PROTECTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 24, 8 October 1886, Page 15

PROTECTION.

T is not through either prejudice or disinclination to be convinced, that we fail to see the cogency of the arguments commonly adduced in favour of Protection. On the contrary, it would give na great pleasure to think that these arguments ■were really cogent. Amongst other things Protectionists tell us that Protection, instead of making protected articles dearer, would produce the contrary effect. It is hard to see bow this can be ; and we candidly acknowledge we cannot see it. It is indeed easily conceivable how better articles might be produced under the operation of high custom dues ; but how cheapness is to be brought about by these, is, we fancy, past comprehension, — the comprehension at all events of ordinary minds. The primary object of Protection is to raise the price of every thing protected, and without an advance in price, the object sought by Protection cannot possibly be obtained. But, it is said, though this may and inuat be the effect in the first instance, in the long run all articles protected become very plentiful, and consequently cheaper. This contention, however, presupposes two things, one of which is not desirable, whilst the other is not probable. Either the Home market mast become glutted, causing consequently a dearth of employment, or competition from without mv.st cease. If in any case cheapness in any department follows after Protection, this is the result either of overproduction or of poverty generally in the community ; and a consequent inability to purchase. But in no case does cheapness follow per se ns a consequence of Protection. And what is more, it would be contrary to the nature of things to suppose that such could be the case. The manifest hardship put upon agricultures is abstracted from view, or an effort is made in this direction by the asser-

tion that the Borne market will more than compensate them for any loss they may sustain through the enhanced value of everything they have to purchase from the manufacturer. In certain circumstances, and under certain conditions, this may perhaps happen ; but under theconditions prevailing bere,the expectation that such would come about amongst us would, we fear, turn out to be utterly groundless. The tendency in this country is to a town life, and the employments to be found in trading and manufacturing centres. We think it is very likely that were Protection introduced here to the extent desired, and manufactories established in consequence, before long there would be a rush from the land to the factories and a scramble for the billets, as they are called. Agriculture would soon be at a discount, and over-production in all trades the inevitable result. This supposition is not at all improbable, and then there would not be a Home market for anything. The manufacturer could not sell his goods, nor could the agriculturist find a purchaser for his produce in the Home market. Some years ago when travelling in America we ascertained that, were it not for the foreign market, agriculturists in the United States would be very badly off indeed; whilst it would pay a New York gentleman to make a journey to Liverpool for the purpose of buying a suit of clothes. We only wish we could spe how Protection would really serve anyone except the capitalist for a time. On this question there is such diversity of opinion amongst really able men, that one is sorely exercised in mind and yearns for more light and certainty. What makes the problem still uiore puzzling is specialists and abstract reasoners are nearly all on one side, and that is the side of Freetrade, whilst mere politicians, who attend chiefly to the public opinion of the masses, who are very often either unable or unwilling to think lgisurely or deeply, and who live and thrive by pandering to the prejudices of these masses, very frequently give direction and effect to crude theories which cannot stand the test of reason and experience. The question is a difficult and most important one, and should not be decided by a hurrah at the hustings.

The Most Rev. Dr. Moran left Dunedin on Wenesday for Queenstown and the Arrow. Hia Lordship will be in Invercargill on Sunday the 24th inst. On November 11 a conference of the clergy of the diocese will be held in Dunedin.

The Dunedin Catholic Literary Society meet to-night

The Rev. Father Callery of Springfield, Mass, whose death we record in our present issue w&s the brother of Mr. Thomas Callery and of the late Mrs. Cogan of Naseby. The esteem in which the deceased ecclesiastic was held is well testified to in an obituary notice which we reproduce elsewhere. — R.I. P.

The New Zealand Herald referring to Judge Ward's appointment in place of Judge Gillies, and in relation to his temperance associations speaks as follows :—": — " It will be somewhat of a novelty to the Auckland public to see the Judge of the Supreme Coart wearing 4 the bit o' blue 'on his breast." Our contemporary, however, does not of course imply any scandal of the Supreme Court.

