Current Topies. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 30, 19 November 1886, Page 1

Current Top ics. AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Lobd Pbnzance who has been arguing in favour A false of Protection against certain members of the BELIEF Cobden Club, Mr. Medley particularly, gives what he considers a final and irrefutable answer to his •pponents in the Nineteenth Century for September. This belief, he says, that by importing largely we are by aome mysterious law inevitably securing to ourselves an outlet for our manufactures by an increase of our exports, lies at the root of the faith in Fiee Imports, and constitutes entirely the basis of all reasoning in favour of that belief. Mr. Medley, however, admits that securities as well as merchandise may be sent in exchange for the imports, though he olaims that such securities could only have been obtained by means of previous exports. "If paid for by an export at all," replies Lord Penzauce, "it is, he says, by a previous export, that is to say, the Inglishman acquires his Egyptian bond by his skill or labour as •mboditd in goods exported at some previous time ; weeky, perhaps months, perhaps years before, in short, by his savings, by his previously acquired wealth. But this is precisely what the Fair Traders have complained of. They have complained, as I understand it, that instead of purchasing what you consume in the shape of imports by the sale of your current labour as embodied in manufactured goods, the great difference between the amount of your imports and your exports tends to show that you are largely paying for your purchases out of your savings, out of your previously acquired wealth, and that to arrange your legislation so as to encourage the purchase of imports paid for in this fashion is to encourage the gradual dissipation of wealth previously acquired, instead of stimulating the production of fresh wealth by the sale of yonr own manufactures." — •' The import of foreign goods," concludes the writer, " testifies to wealth, because it represents expendituie. So far as it consists of raw material bought for the purpose of employing upon it the labour of the population, it is an expenditure which is returned to us in the sale of the manufactures it has enabled us to produce, and thus plays a part in the produce of wealth. So far as it consists of articles of mere consumption, it is the dissipation of wealth previously acquired. These imports may be paid for, and are paid for, in any way in which wealth or value is capable of being transferred. They may extinguish a previous debt either of the seller or of some one else to whom he has transferred his claim. They may be paid by a transfer of the current or permanent obligations either of individuals or governments, or by the transfer of the labour of man as embodied in manufactures on the produce of the mine, tbe field, or the ocean. They involve and testify to the acquisition of wealth in whatever form or from whatever source it may be produced, but they do nothing whatever to create it. On the contrary, so far as they are consumed without the expenditure of fresh labour upon them, they signify its dissipation and nothing more."

PROTECTION Lobd PSNZANCE quotes the following testimony IN as to the effects of Protection from Sir John CANADA. Mac Donald, the well-known Canadian Statesman. " I am largely responsible for the national policy of Canada, ... a policy of revenue secured by tariff. There is ■othing to show that this policy has in any respect failed in its intention. Tbe balance of advantage has been largely in its favour ; indeed, high as party feeling rnnß in Canada, even the Opposition hare ceaßed to attaok the Protection policy, or as both parties are agreed to style it, the national policy of our Government. Our policy is to protect such staple industries as are capable of a practically unlimited expansion, and to admit raw material free which cannot be produced at Home. When we commenced to tax cotton and woollen goods we were assured that the consumer would be ruined and driven out of the country by high prices. What has been the result? Our manufacturers of cotton and cloth are in a position of increasing prosperity, and to-day the consumer is able to bay his goods more cheaply than when Canada was upon a Freetrade batie. Formerly our industries were at the mercy of the manufac-

turers of t/j^lLuted Sutes, whj recognised that our mills, once closed, waX lever likvly to reopen, and that it was therefore prudent and profitai^e to sell goods iv Canada for a short time even at a loss, for the sake of controling Canadian markets later at their own prices. This was actually being done. We found that the cotton operators of the United States were sending us goods at leBS than the cost of production, and were collecting the amount of that loss by levying an assessment on their Manufacturers' Association."

Lord Penzance also examines as follows the the pkepon- argument for Free Trade arising from the prosperity derance OP of Great Britain. "To characterise this argument GREAT BRITAIN I must borrow a phrase of Mr. Medley's. ,It is brimful of fallacies.' Its absurdity, however, may be demonstrated in a single sentence, and refuted by a single fact. If the preponderance of Great Britain over other nations in commerce is a proof of the soundness of the Free Trade system, Low is it that that preponderance existed before Free Trado was invented, aad existed even in a greater degree 1 And yet such is the fact. In 1830 our commerce stood at £88.000,000, and that of France at £42,000,000, being less than half ours. In 1878 our commerce stood at £601,000,000, and that of France at £368.000,000, being much more than half of ours.— lf you take Germany in 1830, her commerce stood at £39,000,000, again less than half that of Great Britain. In 1878, the figures stand at £390,000,000, for Germany, and £601,000,000 for Great Britain, showing German commerce to have advanced to more than half that of Great Britain. The commerce of Great Britain, therefore, bears a less favourable comparison with that of other countries in 1878, after thirty-two years of Free Trade, than it did in 1830. It is less comparatively in advance of them. 8o far, therefore as an increase of commerce is to be imputed to Free Trade or Protection, the verdict must be in favour of Protection."

