THREE PESILENT PEES.

NZ Truth, Issue 507, 6 March 1915, Page 2

THREE PESILENT PEES.

'» — '. .". ',': *?•'.'"" PARLIAMENT, PRESS, ANDI PULPIT : OR, ;.;. ftA.tf'i PARLIPESTS, PENPLSTSr AND PLILPCSTS.

VII.— PARLIPESTS (6). As was to have been anticipated, objection has been taken to {these Parlipest 'pistles. But, then, a great many " respectable" people objected to the manner m which Jesus - exposed and denounced the Scribes and Pharisees, and dealt out the damnation of holl, to those superlatively scrupulous \sancti'monipus snuff lebusting saints of Old Jewry. None of my commina?tory correspondents demur to the subject-matter of these punitory political 'pistles, but rather to my method of dealing with it. One saj's ' that I weaken niy casje against the combination of curses attacked m this Three Pestilent Pees series by the persistent and peculiarly personal manner m which I inveigh against such politicians as Holman, Garmichael, Meagher. I deny that I have dealt with either, of these three politicians m their personal private capacities. I have criticised them m their political positions , and from a public point of view only— the first and last of them m the capacity as convicted criminals. This I, as. a citizen and a taxpayer, •have a clear constitutional right to do, . as has every other citizen of the State. . . * ■ * ■*'.-.* It is. curious and somewhat confounding to see how pernicketty and. supersensitive a certain class of people sometimes show themselves concerning criticism of another class of social scallawags and political pirates whom they seem to have taken into favor simply because their "proteges" arc what they are— incorrigible scoundrels. I suspect some of my captious correspondents of collusion with the enemy, and of acting as the press pimps, touts, and panders of those who have not the courage to defend themselves. In the case of some of these cronk champions of cronk causes, the men that inspire the minds of the political panders and guide the hands that hold the press pimps' pens, are plainly visible behind the veils of other people's names and of anonyms and pseudonyms. Not content with charging me with personal malice against Meagher, they go as far as to say, "more Hibernico," that m attacking that political paragon of an AustralIrish Catholic pro-to-martyr, I'm 'seeking to raise the sectarian^cry, not so much against St. Deanish, convicted conspirator and predatory politician, as against his race and religion. Credat Judaeus Apella ! • , * ' • Such an assumptive assertionit is nothing else — seems to me silly m the extreme ; so silly, indeed, as scarcely to call for com : ment were the subject itself not interesting and pertinent to these 'pistles. In the first place, it attributes or imputes to me an influence m Church and State which I could not possess and certainly do not covet. Sectarians are a species of ravage swine which have, trampled under -foot the pearls cast bofore them, and then turned to and rendered those j who havo sought to propitiat-2 ! them by such prepostorous prodigality. So far as New South Wales is concerned, sectarianism has proved to be a Fraukonstein monster to thoso who have publicly provoked its rage and evoked its aid. "Where was Parkcs, tho greatest. Parliamentarian and political leader that Australia has yet produced, left at tho end of his long, successful strife-mongoriug career? ln the lurch, desolate and nlonu — denied a place m tho Parliament of tho country; defeated by the pious Orange Political pet of the "respectable" Protestant suburb of Waverley, "Tomato Tommy" Jessop! And whero is "Tomato Tommy" himself now? Out m tho political cold, all on his lonesome little ownsome— back among his* potatoes and tomatoes all the days of thu week except Sundays, when he superintends his Sunday school. Good boy, Tommy ! • * * Again, I ask, what profiteth a man m tho long run to palter with the sectarian fiend? AVhere is that arrant sectarian scribbler aud strife promoter Jimmy Hogue, nick-named Arrah na Rogue, ow- ! ing to the politic-ally perfidious j manner m which he would drop j tin* sectarian poison into the public j ear from the platform and m Parliament, aud privately boast of it? j .Jimmy used to smirkingly accept | the imputed authorship of the noi (orious anti-Catholic loading nri tide. j>»>l>li*Ucd a quart cm* of a cent ury ago m the "Bveninp Ncxrv entitled "An Ominous Silence, " ■the publication of. which nearly 'Knniker-'Hatoned the sectarian Snooze. Well, where and what is i Arrah na liogue iiu\v7 Out on the-

