Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 244, 4 January 1878, Page 1

Current Topics

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HE San Francisco mail brings us a clue to the policy of Prince Bismarck with respect to the Eastern Question. That the saturnine Chancellor, although not specially concerned in the preservation of Turkey's integrity, ( should desire or sanction the aggrandizement of Russia, we confess, seemed to us somewhat strange and inconsistent ■with the character of the statesman in question. Indeed, we had early concluded that he had favoured the war in the first instance, as there appears to be good grounds for asserting, because he hoped that the Muscovite Empire, even if victorious, must be weakened by the effort to subdue (he Turks, who he foresaw were prepared to offer a more effectual resistence than was then generally supposed ; and such a result indubitably must have followed, unless the other powers were resolved to adopt a course that would admit of Russia's profiting by her victory. So far, there was much to gain and nothing to lose by the war, and, therefore, it was secretly promoted. But now a prospect has been opened that displays Germany in a position to afford even the possible aggrandisement of Russia in return for m advantage which she seeks to obtain by encouraging the implication of England in hostilities, so as 'to provide the latter with work sufficient to engage her attention, while she herself secures an object long coveted in the annexation, or involuntary alliance, of Belgium, and, we doubt not, as well of Holland and Switzerland. The Times boasts that England 'is now as well prepared to wage a great war single-handed as she was when she opposed herself to Napoleon I. It may well be that it is so, but the need of those years called out Nelson and Wellington, on whose great qualities it is evident the event turned. Would the present need produce as mighty captains if it were pressed ? The history of the past points to the fact that whenever they were wanted they came to the fore, and England relying on her former fortunes might take the field, persuaded that commanders would not fail her. But can it be expected that other countries would display a like confidence in her capabilities in this respect 1 The matter is at least problematical enough to excuse them in leaving it out of their calculations, and the probabilities are that they would value her^at her strength in men and armaments, weighed by which we venture to doubt, although it may sound heretical, whether she would seem fitted to cope singlehanded against an. alliance of the European powers. It may be, however, that it would suit- the purposes of Bismarck to see her engaged with Russia alone. We do not. believe he would desire to have her eventually defeated. It would be sufficient for his purpose if she were plaoed hort de comhat, so far as Germany is concerned, until the latter power had rendered herself invulnerable and unassailable by the annexation of the three States coveted by her. This a war with Russia alone mj^ht accomplish, and if, after <the great desideratum had been gained, the Muscovites were to receive a thorough thrashing—which we wholly hope and partly believe they would— the admirable Chancellor would have « killed two birds with one stone " -'

The agitation that has for some time prevailed with respect to the study of Gaelic tends, it would appear, to the vindication of the Ceitic character, and we doubt not but that, as the question is further pursued, much will be brought to light that will compel an universal admiration to be accorded to that race which, of old , gave- such proof of its superiority to the world, and to which .Europe, although ungrateful, owes in great part the civilisation it has enjoyed for centuries. The spirit of the age, however high its pretensions may be, is in truth a grovelling spirit : material advantages and pleasures are the chief good it proposes to itself, and the effect is that a luxurious sort of chaw-baconism, if we may be allowed the expression is palpable everywhere. « Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die, • such are the principles that direct the century, and it is a relief if we can now and then escape from the contemplation of the social condition they foster, to dwell amongst the memories of a state of things that was far otherwise. We have been enabled to do

so by reading an article in a late number of the Westminster Review. Ihe writer, a student of Gaelic, had, in the course of an excursion to the west of Ireland, spent a night on the Clare Coast of Gal way Bay in the cottage of some peasant family of the locality;, and amongst these people he found the -.true culture of mind and spirit that is worth all the polish of what they call society, <'.With the understanding of a scholar, moreover, he recognised the fact, that the legendary lore in which he foi .id his hosts so rich, and which they imparted to him with such keen marks of appreciation was an inheritance derived by them from ages passed away. He did not recognise the truth that, these illiterate people had been aided in preserving their ancestral " legends by the. disposition to cherish and love all that is noble and beautiful bestowed upon them by the Catholic Faith, whose influence is refining Beyond the credibility, of those who have not watched it long and closely, anfi : watched it amongst a people whom otherwise there was nothing to "'refine but who were subjected to everthing that might have brutalised and deadened to all human perceptions: A writer in the Westminster Review, however, must needs be a foe to religion, and it cannot enter favourably into his speculations. This is the weak point in his article, as we who have an intimate, knowledge of the men concerning whom he writes plainly perceive ; in other respects the paper is an admirable one. Take, for example, the following passages :—": — " No doubt these Burren men were rough folks. You wouldn't have cared to jostle against them at a fair ; you, perhaps, might have met them scores of times, and found nothing in them." It is very seldom that one can \mlock their hearts, for the Celt is shy and sensitive, tho' his manner, often brusque from very shyness, may make strangers think otherwise. Let him fancy you are " drawing him out," and he will either' fool you to the top of your bent, or else shrink into himself like a snail when his horns. are' touched. What we contend for, then, is that there was in the old Gael only too much of literary culture, and that a great deal of it has cbme clown to our day. The Englishman doesn't care for it ; it is unprofitable, it neither brings railways, nor steam thrashing machines, nor does it drain bogs ; moreover, its existence is a sort of reflection on his system, for men like Montalembert say, when they have studied it a little, " Surely a better hand might have been made of a race that is so gifted." But Englishmen ought to care for it; for Gaelic culture just supplies what is wanting in their modern society, in which everything, even to the most solemn mysteries of religion, is being made a matter of bargain. The. present writer has always said : " Chivalry is of the Celts," and he has often felt thankful I that Mi 1 . Matthew Arnold seems to be of the same opinion. From them canie that leaven that made feudalism bearable for so many centuries. Tenderness, delicacy, sentiment, what is called, in the " Study of Celtic Literature," " a straining of human nature more than it will bear," these are Gaelic, and they are just what we now-a-days, with the stream setting so strongly towards materialism, cannot afford to lose. It is not unlikely that the Scot has yet a work to do among us ; for surely we want a little more " reaction after the despotism of fact," a little more of that straining after an ideal perfection which it is now the fashion to pooh-pooh. V