Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 274, 2 August 1878, Page 1

Current Topics.

AT HOME 4- ABROAD.

AMLET'S soliloquy that has been so much hackneyed, as any utterance must be that is good, true, and expressive of what every one agrees to when he hears it, although he may not have had the mind to conceive or the tongue to utter it himself, bids fair to receive at last a, contradictionThe German Socialists have not the slightest intention of acting upon it. They are very impatient of the " whips i and scorns of time ; " they are not at all willing to bear "fardels," • " To grunt and sweat under a weary life," or by any means to submit to the grievances of their surroundings 5 but at the same time they have not the least idea of making' their ' quietus " with a bodkin or any other weapon. Conscience does not at all make cowards of them ; they have indeed no conscience to speak of, but they do not mean either to fly to ills they know nothing about, or to bear with those they have. The fact is, they are bent on making the quietus of other people ; and that is how they propose to themselves to solve the difficulty. We learn from the weekly edition of the London Times, May 24th last, that atheism has placed the crown on the Socialistic edifice-" As the crowning evil, atheism has come in to teach that if < U 2 >roj>rict6 e'est le voV the crime of the wealthy denTp? T abominable as «*» being no hereof ter, to be Ueprived of earthly enjoyments is to be robbed of everything" This Z o?!^ 1 aDd the concl « si °n to be expected. If to hold property at all be a theft, naturally the theft becomes magnified beyond entrance when it includes all that the proletarians can ever expect to enjoy, and this it must be believed to do when faith in a future life gained those gushing scientists, who were so anxious, last year, to tTJf c \ Uni T?' aml indeed ™Proveable, theory of evolution taught m he schools, that they were already in danger of seeing a niore temble state of things prevail than had even been witnessed during the French Eevolution, and that it behoved them to be very the Zf T W , h h th6y dM ' m ° re CSpecially With r °S aTd t0 wakening the popular faith in Christianity. Dr. Yirchow is not a deni-savant, -ml he is a statesman as well as a man of science. This then is fcociaUsm shorn of its theoretic adornments, and concealments. A oeuef, necessarily an angry belief, amongst the masses that men who haSrT' 7 T- defraudiD S^m of all possibility of knowing' sSS com any i Tbere is no lonscr a soul tLat - as Goethe sings, comes from heaven and goes to heaven- " J on i Himmel kommt es, ibe living flood," as Teufelsdrockh has it, moves "from Eternity onwards to Eternity," but it is, as he nowhere hints, an eternity L nothingness, as void and black lying before as that which lies behind Carpc diem ! the short span of life here is the sum of existence, and -to make that enjoyable is the whole duty of man. The means h e f for this end need not trouble him ; there is no penalty bu failure, and if he fails he can be no worse off than he now is. The wealthy classes have obtained possession of what the poor man needs ; they ar« robbers who have stolen his happiness, and all that now remains for him to do is to wrest it from their grasp. Such is Socialism the fact : Socialism — the fancy is decked in various pleasant hues, and towers aloft in airy palaces of much pretension. It is based on faith in human nature ; human nature considered generally and in the abstract— by no means individual human nature and dealt with practically — that would involve a promiscuous lending of £5 notes and other accommodations that we hear nothing of amongst the most ardent apostles and disciples of the creed. It likewise has something to do with the "brotherhood of man ; " a relati6nship that is general and theoretical also, and that is by no means to be supposed productive of a nursing of sick Chinese, or others of the diseased or maimed' or any such things, except by deputy, and, most probably, in such a manner as Charles Dickens has, here and there, vividly described. It is, in short, a veil that conceals the ugliness of the fact, and a nurse that fosters the danger, A specious pretence that persuades men they

can do without Christianity,- but against which Virchow has sounded ft warning and the Emperor William delivered what ought to t>e taken everywhere as a fiat. Religious teaching he declares to be the only safeguard against the commission of crime ; and that, if we understand aright, by no means refers to the acquirement of religion as an accomplishment, a piece of ornamentation to be dallied with now and then out of regular ours, but as a solid matter that should influence the whob daily course of life, and rank on a full equality with the all important, the almost magical, three K's.