Were we to judge by statistical returns, the Mordelusive mon Settlement in the United States is the most appearances, moral of all civilised communities, and the safety peace, and welfare of humanity might seem to depend on the following of Joe Smith. An industrious and thrifty people, absolutely free from crime ! Have we not here a pattern to the whole world, and to whom can we point more decisively as illustrating the results of a pure and sanctifying system of religion ? Those good folk who look to bare figures for their proofs, and who make worldly prosperity the test of goodness and truth, can find nothing more stnkiug to quote in support of their arguments. Still, we can hardly doubt that the arguments founded on such figures and facts must prove fallacious. The Mormons, for example, not to speak of their vile habits of polygamy and all they involve, are capable, when the occasion arises, of committing murder freely, on a gigantic scale, indeed, like those, for example, committed at Mountain Meadows, where one hundred and twenty men, women, and children vrerc ruthlessly slaughtered by John D. Lee, and his company of ruffians. It is, moreover, asserted that such murders as those in question are but the natural outcome of Mormon doctrine, and follow as a necessary consequence from their teaching respecting what they call " olood atonement."

A denial lately made by some of their chief men FACTS IN that this doctrine was understood by them literally, proof. and the explanation that, 60 far as it was to be thus understood, it referred only to their belief that a murderer should be punished not by hanging but by the actual shedding of his blood, form the subject of an article in the North American Review for September. The writer, Kate Field, quotes several passages from the speeches of the leading men of the sect, that seem to admit of no doubt as to the impossibility of any spiritual interpretation of their teaching on this matter. She declares, moreover, that the Mountain Meadows massacre was a case in point, for Lee, she says, while the horrible crime was taking place kept praying that God would forgive the 6ins of the victims — slaughtered tosecur* their salvation. She says, again, " For several years human blood waa shed on the slightest provocation. Did one man bear a grudge against another, he died in some mysterious manner. A Mormon court of. investigation could never discover how, Was a man obnoxious

to any of the chnrch officers, he disappeared, and never was heard of again. John W. Lon^, a clerk in Brigham's office, the only person who heard the coaveisation between Brigham and the messenger sent from George 8 Smith, just before the Mountain Meadow massacre, and who wrote out the instructions which the messenger carried back, was found dead in a ditch, ' drowned ' in three inches of water, ' accidentally,' of course, since that was the decision of the Mormon jury." She further, gives some particulars told her by a woman b linging to the Mormon community, and wh'ch related to the murder of a certain Mis. Mansfield who had become the second wife of a Mormon nnmed Brown. The following circumstances were told to the woman in question by two boys, sons of the unfortunate Tictim. " Brown," they said, " took us to a place where something was thrown over our faces. Then we were conducted down stone steps into a room with lighted candles. There they brought poor mother almost naked. We were asked whether she had told us about the Endowment House, and we said 'no,' but Brown contradicted us. They cut mother's throat and disembowelled her befoie our eyes, and then told us to leave the territory in twenty-four hours or we'd be treated in the same way." The boys were sent away in disguise but were evidently followed and murdered, for they were never heard of afterwards. The woman again, who told their story, herself narrowly escaped the death to which she had been doomed on two occasions.

It is not always to be concluded, therefore, tL»t no because a people, or any section of a people, keep out ABGCMKNT. of thehands of justice, and are thriving aD(I pros. perous in their worldly affairs, they are moral, reli. gious and free from all taint of evil. Nor are the Mormons the only community whose example may be cited in contradiction of this fallacious argument.

