Current Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 10, 27 June 1884, Page 1

Curre nt Topics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

- We find in the columns of our contemporary the A WARNING Nowcelliste of New Caledonia a few remarks on the fhom dangers of science., as separated from religion, that NOUMEA. are very apposite to the present state of the world. The Rev. Father Felix, says our contemporary, referring to an ecclesiastic of European fame, and whose conferences at Notre Dame in Paris were wont Eome years ago to draw vast congregations together, long before the invention of dynamite and the application of petroleum to the ruin of palaces, had foreseen the fatal result of the simultaneous progress of the Revolution with that of science, and announced to the Governments what has now come upon them. Dynamite and the recently discovered explosive matters appeared to be reserved to the working of mines and mountains only. But abuse follows closely on legitimate use— and those who despise the Divine law employ dynamite first against the crosses and images of the Saviour of mankind ; then against private dwelling?, against palaces, and finally against men themselves. Dynamite and nitro-glycerine in the bands of revolutionaries become the great threat against thrones and social rights. A hundred sous worth of dynamite can overturn a palace worth a hundred millions. For twenty francs a whole town-ward is blown up ; for a hundred francs a city. A bomb worth four sons destroys a sovereign. States will expend their last centime, and even more, to maintain armies, fleets, gendarmes,'and police, but they will not succeed in stopping the explosion of a tunnel in London. Twenty-five malefactors armed with dynamite, or nitro-glycerine, or panclastite are more powerful than a nation. — Our contemporary then proceeds to quote from a journal named the Lutte, which includes it among the means it seems to recommend for the speedy removal of the bourgeoisie, a recipe for setting fire to buildings or burning alive obnoxious persons without running the least iisk. — As we do not, however, suppose that any of our readers desire to be made acquainted with such means for the disposal of a friend or his property, we refrain from giving the receipt in question.— The Lutte, significant title ! nevertheless, supplies the following example of its practical effects. " You pass before a house in whose cellars there are combustible matters (cotton, stuff, chips), you let a phial containing the solution fall down through the air-hole and then go tranquilly on your way. The phial is proken and the liquid is spilled. A quarter of an hour or twenty minutes afterwards the conflagration manifests itself." And. no doubt, a most comfortable assurance it is to somebody or another that such effects can be quite simply and at hardly any cost secured by a person who runs no risk whatever. The uVonvellistc declares that nothing which material power can do is of any avail to hinder these hideous and destructive undertakings— One preventive power alone exists in the world— the discipline of souL«. In proportion as science puts at the disposition of men new forces, it is necessary that moral discipline should become more imperious, more universal and respected. But, continues our contemporary, it is quite otherwise. We see the moral law relaxed according as the material force ef man is increased. And who is the guardian of those moral laws, the depositary of those social traditions, without which there are only anarchy and disorder, unless the Church ? Still, by an astonishing mistake, at the very hour when perverse instincts make use of the most efficacious means, Governments persecute the Church, and have children taught ia the schools that ther ; is no God, or that, if there be one, He does not occupy Himself with them, and they should not busy themselves about Him.— To w hit epoch of the world, asks our contemporary in conclusion, should we go back for an equal madness ?— And, verily, we for cur part cannot point out to him such an 'epoch.

The report compiled by Mr. Eugene O'Conor for AN important the Westport Harbour Committee, should be found wobk. especially interesting under the present circumstances of the Colony, and should go a long way towards illustrating the soundness of Major Atkinson's opinion re-