rock's where the tide'; the Protestant" political tide," is low,, damned, low, -.", and \ what 's worse, showing rib' • signs of rising, t'q float Jimmy, '< ' BisnmJ Jimmy 'np.iy,. off the sectarian foc^ottuwiich, -'lie's stranded, except^ iWjfer- in'the-'f orm of a backwas^'focariy him away m its underfow ;: tp : everlasting oblivion with: all.jsimilarly stranded seetarian;seafarers! '• '• „,* '•','. * . * Where is- that Great Galaxy of. the Grand Orange Lodge who use.d to boss the destinies of the Mother State from astride the back of Billy the Beast's pet nannygoat? Where, oh where, is that glorious line of Grand Lodgers and Black Preceptors, the Lads and. Lassies of Dewy, the J. C. Nields; Ythe Fraricis Abigails, the "Wowser Wheelers and the Wheeler wowsers, and the whole tribe of tenthrate two-time twicers and threetini'e.YtWisters, who used to 'hang on to the Yellow-Bellied -Goat's short scut, or the Protestant Pup's tail, arid any other part of -his anatomy they could clutch hold of, m order to be pulled into public prominence and a place m Parlia* ment? Where are they all now? Either dead and gone, or defunct and derelict. These were they who constituted tlie Sacred Legion, the Pioiis Phlanx, of Parkes' Sectarian Squad, with which that Old Man of the Sea of Sectarian Strife sucdeeded m dominating the -public life, and directing the fiscal and religious policy of New South Wales for the best part of forty years. Old' Parkes was the Antipodean Moses who led the People of Australia m the Wilderness of Religious Rancour for Forty-Years! .. V .*' ' *..'... .*..;. If Protestants have suffered from .the. sectarian scourge of religious.strife, so.,..tQO,.have.tiie Roman Catholics. They have suffered from exhibitions of prelatical pisl3umption and priestly intolerance even more, than hayatlie Protestants from those^f, hierarchical helotry and parsonical perversity. The' reason the Roman Cath'plics have suffered more than the Protestants have done from the same scourge, is not that they have been more bumptious or brutal m their bigotry, but because they have been less numerous and, therefore, politically, less powerful, for a long time at any rate, than the Protestants. Some of tho self-appointed champions of. the Roman Catholic Claims— what they term their reasonable religious and educational claims upon the State — havo been as great a drawback and deep a disgrace to the Roman Catholicism as were some of the accepted or chosen champions of Protestantism to that communion. What Roman CathblicY* would care or. dare to deny that a Dan O'Connor Ayas almost as deep a disgrace to his branch of . the Christian Church as Henry Parkes was to. the Protestant branch :■ or that' a " ' St. Denriish' ' the Martyr, Mengher,' ia liot as groat an incubus"' and reproach to. the Roman Catholic Church as ever Orange^ Grand Master Francis , Abigail' was to the Protestant Communion. Some of tho Papal Knights of St. Gregory are as groat, a disgrace to the Holy See as some of the Australian Imperial-made Knights of St. Michael and St. George are to the memories of those mythical patron saints of British Boodle and Australian Snobbery. With the exception of such Papal knights as the Hon. John Mengher, M.L.C., Sir William Manning} ML.C, the late Dr. Donovau, nnd one or two others, it is safe to say that, the Holy Father didn't know whom he wns decorating, nnd thut had he known he would have lot them go their own gait to the devil rather than have decorated them. « « • Look at the way m which that poor, pitiful, played-out political pantaloon Dan O'Connor, of all the world, a Knight of St. Gregory, m spite of the late Cardinal Moran 's firm, tint, and final refusnl to recommend the pcstilcntly persistent political pork-but-cher with the patrinrehial board to the Holy Father for so high an honor as a Pnpnl knighthood. But tho bbitant beared political but-cher-bounder was not to be bluffed off the prize of his vulgar ambition: no, not even by a Prince of the Church, a Cardinal, Archbishop Moran, of Sydney, one of the most influential nnd powerful ] members of the Homnn Curia of his day. Dan, the derelict, politi--1 c.ul pimp, and pander of sly old £ir ''Horry" Parkes, wns determined not to be done by n Car-dinal-Deacon or n Cardinal-Priest either. Th<n how did Han mnnngc to circumvent the Cardinal Arch-