These details should be interesting, particularly to our Scotch friends :—": — " Still another advance has been made in the canonical status of the Catholic Church in Scotland, by a recent decree of the Propaganda. By this decree the Pope has raised the churches of St. Andrew, Dumfries ; St. Andrew, Dundee ; and St. Columba, Oba^ to the position of pro- Cathedrals. St. Mary's Church. Edinburgh ; St. Andrews. Glasgow, and St. Mary's, Aberdeen, which formerly were pro-cathedrals, have now been erected as cathedrals."

Our contemporary the Melbourne Advocate proposes that a con. ference of the|lrish National League should be held at an early date in Sydney — our contemporary thinks such a step would be of service to the National cause at the present juncture, and would have a beneficial effect on the next session of the Imperial Parliament. — We may say that for our own part the proposal commends itself to us as wise and opportune, and we should be pleased to see it carried out without unnecessary delay.

It is reported that the Rev. Father Gibney has been appointed coadjutor Bishop to the Most Rev. Dr. Griven of Perth, Western Australia. It will be remembered that Father Gibney is the priest who distinguished ihimself during the fight with the Kelly gang at Glenrowan.— His feat in entering the hotel while it was in flames, in spite of the assurance of the police that there was danger of the bushrangers' firing at him, and rescuing the wounded man who lay there, is one of the finest in the annals of the colonies.

Mh. Gladstone continues firm and hopeful notwithstanding his defeat. It receiving a deputation sent to offer him the freedom of the city of Cork the other day, he gave as his sole reason for continuing in public life his resoluti n to settle the Irish question in the manner proposed by him — expressing a certainty of ultimate triumph.

TII9 firmness of the Grand Old Man contrasts admirably with the

vacillations and evident weakness of the Tories. A man calling himself Adams has been arrested in New South Wales on the charge of being identical with Caffrey, who some time ago committed a mur ler at the Great Barrier Island, Auckland, and, together with a man named Perm, made his escape in a vessel called the Sovereign of the Seas, of which he was the master. The wreckage of the vessel has been found on the beach near Port Macquarrie, and there are certain proofs that the murderer has at length fallen into the hands of justice. A decuee of the Sacred Tribunal of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition has been promulgated, declaring cremation to be unlawful, and forbidding Catholics to have any connection with Societies formed for such a purpose. The Freemasons provoked by this decree have been, since its publication, more actixe than before in efforts to promote the pagan custom referred to. Cardinal Manning, speaking the other day at Old Hall College pronounced himself an enemy of grammar. "As for English," he says, " I have a very animosity against grammarians. Grammar does come in the order of nature. We speak it because we bare learned it from our earliest consciousness. Grammarians are those who come after and abuse us for our use of the mother tongue. I know no subject more abstract and metaphysical than grammar. It treats of persons, of actions, passion in all the relation of time and of circumstances, and of all conditions under which thought can be conceived and language can be spoken. That is not a science for beginners. It is a torture intended for us." His Eminence evidently would have little sympathy with the course that deals so minutely with the analysis of sentences and other bosh of the kindcalculated only to confirm the dunce or form the pedant. It is of interest, and would be of importance if those who are influential in directing the public education of the day were capable of being guided by anything but their own particular hobbies, or sinister ends, to learn that classical studies have been proved in Europe to be most conductive to success in technical training, such being the testimony of high authority both in Germany and Italy The question as to the use of instructing boys in Latin and Greek, supposed to be settled adversely among ourselves — is thus set at rest practically among men whose object is genuine education and not imperfect training with some ulterior view. Within the last forty years, the Catholic population of India has increased from 700,000 to 1,637,350, more than 100,000 converts having been baptized in the Southern vicariatesdutiug ihe last seven years.