epecting the absence of all grounds for despondency concerning the future. The report in question ia a very full and clear, but at the same time concise account of the wealth of the Bailer coalfield, and of the improvements necessary to be undertaken iniihe Westport Harbonr so that it may be developed and worked to the great profit of the whole Colony. The Coal-field, Mr. O'Conor tall a us, is situated on an elevated plateau on the Eastern side of the Buller River — from which its nearest workings are distant twelve miles. It is of enormous value to the Colony — especially as being the means by which expenditure on steam subsidies and railways may be reduced, as welt as an ever increasing source of revenue. Already, indeed, it is the source of a considerable revenue, fer the net profit on the out-put of the last financial year was something over £14,000. In the future, however, with facilities for exportation, it might be looked upon as certain that it would obtain a preference for steam purposes generally, as it has been pronounced by the Consulting Engineer to the British Admiralty superior even to the coal of the North of England and Wales. There is, besides, an immense trade with the "various colonies, San Francisco, and some States of South America, amounting yearly in the aggregate to 3,350,000 tons, for which it might successfully compete. To open this coal-field to the markets of the world but one thing is necessary, and that is the improvement to the Westport Harbour — into which the Buller Biver flows with great force and volume of water. Sir John Coode has, moreover, reported favourably of this harbour, assigning to it a greater depth of water on the bar than that to be found at any other river entrance on the same coast. Nevertheless, he added, that in order to insure a permanently good depth it would be necessary to have breakwaters of great length constructed, and the works recommended by him to be undertaken wonld need an expenditure of £438,776. Mr. O'Conor, a little further on, showß tliat, even as trade now is, those works might be constructed by means of borrowed funds, and with the very handsome profit of £241,604 per annum as a result. " Then, upon a very moderate estimate," he continues, " within three years of the completion of the Harbour the worjc would be paid for out of tho. proceeds, leaving a net annual and increasing income of a quarter of a million, Westport a free port connecting New Zealand with all parts of the world, and adding to the exports of from the Colonyiprobably'half a million sterling, whilst decreasing the imports of coal by £100,000 per annum. Let it b 3 noted that this estimate is made without taking into consideration the great industries of Iron and Copper, now showing signs of vitality in the Colony. To these, cheap and good coal is a necessity *, nor have we taken into consideration the saving to the Colony which would accrue in the working of our railways, by the reduction in the price of coal. Neither have we taken into consideration the further increase of revenue by other leases being taken up, and worked upon the Buller Coal Reserve, of which only a very small part is now occupied, Suffice it, that in New Zealand, as in England, the great source of manufacturing' and commercial prosperity, most be cheap coal. In quantity and quality, in facilities for working, the Buller Poal-fleld will compare favourably with the Coal-fields of England, or any other country. A trade in coal of almost boundless extent is open to the Colony. The private enterprise of our fellow -colonists is retarded, ships have been built, and plant laid down, anticipating the removal of the obstacle. Delay is ruin to the trade. It is useless to accumulate arguments any further. Either from a public or a private point of view, Harbor improvement must be accepted as urgent and necessary. We have ascrtaincd the precise work required, and have a reliable estimate of the cosh There remains but to provide the means to do it. It was' proposed at one time, to 1 and over the whole property, Coal and Harbor, to a Company, on a guarantee for the completion of the Harbor Works Withiu a -given time ; this proposal was condemned as involving too great a sacrifice of the public interest. Next comes the proposal to have the work done by the Colonial Government by instalments, dependant upon votes of the Legislature. Under ordinary circumstances, if other large works of the same character were in course of construction by the Colonial Government, and no limit placed upon Colonial borrowing, this course might be'advisable, but it is accepted as more in unity with the policy of the Colony in regard' to Harbors, that a Harbor Board or Trust should be created ; let us accept that provision on the understand'

Dg that it shall be practically efficient, that the Tiust shall be provided with sufficient endowment to enable it to borrow at a reasonable rate, the sum required. It will be necessary to provide both for the repayment of principal and interest. This may be easily effected by a Colonial guarantee. But if that is not deemed expedient, some permanent security must be found, which the Colony can detach for the purpose without disturbing the existing administration, and with as little loss of revenue as possible." The work is one, indeed, that deserves the utmost consideration and it has found in Mr. O'Conor an able advocate. Let us hope it will be pushed forward with equal seal and ability by all others who as well are more directly concerned in it. No such plain means not only of combating the depression now existing, but of helping to replace it by exceeding prosperity should suffer the least neglect.