Fbom the time -when Mr. Froude published his extraordinary article on his life in Ireland some years ago ; we have always felt that it was quite immaterial what he might say of the country alluded to or its inhabitants. We, perhaps, might go further and say that we considered it to be of little account "what he might say or write on any subject ; for it is evident that a man who, when it serves his purpose, is not only prepared to give a false representation of facts, but moreover to display a total want of all gentlemanly feelings or instincts, is a man who, whatever his brilliancy of talent may be, is totally unworthy of being listened to, and a teacher by whose lessons it would be disgraceful to be guided, Mr. Froude at that time accused Mr. Trench, Lord Digby's agent in Kerry, of be* haviour that might have been becoming in a Cherokee or Choctaw, that would disgust us in a colonial larrikin, and that in a man of education and position ought to be considered impossible. Mr. Trench repudiated it indignantly, as did also Lord Digby his employer, but that is nothing to the purpose, for Mr. Froude considered it delightful, and pronounced that while Mr. Trench was relating it, as falsely reported or understood, he was as " charming as ever." The point to be noticed is that Mr. Froude was in ecstacies over conduct that would have stamped an American Indian as siil s avage, reduced an Australian colonist to the rank of a larrikin, and' had it proved true, would indubitably have led to the agent guilty of it being cut by the gentry of Kerry. Mr. Froude, however, considered it charming, and, by this judgment of his passed on what can only be described as ruffianism pure and simple, furnished us with a key to the principles that guide his authorship. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that he is just now receiving an exposure well deserved at the hands of certain critics who have been at the trouble of enquiring into the grounds upon which many of his statements are based. Mr. Lccky, in his "History of England during the Eighteenth Century," and Mr. Freeman in the Contemporary Review, have both shown him up in a manner that it will be strange, even lenient as non- Catholic readers are to mis-statements regarding things Irish or Catholic, if his reputation is capable of standing against. 4< Mr« Froude's English in Ireland," says Mr. Lecky, " is intended to collect and aggravate everything that can be said against the Irish people. And says Mr. Freeman, speaking of a portion of the papers by the writer referred to on St. Thomas a Beckett: "Anything moTC monstrous never appeared from the pen of one who professed to be narrating facts. In any one else one would be tempted to speak of foul misrepresentation and shamelessly garbled quotation." But is Mr. Freeman's reason for not treating Mr. Froude like " any one else " sufficient ? We believe not ; we think it is as clear as daylight that he is guilty of '-foul misrepresentation and shamelessly garbled quotation." There is no other explanation, for instance, that can be given of his statement in the "English in Ireland" with respect to the meeting of Catholic clergy and laity at Mullifarvan Abbey, and where he says the principle that prevailed was that " according to the priests heretics were disentitled to mercy." Although the authority on which he professed to base his statement expressly declares that the Franciscans were opposed to the massacre of the Protestants, and " did stand " for their banishment. But there is nothing in all this that need astonish any one ; garbling and misquotation are quite consistent with that frame of mind which could consider as " charming " a man capable of the ribaldry attributed, fortunately unjustly, by Mr. Froude to Mr. Trench. On the whole, we conclude that Irishmen and Catholics may congratulate themseives on the enmity displayed towards them by the write&in question.