Another change is reported as have taken place in the recidivist programme, the committee of the Chamber of Deputies engaged with their disposal having recommended Cayenne for their destination rather than New Caledonia. Does this mean that France having resolved to hold the New Hebrides, is desirous of making such reasonable concessions as should satisfy the British Colonies, and conciliate England generally ? The famous bunyip has evidently put in an appearance in the province of Auckland. — Two boys living near Hamilton declare that they were chased away from a creek by some strange reptile like an alligator. It can of course be nothing else than the bunyip which some how or other has managed to emigrate from its fabled haunts in Australia. It is reported, and probably with truth, that the Most Rev. Dr. Carr, Bishop of Gal way and Kilmacduagh, has been appointed to the Archbishopric of Melbourne. The pickle of the Tory party — that is Lord Randolph Churchill, has been employed, according to report, to break to their supporters the news of tne programme they find themselves obliged to adopt, that almost of an ultra- Liberalism. — Lord Salisbury's swagger seems to have disappeared with wonderful rapidity, and from a proud and random leader of buffaloes he ia evidently turning into a very tame sort of an animal indeed. What we are principally interested in is the promise thus made of local government generally, of legislation to amend the Irish land laws, and the disapproval expressed of wholesale evictions. — In all possibility the Tories will bid for a continuance of office by finally making even more liberal offers to Ireland than those made by Mr. Gladstone— but this is a possibility foreseen from the first. — The attack on the Established Church threatened in the promised relief of tithes, and the hopes held out to secularists in the shape of an amendment in elementary education must prove rather a trial to some of the supporters of the party— and give a rude shock to their most cherished confidence. That even the Tories must needs march with the times is very Buggestive, and we need little wonder if there be some who are most fully persuaded that the traditional driver holds the reins. — But confusion may well obtain among those members of the party rudely awakened to the fact that the great Tory victory was but an immediate presage of the death of Toryism. " Ireland sober is Ireland free " was one of the great truths the late A. M. Sullivan was constantly dinning into the ears of his fellow-countrymen (says " the Flaneur," in the Sydney Freeman't

Journal) ; and it is an unspeakable satisfaction to find from recent accounts that excessive indulgence in the cup that cheers and queers one too is much less common in Ireland now than it has been for many years past. Several judges at the close of their late circuits have commented favourably on this glad fact, and the strange part of the business is that this marked sobriety apparently started on last St. Patrick's Day. In Dublin, the next day's court proceedings showed hardly any cases of drunkenness, while Cork could only raise one, and the solitary offender in that case was described as a 11 stranger from London." The leaders of the Parnellite party are temperate all through, and now that the people seem to be following them, let us hope that Sullivan's great desire of Ireland sober and Ireland free is on the eve of realisation.

The following paragraph, which we take from a contemporary, speaks eloquently for the better state of things now prevailing in Germany : — Sister Gabriel, of the Sisters of Mercy, who in the most ■elf-sacrificing manner has devoted nearly the whole of her life to the nursing of the sick, celebrated, the other day, the 50th anniver. sary of her religious life at the City Hospital of Coblentz. The German Emperor drove to the Hospital to congratulate Sister Gabriel in the most gracious manner, and remained with her for half-an-hour.

Subely the president of the British Medical Association in citing her most Gracious Majesty as an example of a woman engaged in the fulfilment of those functions which he pronounces detrimental to her offspring has no intention to throw reflections on the qualifications of our future king. Still it must be acknowledged that the following sentences taken in connection with what has gone before, have a suspicious tone : — "Many times, indeed, woman's fate has let her in the foremost place ; in some of those times, no doubt, such place has been well and grandly filled by her. Yet, even then, our admiration is not untinged with compassion. Even in this year of approaching jubilee, is it not so with us when we think of that Crown, Royal and Imperial, which, splendid as it ia, has so long been left ' a lonely splendour 1 ' ' Victoria Regina et Imperatrix ' — bravely, proudly, gloriously is the burden borne ; but would she who knows its weight wish a like weight to be laid upon any daughter 1 '»

I» we may judge by the admissions of the Corriere di Roma, a newspaper of their party, Italian Liberals show some signs of a return to a sounder frame of mind. This newspaper acknowledges that the glory of modem Italy has for the most part been derived from the Papacy, and that without the co-operation of the Sovereign Pontiff a great destiny cannot be fulfilled by her.

