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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 24, 12 October 1883, Page 1

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AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Hebe is our contemporary the Otago Daily Times treating us now to an attempt at disdain, — and sure it is not oar contemporary's fault if it be but a two-penny half-penny sort of an attempt after all, for that, under the present circumstances, is unavoidable. Our contemporary, it seems, has received precisely six letters containing abuse of the Bedmonds, and the Irish cause generally we presume. — There can be no mistake about the number of the letters, for he has counted them and found them one more than the fingers and thumb of his good right hand. He has probably taken in the little finger of his left to supply the additional unit,— and the auriculaire, had it been worth a straw, might have put him up to a thing or two worth knowing. — If it had, we should have found some signs of this in his article, which, however, as it is, is wholly wanting in anything worth knowing. — But what a pity the letters stopped at six. One more and there would have been the mystic number seven, and we should have seen a whole heap of meaning in theaffair. — As it is, there is not a word of meaning apparent in it, or in anything that has been written about it. Our contemporary, nevertheless, it is consoling to learn, thinks there is no danger that any such countenance will be given to Mr. Redmond as will bring into suspicion at Home the loyalty of 'Otago.— ls the loyalty of Otago, then, so very much prized at Home, or have not folk at Home included Otago among those settlements in these seas whose loyalty they seem to value somewhat lightly ?— They proclaimed, the other day, for example, the probability of its failure, if only a colony to which Australian settlers object, that if the French recidicktes were planted in their neighbourhood. — The loyalty of these colonies, in a word, seems very well understood at Home, and to be known there for what in fact it is, a mere matter of interest and convenience, which would be cast off at a moment's notice were there the slightest cause for a belief that any loss or inconvenience might arise from its maintenance. — The people who form the greater mass of the settlers in Otago, again, are a people who are noted for having renounced their loyalty whenever they thought it was for their interest to do so. — They rebelled against their queen and imprisoned her, consenting afterwards to her murder in England ; and their king they sold for a groat.— The Irish people on the other hand, were so loyal that, to the last and against all odds, they followed the standard of the Anglo-Scottish, or the Scoto-English, king and coward, whose poltroonery has ever since been laid at their door. — The loyalty of colonists, we maintain, has bad nothing whatever to do with the way in which they have treated the Messrs. Redmond. — The " ugly Puritan clement " prevailing among them, and race-hatred — that is strongest in the lowest races — that makes ,the savage tribe continually war against the tribe that dwells nearest to it, and that survives in all its strength and bitterness and baseness amid the boasted enlightenment of the Anglo-Saxon — these are the things that have influenced colonists io their treatment of the Messrs. Red. mond. But, as for the loyalty of colonists, it may be added to the cant-cry made up otherwise of all that oft repeated stuff about the amalgamation of English, Scotch, and liish, and their having forgotten all their European jealousies. The very fact of the treatment given in many places to the Messrs. Redmond is a convincing proof that Englishmen and Scotchmen have been by no means so forgetful, and such articles as that we allude to, meant as they aie to insult are a convincing proof that the feeling alluded to exists in its basest form strong in the mind of their writers. But what is our writer's standard of " respectability "?— his standard of intellect, no doubt, we shall find in the columns of the Daily Times, and the " Mother Country " may be proud to find that there is no flaw in the allegiance of minds of such power. For ourselves we acknowledge our failings, and admit that, judged by such a standard, we must be found wholly at fault. The twopenny-halfpenny standard of intellect is, we acknowledge, stupendous, and there will probably be but few who have attained to it among Mr. Redmond's supporters iv