We no longer are amazed at the obscurities of history. When

we find ■writers persisting in misrepresentation and in falsely interpreting things that are actually taking place before their eyes, and that in the broad light of the nineteenth century, what wonder is it that chroniclers who wrote in comparative darkness should have made many errors and left many points confused and doubtful ? We find that even now, after the publication of the Pope's Encyclical and of the remarkable pastorals issued by him as Archbishop of Perugia, various writers of leaders and of correspondence in the English Press, still continue to assert that he is, if not exactly a Protestant Pope, at least the next thing to it. A Pope desirous to compromise the Temporal Power, at war with the Jesuits, and only deterred by the fear of creating a schism from entering upon a path of policy totally opposed to that maintained by his predecessor. We confess that such a course of proceeding is somewhat trying ; it makes us feel, in contemplating it. as if we had to deal with that most provokiDg being, a thorough dunce, and yet such men as write, for instance, in the Saturday Review can not be dunces. There is no choice left us but to think that they are wilfully deceiving the public, or pandering to their prejudices ; unless we suppose, indeed, that there is something supernatural in the matter and that they cannot help themselves. The •Pope has most emphatically approved of the policy of Pius IX. He has declared, and most powerfully declared, in his terse, vigorous Style, that he holds all the doctrines that have offended the nonCatholic world. Cannot non-Catholics see that it is his habit to record a doctrine in three or four words ? He establishes once for all the authority of the Vatican Council by naming it (Ecumenical ; the infallibility of the Pope he asserts in calling htm the Infallible Master of the Faithful ; and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception he proclaims anew by entitling the Blessed Virgin, Immaculate Queen of Heaven : he, besides, has recorded in a Latin poem his admiration of the Jesuits, whom he calls a " noble cohort of fathers."' Yet the non-Catholic Press for tke most part will have it that he would, at least, prefer, that the Blessed Virgin had not been declared Immaculate, or the Pope infallible ; that he dislikes the Jesuits and is anxious to betray the Temporal Power. The contradictions in history, then, are but natural. The gossip, for example, which accused the Empress Maria Theresa of bestowing upon Madame de Pompadour the familiar titles of cousin, good friend, and even sister, was but what might be expected from some tattler desirous in an idle or spiteful moment to 9how that the Imperial lady concerned was not too high or noble to be above stooping to a contemptible action when selfinterest demanded it of her. The slur, however, has been triumphantly cleared from off her memory by Von Arneth, who has shown that the accusation was absolutely groundless. Nor need we blame as extraordinarily culpable Michelet's distorted account of the Celtic Church, especially with regard to St. Columbanus, the most prominent figure amongst that glorious band of missionaries who left Ireland in the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century for the purpose of reforming European countries already Christian, and converting those still heathen ; but who have been accused by the historian referred tp, j&jnongst others, of a spirit of " opposition to Rome." " Whereas," wya St. Columbauus in his famous letter to Pope Boniface IV. "We Irish . . . are bound to the Chair of St. Peter ; for however great and glorious Rome may be, it is this chair which makes her great and glorious amongst us." History, then, is written, in most instances, so as to help in establishing the peculiar views of the writer, without any very scrupulous attention to exactness, and the contemporary history which we now peruse in the columns of the nonCatholic Press is markedly of this kind. The means, however, of ascertaining the truth which are now at hand make falsehoood necessarily more glaring.

"An old hat from America makes a New Zealander a whole suit of clothes." We clip this statement from an American exchange in order to afford our readers an opportunity of seeing the light iv which they are regarded ia the Great Republic. Is it thus we are reported of by the wayfarers and excursionists, who journey by means of the San Francisco mail route ? The thought is somewhat humiliating, for we had believed that our material clothing was of the amplest and most fashionable, and we had not discovered that even the scantiest " pullback " dress could justify such a sweeping charge as this. But even an old hat is not without its value. " What still dignity dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes ! " writes a philosopher. " How meekly it bear s its honours ! No haughty looks, no scornful gesture : silent and serene, it fronts the world ; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries the physiognomy of its Head, but the vanity and the stupidity, and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone." Would the old American hat, wherein we are asserted wholly to clothe oxirselves, find no vanity and stupidity amongst us to enclose, or would it find no goose-speech amongst us to remind it of days when it was new ? We fear the " physiognomy " of its present "head " would be but a feebler counterpart of that pertaining to its past. But alas ! we do not wait for America to cast her shoddy before we undertake to deck ourselves in it. We of our own accord rejoice in shoddy, and greatly employ it; superficial

decency, but worthless substance though it be. We find it everywhere ; now in the pulpit, now in the Press ; now characterising some ministerial or legislative utterance, and most recently the chief thing worthy of noting with respect to the Governor's speech. Everywhere amongst us is there shoddy ; in religion, in science, in politics. Let shoddy then be our only wear, and faithfully symbolical. But far better would it be to patch material garments out of that cast away in the old hats of America, than to seek there for the mental stuff of the kind that we have seen in vogue with such evil results, in order that we may employ it on the recommendation and under the direction * of shoddy of the human sort, cut according to the fashion of the demi' savant.

