tackle, or else they'll tackle her. She, seems without any apparent inclination or capacity, like that shown by England, to settle any one of the national problems, on Imperial rines of devolution, and comproise, and cohesion. . » • • The decline of the Holy Roman Austrian Empire began a hundred jrears ago; its fall cannot be far off. The manes of Napoleon will be- soon amply avenged. The real pise of Russia began about the same time : it continues. The inevitable Titanic struggle between Germany and Russia draws nearer and nearer: m that great Anna- i ged don, Austria will be but a mere pawn m the game; and a spoil to the victor. For the sake of personal freedom and national liberty, it is expedient that the AustroHungarian Empire should , be wiped out. s ■ JOHN NORTON, Sydney, ' . . - FRIDAY. . July 3rd, lWi.