A TWO-PENNY HAJ.F-PENNY EFFORT,

Otago, as our contemporary observes. But as to the standard of " respectability," is there, for example, any element derived from a residence in Christchurch to be found in it 1 Is nothing respectable that has not a pedigree attached to it 1 And, above all, where may we find the genealogical tree that traces back to their exalted beginnings the staff of our contemporary the Otago Daily Times 1 We are sure they must be all of them of respectability. Or is it only the editor that has one? " Civis," perhaps, when he has nothing better to do, might give us the history of all their grandfathers. Was there, for example, any one who came over with the Conqueror among them, and are any of his descendants in any way like the " last of. the Neros"? — All this would be very interesting to know, and extremely useful as well, in putting us up to the ins and outs of colonial respectability. If, however, we are driven back upon calculations as to " respectability," based upon what is known concerning the constitution of the Daily Times, then also we must acknowledge that Mr. Redmond will hardly have among his hearer 3 even one man of " respectability." He will hardly have there even one man eager to grab up in any way all the land he can> so that he may become rich enough to go home and play lick-spittle to the- great world of England, — whose members, nevertheless, arc not so great, according to the Saturday Seview, but that they are willing to receive all the entertainment his class affords them in return for their contemptuous and derisive patronage. Oh, no ! We admit there will be no " respsctability" of either of the kinds mentioned among Mr. Redmond's audience. And that a paper like the Daily Times, the organ of a snobocracy, should despise tiny other kind of respectability is enly what was to be expected. It is to be hoped; then, for the sake of the very genteel circles represented by our contemporary, that this ( twopenny halfpenny attempt at disdain may, reach polite ears at Home, and secure the much desired approbation If it does not it is good for nothing.

A VENEMOUS RIGMABOLE.

Our contemporary the Evening Shir also issues his Phillippic against the Messrs Redmond. — But that was looked for, and we really are surprised that his Phillipic has not been uttered with a much fiercer shrieking. — We must, however, take the will for the deed, and forgive a mere failure of strength. We are unable, nevertheless, to congratulate our contemporary excessively for in essaying to write of a matter he does not understand, and in which he has been led by that intense race-hatred that distinguished the true, if somewhat insipid John Bull, he has — we admit contrary to his usual habit oE late— given us a very dull article indeed.— But it is well to find that he considers the old world strifes painful and repellant only. We should have thought he would have been very much pleased by the contemplation of repression and coercion, and, in fact, we are led to suspect from our experience of him that it is the struggle of the weak against the strong to which alone he refers. — That he should see nothing in this heroic or admirable is bat natural also. The judgment necessarily follows the bent of the mind in which it is formed— and we are pretty well acquainted with the mind of the Star towards Ireland. The end of our contemporary's article, however, is the easy attempt to increase against Irishmen and their cause, the prejudice that he very well knows to exist already— and it is but little thanks to him if Irishmen enjoy, as he says, an absolute liberty in New Zealand.—Had his example been generally followed in their treatment they would have received, as the old saying is, more kicks than halfpence.—Were their equality with their fellow-colonists recognised, nevertheless, as generally and generously as our contemporary pretends he would have hesitated to risk his reputation by the absurdly distorted view of the Irish movement he lays before his readers. — He i 9 in the happy position of being able to satisfy his dislike and rancour in perfect safety, and this, as we said, goes but a short way in bearing out his assertion that the Irish colonists enjoy every "friendly consideration." Nevertheless, why the fact that Irishmea in the colonies enjoy freedom and consideration, as our contemporary seems to think- they do by a gracious concession on the part of their fellow-colonists to which they have no just right, should prevent them from trying to obtain freedom for Irishmen at Home is not so Very clear. — We hold, in fact, that all well-disposed people everywhere should be always readyto side with those who arc struggliug