Whatever may have been the origin of the human race, whether it was evolved by a rotatory movement or otherwise out of a gas, or descended comprehensibly and respectably from Adam, or came in some other manner, as yet unsuspected, upon the scene, it is a fact that there is a wonderful strain of similarity to be found in it. Everywhere men seem to have much in common and, when acting under the control of passion especially, we find the most various tribes behave themselves in some degree alike. We are reminded of this by a little transaction that took place the other day at Waitara, the scene of Sir George Grey's affecting interviews with Rewi, and where sundry impertinent newspapers more than hint our high-souled Government held out the right hand of fellowship, to, and rubbed noses with, or, in some other fashion proper to the occasion, embraced several individuals for whom the most suitable companion would have been the grim and disreputable Jack Ketch. Hardly, however, had Mr. Sheehan turned his appeasing back when a scene took place that would have been sure to have drawn salt tears from his eyes, or, for the matter of that, any other kind of tears that benevolent eyes accustomed to watch over the interests and smile at the gambols of savages might be capable of dropping, for we by no means stand out for the adjective if it be found fault with. In a word, there arose a riot that it must have grieved the gentle heart of any Minister who has such a heart, and who, in token of its possession, has inherited the persuasive tongue that tradition teaches us is acquired by a process which takes place amidst the classic groves of Blarney ; and has contrived, moreover, to accommodate it to such uses as Lady Jeffers herself, the historical owner, ungallantly pommelled by Oliver Cromwell, of the celebrated stone, could never have hoped for in her hours of utmost pride in her belonging — that its " sweet influences " should be felt around the South pole, and overcome the ruggedness of the untutored children of nature. " Stire he's a pilgrim Prom the Blarney stone " that must be unique 1 But hardly had the Ministerial party departed, or echo lost the last notes of their palaver, when a band of unsophisticated sons of the wilderness had a drinking bout, and, in the ire of their hearts, undertook to burn down the Waitara Hotel. With this, however, we are not particularly concerned, and shall not there • fore dwell upon the circumstances of the case ; what we are interested in is perceiving that these presumably untaught natives of Waikato adopted a manner of displaying the excitement caused by their cups, similar to that seized upon the other day in England by a company of men, who are to be regardel as both civilized and Bibleized, when acting on the impulse of their anger. A fact which we cannot fail to find somewhat pregnant. We allude to the men on strike at Blackburn, who, on May 13 last, having perpetrated numerous outrages, finished up by burning the house of a gentleman who had rendered himself obnoxious to them. From which we gather that civilised human nature in England, and savage human nature in New Zealand have, at least, something in common — let them be spuing from whomsoever or whatsoever it may be.

The reports of an address of the Bishop of Ballarat, at Stawell, _ and of a Catholic meeting held recently in St. Kilda, near Melbourne* for the purpose of establishing a Christian Brothers' School, and' which reach us in the columns of our excellent contemporary the Advocate, come in time to furnish us with a refutation of the unblushing statement made last week by the Daily Times relative to the general acceptance of secular schools by the Catholics of the other colonies, including of course Victoria. It is needless to say that it never entered our thoughts for a moment that there were the slightest grounds for the statement of our contemporary. We recognised it as an encouragement, considered necessary in view of danger, to secularists to be bold in the continuance of their barefaced tyranny ; and further, as we should be in nothing surprised were we told that the famous Dionysius, of Syracuse, after his fall and when engaged in wielding the tawse at Corinth, had been convicted of over-violently thrashing a boy, so we find it in nothing astonishing that a journal under the influences that direct the Daily Times should, by a plausible example (see what a good boy Tom is), and resolved to treat Catholics like silly children, endeavonr to lead them away from persisting in their refusal to comply with the Government measure, We know on