We have before us at present a very remarkable A scandalous publication, and one which we hope may continue publication, to occupy a peculiar place. It is not, indeed, by any means desirable that publications containing the repetition of misstatements and falsehoods impudently reproduced — without one word of explanation or excuse, should become the rule, and, therefore, we hope the Twenty First Annual Report of the Committee of Management of the Benevolent Institution, Dunedin, may remain an unique work. This work, in a word, contains all the misstatements and falsehoods uttered by the Venerable Archdeacon Edwards at the annual meeting of subscribers, together with all the confirmations and confabulations that followed on them — but without so much as a foot-note to say that any contradiction had been made, or that any explanation had been given as to why Bishop Moran had declined to give his personal and active support to the Institution. The Bishop, nevertheless, had contradicted Archdeacon Edwards, and shown that the number of Catholics stated by him as being relieved was grossly exaggerated. Mr. Vincent Pyke, moreover, contradicted the Archdeacon, and in a letter published by him in one of the daily papers, declared that the venerable gentleman had misrepresented what he had told him concerning his (Mr. Pyke's) interview with the Bishop. The Bishop, again, in his correspondence published in the daily papers proved beyond all controversy, and evoked the admission — the very glaring admission we maysay, of the fact from more than one opponent, that Catholic children had been proselytised in the Institution. And yet, in the report now published we find not one word of all this but the misstatements and falsehoods are impudently reproduced as if they had been allowed to pass without notice, or had been the unvarnished truth. Here, then, is an unique report, and one which it is to be hoped, as we have said, for the sake of honesty and common decency, may continue to be unique. But what can be the reason that all these falsehoods and misstatements have been repeated ? Must the word of Anglican dignitaries stand, indeed, whether it be true or false, and are they absolved from the common duty of all gentlemen to acknowledge a misstatemeDt when they have made it, and apologise for it ? And yet it might be thought that the Churchman should, if possible, be of greater courtesy and more ready to acknowledge his fault than even the ordinary gentleman, for the charity of religion should have such a force. The Bey. Dr. Stuart, again, professes an admiration of " frank dealing.' — but does it savour of such dealing to permit the publication of that which has been proved to be false ? However it he, and some explanation there possibly is, we protest against this publication ; it is a scandalous thing to reproduce under the sanction of authority a convicted tissue of falsehoods and misrepresentations, and it disgraces all those who have been concerned in it— be they lay or cleric— gentle or simple.

Catholic charity, we should think, needs but catholic little to be said in its defence. The man Who could charity. deny its existence might also deny with as much chance of gaining credit, except from those whose bigotry makes their minds the constant magnet and dwelling-place for a lie, that the sun gives light by day or the moon by night. What is it, for example, that has made the Irish noted throughout the world for the continual fiupply that goes back from them to aid their poor at Home but Catholic charity?— No foreign mail ever enters Ireland that does not bear to many — to private frisnd and charitable institution-help from the Irish settlers abroad. It comes in many forms, to father or mother, or kindred or friend ; to orphanage, hospital, or Home, but the source whence it flows is the Catholic charity of the Irish heart. The London Times the other day in a leader, already referred to by us, on the opening of the church at South Kensington, bore the following striking testimony to Catholic charity. "It is, moreover, perfectly true as the Cardinal said yesterday, ' that if any one thing had given to the Catholic Church in the last fifty years the power of rising again above the opposition and the prejudice of this country, it was the manifestation of* the undeniable charity of their priests and their nuns . . . and of the generosity and the self-denial of .the laity.' Charity begets charity, and the ruits of high aim and noble endeavour are recognised by all

good men irrespective of differences of creed. So far we are quite able to go with Cardinal Manning, and we cordially rejoice with him at the more tolerant and kindly spirit now universally displayed." More particular instances of Catholic charity we. clip at random from American papers. . The New Lexinyt&n Tribune says : —"In the trial last week of William Blakely for murder, his two children, aged eleven and thirteen, were introduced as witnesses for, the defence, and it appeared by the testimony that they had been for several yeaTs in St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum. It gave Colonel Jackson, Attorney for the State, occasion to pay the following handsome compliment to the Sisters of Charity : « By the mercy of God these children have been taught in another home. They had been in hands and under teaching that taught them truth, honesty, and piety. Some time in the future soms ladies in austere black, which will be their shroud when they die, may call on you for whatever you may be willing to give, to support such waifs as these. ' They will come to you without a name, and go without acquaintance. They will have no other name than " Sister," and you will know them by no other. They are dead to this world, except to care for the unfortunate. In that they know no race, no creed, and shrink from no suffering nor danger. Whether Bussian or Turk in Crimea, whether Arab or French in Algiers, whether Frank or German in Lorraine, whether Rebel jpv Federal in our war, their gentle voices and hands were present to soothe and comfort sick and wounded soldiers. When the yellow fever raged at Memphis and New Orleans, when the cholera swept through the northern cities, wherever suffering, wherever epidemic, they came to nurse, and stayed with a fortitude that the bravest battalions never knew. And when they come to ask your pittance to assist them, give kindly and recall this occasion, where their piety has taught these children lessons of truth and right, that have made them more powerful herein the vindication of the law than all the strong men defending. The mob might rage and murder, witnesses might be corrupted or intimidated, but the little hoy or girl followed the teachings of the kind Sisters, and told the truth intelligently, while it was convicting their father.' " The Brooklyn Catholic Review, again, gives the following : — " Arrangements are now making in the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, on Lafayette-place, for the accommodation of the homeless working boys of New York. Nearly one hundred have taken possession of the apartments prepared for them, and as soon as the" arrangements are complete many more will avail themselves of the opportunity offered. — On an average over fifty poor persons received free meals daily at the Mission Home during the past winter, and in the very cold and inclement weather the number has many times reached 200. The applicants are never questioned about their country or creed, but are fed by the good Sisters without distinction as to race, colour or religion. Many old men who have seen better days said to the Sisters that although they were not Catholics, the meal they got every day at the Mission was their chief support and saved them from perishing with hunger. — Many sick and deserving poor are attended to daily in their own houses, and have their wants supplied from the Mission, and very large sums of money have been distributed among the more refined class of poor persons whose sensitive feelings very often cause them to endure great suffering before they make their poverty known.— Nearly nine hundred children are under Father Drumgoole's control. On an average more than two hundred of these are entirely dependent on the Mission for support. Nothing is received from the city toward the support of these children." — In every part of the world, then ;— in Ireland, in England, in America, wherever the Catholic Church is represented, there is to be found an unfailing fountain of charity, that, as the Times says, gains the admiration and sympathy of all who are welldisposed. As for those who are not well-disposed, Catholics are, on the whole, better off without their approbation.