for freedom— even, although they might belong to a totally different race and nation,— Oar contemporary, however, knows very well that any random statement he may publish on the Irish question will be swallowed as if it were gospel by the people who support him, and that is all he cares about. — Can there be anything more preposterous, then, for example, than his explanation that the proposal for the "sale of land Jo the tenants by the State at a price to be paid in sixty or more instalments," is a plan to carry out which it would cost -England £300,000,000; that this proposal means not Home .Kule but secession from the United Kingdom ; that at the same time it means a gift of the land from the State to the tenants ? for all these contradictory and bewildered statements are made in the same paragraph— But, really, to go regularly through this article is rather more of a penance than we can undertake. How it could have been written at all is inconceivable, for one would have thought that a mind so far gone in dotage as to compose it would have have accompanied by a hand too much palsied to hold a pen.— Mr. Redmond told the people in Adelaide that the Land Act of 1881 was " a wrong and oppressive Act." What if he did ? A committee of the House of Lords has since said quite as much.— He told them that '•Mr. Forster, as the facile instrument of the English Government, had attemped to crush the spirit of the Irish people."— And he told the truth—deny it who can— Mr. Forster had women bayoneted and children shot for instance, and among the rest— were not those things calculated to crush the spirit of a people.— Our editor's spirit would, perhaps, lead him to catch up the drum that fell from the hands of the little wounded drummer when the children's baud was ficed on and to inarch joyously forward beating the devil's tattoo, but then our editor is a valiant man who has long been a soldier in. the army of the Lord, and he cannit be expected to sympathise with a mere ruck of Irish Papists. Things might crush their spirit that he, armed with the boldness of the Gospel truth, would enjoy amazingly. We can quite fancy him carrying <■' Buckshot" Forster's carpet-bag and marching along very briskly and becomingly in his wake.— Mr. Parnell advised the people not to avail themselves of the Land Act —•that is until he had brought forward those test cases that the Land Commissioners spoke of the other day— regretting that the Land League had baen suppressed just as they were being prepared. He promised the people, moreover, that their rents should be reduced from £17,000,000 to £3,000,000.— 8ut what of that, if £14,000,000 were in excess of the just rent 1 And here in Dunedin we have people who say that there should be no rent paid at all, but that the land should be nationalised.— ls that also an outrageously immoral proposal? Boycotting— no rent— outrages— and everything else are served up to us in the same style. All misunderstood, all misrepresented, but all calculated to increase the prejudices in whose existence our contemporary rejoices and which it renews his youth to envenom and increase.— The League, he tells up, is a" crusade against law and order," and it certainly is a crusade against a law that is infamous, and an order that as productive of death and desolation. But is it to test the fact as to whether the spirit of the Irish people has been crushed or not, and to honour the hero Forster, that our editor concludes his article with a bitterly insolent taunt that might better have graced the lips of some Orange larrikin than the pen of a venerable patriarch among journalists 1 We might naturally have looked for some holy admonition or sanctified exhortation to peace and gooi behaviour, and we receive an insolent jibe that would not aeem out of place among brawlers in a pot-houpe. He quotes from a speech that, he says, was made by Mr. W. Redmond—whom, by the way, with his usual blundering and ignorance he calls the member for Wicklow— and in which speech Mr. Redmond is reported to have spoken of the freedom only to be acquired by the " swords and united arms of the Irish people." "As yet," comments our venerable friend, "recourse has only been had to the knife and dynamite."— We Bee, then, how far Irishmen in. New Zealand owe to the Evening Star any freedom they possess, or consideration shown towards them.— lt is no fault of his, in fact, if they do not share with the Salvation Army the showers of rotten eggs and abuse of the mob. He has never ceased to hold them up to obolquy and scorn, and where they are concerned, as we see, he does not hesitate to rank himself among the meanest of those who insult and vilify them.— But why Bhould we take him at a higher value than he sets upon himself? He, no doubt, best knows the place that suits him.

A RELIGIOUS DICTATOB.

A deputation waited on the Hon. Mr. Dick on Monday for the purpose of discussing the question of a reformatory for children.— The subject seems to be one attached to which there are some difficulties, and, so far, the results arrived at are not of much value. The gentlemen forming the deputation did not seem able to make up their minds as to what it was that made a child a criminal, or as to how criminal children should be treated, and, we need only say, they did not receive much aid from the Minister on whom they waited.— So much, however, seemed to come out in the course of the discussion, that there is a mixture at present of children in the Cavereham In-