high authority that however a vessel maj r be damaged and turned from its original uses the odours that it has once contained will never be wholly got rid of — " O suavis nnima 1 qnalo to tlicam bonuin Antehac fuissc, talcs cum suit rcliquiic." However, we now receive proof positive of the actual determination of Catholics in Victoria to maintain their own schools, and not to accept the Government institutions, there also secular, and there also " dreaded as the root of all evil." For Dr. Corbett repeated at St. Kilda precisely what we have so often written in the Tablet when he said, " He feared that, if the present system of public instruction in this colony were continued, Victoria would, in due time, become socially what the United States of America had become under a similar system of education. In America, the girls who were brought up in the public schools were ' women' at an age when, i n other countries they are still children ; and they were more than women — they were demons in inquity." And the Bishop of Ballarat, likewise, confirmed our views by the following passage in his address at Stawell, " If public education were not based on religion, if religious influences were not felt in the schools, and in society, they would be laying the seed for future disasters. They could now see countiies, the Governments of which profess to be moderate, giving evidence of throwing off all restraint, but the society that threw off the authority of the Church was lost. The result of this was now visible in the Socialism and Communism of Germany and the United States." But what is more to the purpose, both the Rev. Dr. Corbett and the Bishop give a fiat contradiction in so many words to the Daily Times. The former said, "He was glad to say that there were few Catholics in that district, St. Kilda, who were so rebellious against the teaching of the Church as to send their children to the godless State schools." And the latter congratulated his hearers because " They had already commanded respect by sending their children to their own schools, and in doing so they had set an example to many. All could see that the Catholics have acted nobly in bearing the expenses consequent on their religious convictions in this matter by supporting their own schools."

Sir Julius Vogel has found it necessary to put a stop to an overabundant emigration from Ireland to New Zealand. Mr. Macandrew's hint to the wily child of Israel has made known to him that such an immigration must be deeply offensive to the powers that be on this side of the world. "No Irish need apply " would undoubtedly be openly the maxim here if such were practicable, and it has evidently been determined to act upon such a principle so far as it is possible. Hence our worthy Agent General finds that good times in Ireland have made emigration thence unpopular ; that " Irish agents do not exercise necessary caution," and that, with a view to place an insuperable impediment in the way of the objectionable emigration, it is desirable for him to " instruct the Edinburgh Agency to deal with all applications from Ireland." Now our own views on the subject are that, with just laws such as we hope ere long to see enacted for the benefit of Ireland, our fellow-countrymen would be far better settled upon the soil of their fathers, than engaged in a struggle for life beneath the rule of a hostile Government, and amongst a people to excite whose anti- Irish and anti-Catholic prejudices every means are taken that ingenuity can suggest, or unscrupulousness license. There is no country in which the Irish people show to such advantage as they do in their own, although everywhere they make a most creditable appearance, and in some places are the saviours of morality and religion. There is no country in which they can expect to find themselves so happy as amongst those green hills and vales made dear to them by a thousand recollections and associations ; nowhere, where they find so little to mislead, to distract their minds from the good and wholesome thoughts they have inherited from their fathers, the traditions of their holy faith, and the example of virtue set them, from time immemorial by the race to which they belong. When they leave their home there are many dangers that beset their faith : they come away from the midst of neighbours and friends, like themselves, trained up in innocence and ignorance of the world's great wickedness ; they are on their guard against no man, but ready to confide in all ; guileless and incapable of deceit, all their faults lie on the surface ready to be taken advantage of by the interested or spiteful. Thus educated and characterised, the wonder is that, exposed to the temptations and dangers of colonial life, where there are few, who, either through malice or mistaken zeal, are not ready to misleu 1 and demoralise them, the Irish continue to make their way and hold .heir own in any country to which they emigrate. But that they do so is undeniable. Their names arc heard everywhere. The highest positions in the State have over and over again everywhere been attained by them. They are everywhere the pioneers of civilisation, and by the sheer force of energy and talent have everywhere triumphed over the obstacles everywhere opposed to them, and reaped honours for themselves, and renown for their race in eveiy part of the habitable globe. To endeavour therefore to shut them out from any