bishop of Sydney, and find advocates, or, at least, an "advocatus diabolus" at the Vatican, by whose means he was enabled to grab the gay gew-gaw of his giddy aspiration? Well, that's a story that has never been told publicly m print, and seldom m private, "ore rotundo"; and as it is short and won't take up more space than it merits as an eye-opener on the wily ways of Parlipests would seem to warrant, we'll tell it just now, right here, once for all. When. quite sober, as he often was, m the former., part of his political peregrinations, and even when only semi-sober or demidrunk, which was seldom, m the later days of his deeper drunken degeneration, Danyell ( as he was sometimes styled on account of his meat-salesman's sort of voice) O'Connor was. a cunning cuss, not to say an impudent rogue. Finding hiniself shut out from the Order., of St. " Gregory, so far as his failure' to secure the support of Cardinal Moran was concerned, Dan dodged here and there, and was given the cold stare instead of the glad eye m his canvass for a [ Catholic knighthood. But fortune favored this farceur among the faithful at last. This political | pauper, beared like a pard, and looking as venerable as that antedeluvian old drunkard, Noah, came across the good, genial, generous old Dr. Torregiani, the late Roman Catholic Bishop of Amidale, whom the devious dodgy droughty Dan managed m sonic way to win to his side to recommend him at Rome for a knighthood, "unbeknownst" to the Cardinal, and "behind his back to his very face," as Dan himself might have said. * • .* ' * By what means this disreputable Roman Catholic rousabout of the political-Protestant Premier Parkes managed to secure the support and sympathy of a beloved arid highly respected prelate of the Roman Catholic Church m Australia, where Dan was widely known as, the clown of Australian politics, is a mystery to most people. The motives and intentions of the late Dr. Torregiani yrere surely as pure and above suspicion as was his devotion ,to Mother Church. But this- good Italian Bishop, though long m this land of Australia, as warm and as genial as his own sun-kissed Italia> and w.el! advanced m. yejirs and m feebje health, could not have been well enough acquainted -with the ways of Parlipests of the Dan O 'Connor calibre, or most certainly he would not have fallen a victim to Dan's wiles, and. have fathered his pretensions to Papal knighthood. But he did, and Dan got his St. Gregory m that way. Dr. Torregiani was ,well acquainted with some higher functionaries at tho Vatican, one of whom was a life-long 'personal friend. To him he recommended Dan, and the O 'Connor Dan lost no time m getting into postal communication with certain persons, and, it is said, m giving them certain substantial reasons — considered relatively small m Australia, bu,t comparatively considerable m Italy, where official salaries, especially those of the ecclesiastical order, are lamentably low and long-delayed. # # » So did Dan, the ex-pork butcher and derelict politician, and latterly an inmate of the Government Asylum for Poor Old iVlen at Liverpool, become a Knight of St. Gregory ! What an honor for such a man, who was such an honor to his church and his country ! Poor, old, blathering, bawling, boozy Dim ! He never seemed to do any good after he turned dog on his country's cause at the time of the groat Redmond Home Rule meeting m Sydney, when he was nnnouueed to tnke the chair, but i'niled to do so. He preferred to piny tho part of Peeping Tom hy skulking behind the stage curtain, m the actual perpetration of which ignominious, infamous piece of poltroonery John Redmond detected nnd discovered nnd denounced him as a traitor to the crowded and excited audience of his fellow-countrymen and co-re-ligionists. How they did curse aud execrato Dan ! Poor Dan was to be pitied. Ho was never a strong mau morally. There was nothing strong about him but his big, burly body, his big words, und — his bad breath. • * • But what was the poor devil to do? There he was practically nt the height of his paltry political ambition —an Irish-Australian j political pork-butcher, inetamoriphorscd into State PostmnsterGeneral, tho political pal of Parkes, the Protestant Premier and nrch-nntngonist of Home Rule for Ireland— Cabinet chum of Parkes— the man who trepanned the poor, mad, drunken Irishman O'Farrell, who shot at the "Durty Look" of Edinburgh at Clontnrf, by craftily interrogating O'Farrell iv his cell nt Darlinghurst, having his answers mid remarks all carefully taken down m shorthand by Sam Cook of the "Sydney Morning Herald," whom Parkes had secretly planted nnd concealed behind the cell door, which opened outward from the