dustrial school which cannot fail to prove injurious". The number of children returned as i in > the gaols was also mentioned,, and, we fully agree with the Rev. Dr. Stuart that magistrates who had commtted to prison children of ,10 had acted shamefully. A question deserving of consideration, aho, was that as to the refusal of passes on the railway to ministers of religion desirous of visiting the Industrial School when it is removed to Seacliff.— Such passes, Mr. Bracken stated, had already been refused in the case of the Lunatic Asylum, and the probabilities are that they will also bo refused in connection with the School.— Mr. Dick, indeed, replied that " probably a man like Mr. Torrance, the gaol chaplain, would be allowed a passage to the Institution." But why should a man like Mr. Torrance be privileged above all other ministers ? What are the peculiar qualities recommending such a man to exceptional consideration ?— ls such a man a representative in himself of all the sects, aud is he capable of giving religious instruction that may be welcome to every sect and people of all shades of religious belief alike ? — Or does Mr. Dick make an exception of Mr. Torrance for any other reason, and has he also had an opportunity of judging of that gentleman's excellent characteristics over a dish of tea ? For our own part we fail to see why Mr. Torrance should be exceptionally favoured, and we are of the opinion that the display made by him in connection with the late gaol inquiry was anything rather than one that should recommend him for exceptional distinction— at least of an honourable kind. — Mr. Dick, however, who can take it upon him to repeal an Act of Parliament according to his will, is not likely to be stopped by trifles, and if he appoint Mr. Torrance a universal minister, no doubt the appointment will hold good. — By a tacit consent, in fact, of the Colony generally, Mr. Dick appears to have been installed as Minister of Religion, with absolute power, and the choice, moreover, seems to have been founded on the plan that certain families are reported to have adopted in devoting to the religious ministry one of their number— that is by choosing the stupidest boy in all the House. Mr. Dick is a Member because he is an " old identity," and he is Minister because he represents a Dunedin constituency, and other qualifications for either position he has not.— No more unfit man could be found, in fact, than one of an extremely narrow bigotry, untempered by education or knowledge of the world, to place in such a position, and we may be convinced that a petty Teligious tyranny is all that can be expected from him. — To pick out any especial minister of religion and qualify him alone to conduct religious services and give religious instruction in. any institution where persons of various religious tenets are confined, is tyranny pure and simple. — But this is what is done by the Government that refuses to convey any but one particular minister over a distance that it costs not only time and trouble, but also money to traverse. And if this is to be the manner in which the religious wants of the Industrial School, when it is changed to Seacliff are to be provided for, it cannot be too highly reprobated; the same remarks, we may add, mutatis mutandis will apply to the state of things connected with the Lunatic Asylum. — When religion is disgraced and finally banished from the Colony it will be time to shut it out from any institution , and not until then ; and when one particular creed has been established by law as the dominant creed, it will be time enough to give to one minister alone the privilege necessary to enable him to exercise his ministry.— We do not know what the circumstances are that can justify the advancement of any man, and especially a man like Mr. Dick, to be the religious dictator of the Colony.— lt can hardly be justified on any grounds.

" A LOVER OP PEACE."

There is a gentleman round on the West Coast who is dying in love with peace, it seems, and so much does he desire to spread abroad an affection for the very excellent matter in question that he goes and tries to get up a shindy just for the purpose, it would appear, of making everyone see by the force of contrast how desirable a thing peace is. — This gentleman is evidently of the oft-repeated opinion that no one ever values a thing at its proper worth until he has lost it, and, being a " lover of peace," he wants to have it valued at its true worth ;— therefore he. has set about to make all his neighbours lose it.— He writes to the Wesport Times, in fact, an attack upon the \ Redmonds and Mr. Parnell, and the Land League, and all the rest of it, and tries to make matters as hot as he can for every one — just as we said, for the love of peace, and to make all the people acknowledge what a blessing it it is that they have lost. The poor gentleman, however, who takes this curious method of exalting hi 8 idol— and a very good idol it is, no doubt— with nothing of the Brummagem sort about it at all— might naturally be expected to be a bit of a character, as the saying is, and so it is no surprise to us to find that among the heroic personages he celebrates in his correspjndence, is my Lady Florence Dixie.— The gentleman, in fact, is 8 > much an admirer of Lady Florence, that we are led to believe he would even, had she desired it, have been willing to act as one of those disguised males that had the celebrated tussle with her ladyship in the shrubbery at Windsor, and then evaporated into thin air to be eeen no more.— Although, of course, it would have been a thousand pities if anything like that had happened him.— They would, no