country is to endeavour to exclude from that country a most usefu and enterprising class of people. No man rises to the surface in despite of opposition unless he does so by virtue of the good that is in him, and the benefit that he has proved himself to be of to society or to the State. No man makes a respectable position for himself in a new country withot helping to develop the resources of that country and benefiting the community at large. It is, however, quite consistent with the anti-Catholic policy that Jnow prevails in New Zealand to endeavour to shut out the Irish. The tactics are to weaken or destroy the Catholicism already established here by means of enforced secular education — that glaring infringement of liberty, and in connection with which none of our small tyrants who profess so to delight in John Stuart Mill can remember to quote his definition of liberty :—: — " The restriction of public authority in all that regards the acquisition and the manifestation of opinions, religious, moral, and whatever other kind there may be." And to prevent the reinforcement from without of the detested, and if our legislators were more powerful than the decrees of the Almighty, the doomed Catholic Church. Such we have no doubt is the true origin of Sir Julius Vogcl's despatch relative to emigration from Ireland, and such it might be confessed to be, were there any member in the House inclined to ask why, or by what right, Mr. Macandrew demands that the chief part of the immigrants shall be Scotch.

The murder of Lord Lcitrim, more than anything that has ever occurred, seems likely to result in conveying to the English people a true idea of Irish landlordism. We agree with Mr. Sullivan that the " doctrine of tyrannicide" is one to be greatly condemned, and we are not disposed to dissent from his views in regarding the " much-lauded Brutus, and even Charlotte Corday as public calamities." They are still so, were it only by attracting the admiration and applause of many, of the young especially, to deeds of blood. But yet we are willing to reap such good as may be forthcoming out of the evil that is past remedy, and such good we recognise in the light that has now been let in upon the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. The idea that Lord Leitrim was a pattern of benevolence, a little strict perhaps, but withal of a fatherly strictness whose end was the welfare of his dependents, has been exploded. There no longer seems a desire anywhere to shield his memory from taking its place amongst those of the petty tyrants of all classes and countries. He has been given up to the judgment of his survivors, and the monument raised to his memory in the recollections of all must be one of warning and repulsion. But something more than this has been accomplished by the searching investigations made into liis character and career. It has been proclaimed that his iron rule over his tenantry was not held to strike its heaviest blow by inflicting the loss of material goods upon those who contradicted him. A deeper wound than even this was given by the use he made of his power to corrupt the virtue, -which those who were subject to him valued more highly than life itself. This impresses the deepest stain upon the memory of the dead nobleman, and deprives it of the sympathy, no less of the tender than of the strictly just. Horror only can be experienced by those who contemplate the life of the libertine ; but of the libertine who adds compulsion to seduction what shall be said ? The lesson, however, taught by Lord Leitrim's fate and the consequent inquiries, derives its value, not so much from showing that the murdered earl was a man worthy only of detestation, but because it has also taught that the system which he supported and delighted in has not died out with him. He was not the only one amongst the landlords of Ireland who made use of the almost absolute power placed in their hands for the basest ends. The circumstances of his death, and the details of his life, have set men talking, and comparing their experiences and knowledge ; and it has thus come to be publicly known, that the practice which made this earl undeserving of anything but reprobation, is one common amongst the class which he represented, and one from which the tenant farmers of Ireland have long suffered their most poignant sorrows, and derived their deepest shame. They are shown to have been subjected to their landlords in a manner comparable to that vilest point in the subjection of the slaves of the Southern States of America, and which, by beiug taken brutal advantage of, robbed the slaveholders in their fall of the sympathies of all right-minded people. Mr. A. M. Sullivan, in his additional chapters to " New Ireland," has made this clear, and thus furnished another reason and one that cannot be disputed, for such an alteration in the law as will make the Irish tenantry no longer subject to the shameful influences of their landlords.

A MAN -was recently fined in the North Island for biting and eating the glasses belonging to a hotel. Is this case in any way connected with Darwin's theory ? The man evidently betrays some affinity with the ostrich, or, if anything were known of the moa it might turn out that its digestive powers were still stronger, and that would be more to the point, Our scientists should investigate the affair.