cell into the prison corridor. Then Parkes, like the cruel, callous, sectarian' spider that he was, having sucked the poor crazy prisoner 's brains, promptly sent his pump-ed-otit victim, to the gallows to make a sectarian holiday. After the o 'Farrell infamy, Parkes calmly proceeded to concoct and resurrect and parade the, Kiama Ghost m order to create an. anti-Catholic agitation or Fenian scare. This he succeeded m doing, and kept it alive for purely political purposes as long as he couldj -which was almost up to the day of his death. # ■" * ■ * Dan O'Connor's countrymen and co-religionists could almost forgive his political participation with the chief enemy m Australia to their faith and country for the sake of his presumed fidelity to their country's cause, Home Rule. But when Dan, to whom they had shown such great and long-con-tinued indulgence, ratted or "reneged" on his duty as he did at the great Redmond meeting, they lost all faith m him, regarding him as a political renegade, who, with many Irish Roman Catholics, is quite as bad, if not much worse, than a religious renegade. Poor Dan thenceforward went rapidly frorii bad to worse. Parkes had no further political br sectarian use for him, and his coreligionists and countrymen did not want him, though m time, when they saw. him almost politically and pecuniarily destitute, they took pity on him. Though they could not arid never did forget the cowardly circumspection he had exhibited towards his native country's cause (for Dan was a real Irishman, though not really of the Ould Sod), they generously pretended to forgive him, which they never really did. • '../• • Finally, however, they put him back into Parliament- as member for the metropolitan constituency of Phillip, now. made illustrious by the representation of "St. Deanish" Meagher — the 'seat of that late • sturdy champion of Home Rule, Mr. Henry Copeland, When he was appointed AgentGeneral m London. But O'Callaghan, or rather 0 'Connor, was on his last legs, monetarily as well as morally. He broke his political pledges, and tried to' "taker down" those who financed lum into Parliament on the strength, or rather the weakness, of his promises to support them and their party m Parliament. Among those latter was the late Mr. W. P, Crick, the most brilliant and ; successful criminal advocate this Commonwealth has, yet soon, and the most capable and competent^ arid certainly not by any means the most corrupt land-legislator that over sat m Parliament and held Cabinet office m any State. *. • * A word or two about William Patrick Crick. He rendered his religion inestimable service when he rescued the local Roman Catholic Church from tho miserable muddlo of the Coningham case. An equally great, if not greater, service he did the settlers on the soil of his native Stato m a time of deep distress, bordering on general destitution, caused by prolonged drought. By prompt legislation m dealing with the tenures and terms of tho leases of the Central and Western Divisions, ,Mr. Crick wns the menus of rescuing thousands of settlers from ruin by. enabling them to retain nnd live on their holdings— to tide over the hnrd times caused by the seven years' drought. • # • It wns Crick's proud, yet true, bonst that he had been instrumental iv saving 40,000,000 sheep to the settlers nnd tho State. What a pity that Crick ever took to horse-racing and champagne; and that he ever met "Nick Willis" or ' ' Cocky Carruthers — now t he Honorable Sir Joseph Hector Carruthers m the Legislative Council. Poor Crick, it was, perhaps, ft good thing for him that he died when he did, und as ho did; but a bad thing for the settlers on tho soil, who still recall and respect his memory as that of the ablest land legislator nnd most capable Lands Department administrator thnt they and their forbears have known. Thero ought to be a monument set up to the memory of such a imm m tho centre of the Central Division of ! this State. « • • Crick was the sung that Dan O'Connor struck m the Phillip constituency. It was Crick who financed Dan into that scat, and it wns Crick whom Dan tried to diddle out of the "dough" advanced, nnd for which Crick held Dan's "precious" paper. Dan didn't want to meet his obligations — either by his written promise to pay by way of political support m Parliament, or alternatively, his written promise to repay Crick tho cash advanced, m fact, Dan wanted to sneak out of both his pledges; but Crick promptly pulled him into court, nnd got a verdict for the full amount claimed, with costs. Dan hadn't a sixpence to jingle on a tombstone, his political pals to wluun he had "ratted" had to pny the piper, or pin* let Dun "go hung." "tiles his shovel." or "V<> up King-street" i.e., be deebired bankrupt. This

was what Crick wished would happen: because had I)an been compelled to resign through insolvency, it was Crick's intention to resign from Blayney and nominate for Phillip. In that ease Dan would not have been re-elected for Phillip, and Phillip electors might never have had the high honor of being represented by its' present proto-martyr "St. Deanis^' Meagher. • - » * How generous and magnanimous arc not Irish Catholics to those who abuse and betray them ! How forgiving, how all sheltering, how encompassingly compassionate to all sinners, how soothingly sympathetic to all sincere penitents is not tho Roman Catholic Church I "Within her ali-embraciug fold is refuge and rest for all, sinner and saint alike. There all the mysteries and privileges of divine, grace are shared m common: no high seats for the mighty; no private pews for plutes; no snobbery; no snubbing; all are equal within tho fold of the Church. All you havo to do within the Roman Catholic Church is to believe and be docile to tho mildest and most merciful of disciplines. If there bo a Divine Revelation— .a religion received direct from God — and the interpretation of that revelation, and the preservation of that religion has been entrusted to tho one Church oternal and indivisible, what more could the one true Churoh demand of its faithful children? • • • This much-vexed question of the iuflcxibjc hostility of the Roman Catholic Church to evory outside oi" unauthorised attempt, at innovation m dogma and discipline, aud her never-failing and eversustaining sympathy with the zeal of the humblest and least worthy of her members— him she scientifically utilises nnd directs to her own service — even the fanaticism of some of her most fervent fanatics—is dramatically dealt with by Maenulny m his celebrated essay on "K nuke's Lives of the Popes." That brilliant essay every purblind Protestant polemist should read. It will amuse and instruct all those who peruse it; and it is well worth the perusal of all Protestant pragmutists. To them and all such as they it will show how petty and paltry are the practices and processes of mere political propagandists when pitted agninst the llcry zeal and forceful energy of a firm and fixed faith— often degenerating into blind, bigoted belief—upon which rest the broad bases, the sure foundations of what- Maenulny, m so many words, declared to be the great est and grandest and most enduring religious organisations the world liiih ever seen, or is over likely to see the like of again. JOHN NORTON. Royal Hotel. Mornlmrt on— -Supor-Marc, Vlctorln. Thiir.wUy. I'l-l.ru.-iry J Ith, 19 li.