Mb. James Russell Lowell has written a poem husks in which, with the cant of a certain school of gathered writers, he attiibutes all the evils of the world to FEOar thb GBAPE the " chief priests and rulers and kings." And one VINE. of the suffering creatures whom the verses bring before us is " — a motherless girl, whose fingers thin Pushed from her faintly want and sin." Nevertheless, it would seem that girls whose fingers have failed to push want and sin away from them are formed by systems with which chief priests have but little to do, and to which kings have nothing to say. The secularism and freedom, or license, of the day are as much accountable for such unhappy beings as in the imagination of the veriest atheist any priesthood, or in reality any tyrant ever could have been. Such, at least, is the lesson which we learn from a certain report which has recently appeared in the San Francisco Evening News, and which places before us the manner in which the inmates of the Magdalen Asylum of the city in question accounted for their condition, In that country where it is assumed that class distinctions are unknown, as it is also claimed that they are, or he, unknown among ourselves, it appears there are

S,n^l ?J B~andwliatißmore8 ~ andwliatißmore the r are »■*»— ** »U Protafahfy they may also be made, and with similar results, among ourselres-where they should least prevail. In reply to the reporter's inqumesastohowthey.who had been the children of respectable parents bad come to find themselves the inmates of the teforaatory where they were, the wretched women replied :-«The first step was token when teachers in the public schools held ns up to ridicule iecanse rye were not iveZl dressed. This wounded our feelings ; -we exwr T " l ? atiOn *° ° m parent8 ' who said : ' Owin * to the large families they had to sapport, etc., we had all the wearing apparel that they .could afford to give.' - And have we not also heard something here about the desirableness of providing gulter-schools for those children who could not be expscted to appear in snitable attire among the better dressed children of well-to-do people. At any rate the danger of the American schools is always to be risked where rich and poor are collected together under the pretence of an im P°f M ble of circumstances. Secularism, then, has done that which Mr. Lowell in his verses attributes to the falsehood of priests and the tyranny of kings-and yet secularism is the reformer of the world, the hght of a new and better dispensation. Nor has the republican form of government succeeded much better than the monarchical in raising the condition of these girls, or strengthening their fingers to push want and sin away from them. Shamed out of the schools these poor girls had sought employment and been unable to find it. The Chinese monopolised laundry-work— dressmaking and millinery did not afford a sufficiency of employment-and as f or teaching: "Presupposing that we could remain at school for sufficient time to fit ouiselver for teachers, what earthly show would a poor honest girl have of getting into the School Department ? You are evidently a stranger here, else you would not ask such a foolish question . Domestic service only remained, but to that there were many and grave objections. The principal, however, and that probably which determined all the others being described in the following reply:— 'Before proud spirits are willing to become servants you mußt exalt the positioa somewhat; make ladies understand that it is no more degrading for a girl to work to earn her own living than it would be for them to do their own work, if they could not afford to hire it done ; make them understand that serving them should not debar a poor girl from common civility ; that they should treat a hired girl at least with half the kindness and consideration they do their dogs. Then, perhaps, hiring out will not be the last resort."— ls woman's inhumanity to woman, then, more base.more vile, more damning to herself than that of man to man ?— For what woman dare raise her head or call herself honest to whom such a chargeas that made by these poor fallen creatures was brought home ?— That she had been brutal enough to drive a sister to her fall. Let her go and take her stand beside the fallen one, for she is not one whit better than her. And is this, then, what wefind in the advanced homes of the country, in the godless schools too whose science is 'to reform the world ? Or wherein is the world better, or is it not worse if in the full blaze of light there is no aid for the tbin fingers that would push from them want and sin.— Verily the voices that cry out against the past are the voices of hypocrites, while the present teems with iniquity that would have filled the past with horror.