doubt, have missed him moßt shockingly at Westport— not knowing he had gone to add fresh sweetness to the perfume of the atmosphere. The gentleman, however, is delighted with Lady Florence, and for him she is the supreme authority. She has shown up the Land League to ■ some purpose, and left it staggering beneath her figures. A gentleman, nevertheless, who reasons on a basis taken from Lady Florence Dixie at this time of the day seems to haw, at least, a slight taste of the Rip Van Winkle in his composition, and the odour of old rewspapers that surrounds him is musty in the extr«»m3. But. all the time would not her Ladyship be flatterei to know that the fame of her had reached evon to the remotest corners of the antipodes? She would treasure the name of this lover of peace, if he would only send it to her, by the side of, for example, Cetewayo's— and we are sure they would go well together. ■ Both gentlemen appear to be lovers of peace pretty much of one stamp— and, if one kicks up a row by the help of an assegai, and the other by the means of a goose-quill, each does his best in the way that comes natural to him— and what more can be expected of them ? Nature has not given it to the man of civilisation at Westport to hurl the assegai— and that, perhaps, is just as lucky for his neighbours if not for himself —nor has Nature given it to the • man of savage life in Africa to write a heap of nonsense in the newspapers, and, perhaps, in this, moreover, the savage suffers no great loss. — What Nature does seem to have given to both in common is a fair share of malevolence and pugnacity which each displays in his own peculiar manner, and if, in addition, the delightful Lady Florence has been thrown in as an object of worship to both, we acknowledge that they have a very charming bond of union, and one quite worthy of their homage.— "We do not see that either of them would be much out of his place in kneeling at the feet of a mad woman.

AN EDIFYING LESSON.

The Right Rev. Dr. Nevill has been rather upset, it would • seem, by certain paragraphs that were published ascribing to him some comments ou the Salvation Army. His Lordship writes to the Morning Herald protesting that he never preached upon the Salvation Army, and that he does not so much a3 understand certain doctrines concerning which he was reported to have spoken. It is, however, an ill wind that blows nobody good, and people interested in theology especially, if not the public at large, will acknowledge their obligations to whomsoever it was that published the paragraph in question, since it has been the occasion of Dr. Nevill's giving to the world a lesson in his own particular department that cannot fail to be most valuable, coming as it does from so eminent a theologian. Dr. Nevill, then, we find, although he did not go the length of preaching a whole sermon on the Army, did make some allusions to them, and the " true gist " of what he says was the following — the ijisissinia vcrba, we are told, have not been repeated) but the " true gist " is, we acknowledge, most edifying. Here it is, — " I may as well add," says His Lordship, " that the only occasion on which I remember to have alluded to the Salvationists was in a confirmation address, in the course of: which I said that ' that which gave vitality to any sect was the apprehension by that sect of some one truth or portion of a truth, and generally it was the one which the Church, the depository of the whcle truth, had for the time being allowed to get out of sight. It was the duty then of members of the Church to learn the prominent truth which each separation presented, and thus we might learn the lesson of fearless faith from the Salvationists — a lesson greatly needed at a time when people wished to carry ou religious enterprises on commercial principles, as though God were not with us nor His spirit our unfailing strength.' " And we must admit that it was a very right thing to warn the newlyconfirmed Anglicans that they must keep on the watch for those truths or portions of a truth which their Mother the Church might happen to let slip away out of view. When the Mother is found capable of taking a nap, now and then, the least the children have a right to expect is that they may be put on their guard against her little failings, and learn to rely on themselves in cases where they cannot have her aid. It is well, nevertheless, that there are some means by which the Church's little shortcomings may be made up for, and by which her children may learn to recognise what it is that she really does contain.— But must it not be rather trying for them to be obliged to make the circuit of the sects investigating what the particular doctrine, or practice, or inspiration is, whence each of them derives its vitality, so that they may patch together the whole truth of which the Church is the depository— even if a somewhat winking and careless one 7— The sects, then, are quite indispensable to the members of the Church of England, and the safety of Anglicans depends on their keeping their eyes well fixed on them, — So much we owe to the theology of Dr Nevill. — But, moreover, we learn that the " fearless faith " of the Salvationists is also contained in the Church of England, although for the moment it may have got into some hole or corner or another in which it is lost to sight. And, perhaps, it is just as well for Anglicans who preserve their respect for decorum that it is so. — The fearless faith of the Salvationists is accountable for a good deal that

is queer, and which it would totally derange the standing of the Anglican Church to display. We do not know, however, that even this fearless faith wholly excludes the commercial principle from religion, and some reports we have read of the method in which the Salvation Army and its' undertakings are supporte.l would seem to show that the commercial principle is found very consistent with fearless faith.— The great lesson, however, that Dr. Nevill has taught us i 3 that his Church is acknowledged, even by her own theologians, to be a nodding mother, whose children need look abroad to some more or less corrupt body for some particular truth, or portion of a truth, which she every now and again, for the time being, fails to set before them. This is an edifying lesson and one by which the newly-con-firmed might very well take warning and derive a profit. It might even instruct those who have been for many years confirmed.