One of the severest judgments passed upon Freethought is that silent but practical one of French infidels who, notwithstanding their own defalcation, try to bring up their children in the Catholic faith. The editor of the Diameui'iemc Siech', a Freethinking publication has recently testified that even in Paris few of the pupils of the Lyceums are entered as Freethinkers, and none at all of them are so entered in the provinces :—": — " Families," says the writer, " have on this subject ideas which I will not discuss, because it is solely their own affair ; but it is evident that with very few exceptions they ask for religious education." The ideas, nevertheless, are evident also. Fathers and mothers, whom weakness and world liness have separated from their faith, still recognise their misery and try to save their children from sharing it. And thus Freethought is condemned most powerfully by its own adherents.

JUDGING from present appearances Hungary is forcing Austria to resist Russian predominance in Bulgaria, — Englind according to the resisting power a moral support, and hoping to have her battles fought without herself being obliged to fire a shot. — Germany refuses to interfere with Russia, who evidently means to persevere in her sinister undertaking, and who perhaps has offered to reward the German government for a neutrality that may bring about the fulfilment of her designs upon the East, by the transfer of Poland to them — a step already proposed in Russia as the means of overcoming the difficulties created by the competition of German manufactures established in that country. In this instauce, however, the proposal was that Germany should buy the territory in question for a large sum of money. — But an equivalent in the Balkan peninsula would probably be qnite as acceptable.

We are happy to Bee that Mr. M. Donnelly has returned to Dunedin, where it is his intention to practise his profession in future. We have no doubt that Mr. Donnelly's well-known abilities will speedily place him among the leading members of the Bar in this city. The entrance examination of the University of v ' • 'A aland for matriculation, junior scholarship, and medical pi my will commence on Monday, December the 6th. The collection made in Dunedin, on Sunday, in aid of the Cathedral building fund, amounted in cash to £300 — with about the same amount promised. The names of contributors will be published in due course. The first general meeting of the shareholders of the N.Z. Tablet Printing and Publishing Company was held at the Office of the

Company, Octagon, Dunedin, on Friday evening. The following gentlemen were appointed Directors of the Company for the ensuing year, namely, Messrs. J. B. Callart, F. Meenan, J. J. Connor, T. Reynolds, and T. Murray.

Te Whiti, Titokowaru, and the other Maori prisoners were tried on Wednesday in the Supreme Court at Wellington, on the charges of forcible entry and rioting, and malicious injury to property. The result being, in Te Whiti's case, imprisonment for three months, and a fine of £100, and in the case of Titokowaru and the others, one month's imprisonment and a fine of £20 .

The cost of Ministers to the Colony for the year 1885-86 was, in all, £14,712, as against £2,913 in 1860-61, their travelling allowances and expenses having been for the year almost double what they had ever been before. During the last five years, over the greater portion of which the depression has extended, the increase in the expense of the Ministry to the Colony has been £4,196. But have we not Sir Robert Stout for a Premier, and with a philosopher to caper for us who would grudge to pay the piper ?

We can beat all to sticks the Australian bunyip or the Maori taniwha or whatever it was that, in size a calf, in likeness partly an alligator, made the other day in Auckland a " sudden and awful appearance." Here are three young men who the other night on the Ocean Beach beheld a mermaid. As they were promenading in the moonlight, a human figure standing by the water's verge fled from their advance and disappeared beneath the waves. In the dusk they mistook it for a man or woman enveloped in a long cloak t but nothing can be more evident than the fact of its being a mermaid whose long hair and fishy extremities might well under the the circumstances be taken for a garment. A constable has been told off to patrol the beach in Bearch of any remains that may come to land, but let us hope he will not meet with a sentimental end , The mermaid, they say, is very beguiling.