Mb. James O'Kelly, M.P., has been stopped from A mortified prosecuting bis journey to the camp of the Mahdi. correspondent. A telegram was sent by the Egyptian authorities to Dongola, whither Mr. O'Kelly had penetrated, commanding the Governor not to permit him to proceed on his way If he tried to go by force he was to be sent nnder guaid to Isna if he chose to remain at Dongola he was to be well treated but not a foet further mv t be move, and to Mr. O'Kelly's considerable chagrin the instructions were complied with. He is now supposed to be somewhere or another on his way back to Egypt. Mr. O'Kelly, it seemed, had undertaken to act as the correspondent of the Daily News in the camp of the Mahdi. and a debate took place in the House of Commons respecting the degree to which the liberty of the Press had been infringed by his stoppage, Lord E. Fitzmaurice explaining that he bad been stopped "on grounds of public policy having reference to the relative positions of the Mahdi, Mr. O'Kelly, and the Egyptian Government"— what the relative position of the Mahdi to Mr. O'Kelly was, or might have been, however, Lord E. Fitzmaurice did not and probably could not explain. His Lordship, nevertheless, replied to a question asked by Lord R. Churchill as to whether any Englishman or Irishman could not proceed to the Mahdi's court that he thought tbe question involve! matter of argument, as it certainly did— in one way, at least. Meantime, we cannot pretend to sympathise with Mr. O'Kelly's chagrin on being turned back— and out of his own mouth it is that we may judge of the enterprise he was engaged in. " Mohammed Ahmed (the Mahdi) "be writes to the Daily News, »• is in person tall and powerfully built, but some, what inclined to corpulency. His complexion is between brown and red-whattbe Arabs call aeder-that is, green. The expression of his countenance is agreeable, and.when in repose his face- is lighted up by a constant placid entile.- If the statements of his enemies

may be trusted, this outer aspect of benevolence furnishes but a deceptive key to his character. Against those who refuse to recognise the divine nature of his mission he can be severe to cruelty. He is credited with Jeffrey's trick of weeping over the fate of those victims whom he orders to execution, so as to create tbe impression that he punishes dissent and disobedience with personal xegret, at the command of Allah. In barren discussion as to the nature or authority of his mission he loses no time. If any man be bold enough to challenge its divine origin or express disbelief he is permuted to chose between submission, open acknowledgment, and decapitation. This method of leasoning has the advantage that it is brief and effective. Few men are bold enough to sacrifice their heads for their opinions, and the result is a general acquiescence in the divine authority of Mohammed Ahmed's mission. On the other ftand he protects and encourages those who voluntarily accept him as the true Mahdi-tbe man sent by Allah to reform mankind."It is plain, then, that Mr. O'Kelly to have fulfilled his engagement with the Daily Newt, and preserved his head upon his shoulders, without,which it is needless to say he could never have corresponded with a newspaper-unless through a medium-must have turned Mahommedan on the spot-and we must admit, although we are as a rule willing to see the cause of Ireland championed by all sorts and conditions of men,— we are not yet prepared to see Roscommon represented even in the British Parliament by a devoted follower of Mohamed.—On the whole, therefore, we maintain it is quite as well that Mr. O'Kelly has been hindered in bis journey and sent back, even if in an extremely bad temper and highly indignant, to Egypt.— One noble Irishman has already sacrificed his life to the craving of the public for details of warfare and carnage in connection with this insurrection,.and that should be enough.