The attitude of the Jesuits at present gives a strikBT NO MEANS ing contradiction to the ideas generally current JESUITICAL, with regard to them. — If things be as the world supposes them to be, and the Roman question, fo example, is settled once for all as many people stoutly affirm, w e should expect the wily Order to confine themselves to secret plots and cunning machinations — quietly endeavouring to undermine the throne of Italy unseen and unnoticed. — The Jesuits, however, are conducting themselves in quite another manner. — They declareopenly that the Roman question is not settled, and act boldly and without disguise in advocating the settlement of it which they desire. In the very same number of their Italian organ, La CivUta Cattolica , for instance, in which the Papal Brief is published — that restores them to the position they occupied previous to the enforced dissolution of their order by Pope Clement XIV., and which has been the occasion of so much indignation among the Revolutionists and thei; 1 friends, there is published also an article dealing with the Roman question, which, according to the writer, is still far from settled, and whose eventual settlement he evidently believes will be in accoidance with his wishes.— The frequent assertion mide that the one thing necessary for Italy is to remain with Rome as her capital, says the writer — betrays a sense of uneasiness and doubt in those who make it. — The one thing necessary for Italy, he continues, implies the presence in Rome uf the Italian Revolution with or without the Pope. — But the mischief of the situation is that the one necessity is encountered by another— and a very much more important one, that is the liberty of the Pope — in wh'ch is involved the welfare of the world at large. — And as to the guarantees — whose pretence it is to preserve to the Pope his liberty — they were enacted rather to guarantee the Italian Government against the Powers having at heart the liberty of the Papacy which is of universa 1 interest for Christendom" — The Italian Government, moreover, are aware that they stand unsupported by Europe in their usurpation of the Temporal PowerThe Moniteur tie Home, explaining certain words recently let fall during a stormy deb ite in the chamber by the Deputy Cairoli, states that at the Congress of Berlin, Count Corti the Italian plenipotentiary, having been directed to confine all his demands to that of obtaining from the Powers a recognition of accomplished facts, had no sooner broached the subject than he was completely silenced. — ftl. Waddington.the French delegate ; the delegate of Austria-Hungary , -and Prince Bismarck himself, declared against the discussion of this point, and threatened to abandon the Congress if mention were made of accomplished facts in Italy and Rome as the capital. And even revolutionists are not agreed concerning the matter. The deputy Achille Fazzari, for example, who was, nevertheless, returned by a large majority, adli the electois last spring, advocated trie necessity of conciliating the Papacy — the greatest of existing institutions, he said, and which, although universal is essentially Italian. He exhorted Paly 'o in the Vatican a friend rather than a strong obslac'e to In r ampliations. The article in the Cirilta, in short, as we fvc, is a bold and open o' c such as might rationally be published by men having nothing to conceal and hopeful of their cause. — It is most unlike what we should expect from the Jesuits. were they the men of wiles, and plots, and unscrupulous cunning,

they are represented as being by those who know nothing about them, or who, knowing what they are, are interested in calumniating them. Were the Roman question settled, moreover, the Jesuits would betray both folly and credulity in dealing with it in such a manner, and these are qualities which even the opposing world does not attribute to them.

The mischievous activity of those who are trying plain talk to get up an insulting demons tiation against the FROM AN honest Roman Catholics of Auckland, on ot about the sth editor. of November (say s the Evening Bell of November 1), is at work, and despite the dignified and stern rebuke from the Bishop of the Church of England, the promoters of the infamous design are particularly anxious to have a clergyman of the Church of England to do the evil work. They wish, it appears, to have a minister who knows how to manage his " H's," and seek in this way to throw a cloak of respectability over a vile movement that only finds favour among the smallest and lowest and moat contemptible of the religionists of Auckland. It appears that they have found considerable difficulty over the matter, as able ministers of any respectability of character are disposed to fight shy of ouch proceedings, and in order to anticipate the date, and to do what they can to excite the evil passions of the people, they have been destributing circulars containing the prayer relating to the Gunpowder Plot, which once remained in the Church of England Prayer Book, a vestige of the barbarism of another age, and which has been recently expunged : and with this some miserable caricatures of Guy Fawkes' lantern, and signatures of the conspirators. The malicious and mischievous character of the objects of the promoters of this demonstration is very apparent, and it remains to be seen whether any minibter of religion will disgrace himself with such a discreditable proceeding. Some months ago, when criticising the efforts of a minister of religion in the city to stir up religious strife in Auck land by lecturing offensively on Home Rule in Ireland, we stated that we never knew the case of any minister in the colonies prominently associating himself with the Orange system, but had some flaw in his moral character which he was endeavouring to cover over by thus getting a party around him to whose evil passions he was ministering. Since then, that unfortunate minister has fled from the city a broken down and disgraced drunkard; and we repeat what we said — that we have never known it otherwise than that there was moral taint connected with the minister of religion who thus pandered to the evil passions of the people ; and though we do not know whom these mischief-makers may succeed in obtaining as their figure-head in the coming celebration of the Gunpowder Plot, we do not hesitate to say that if he is a minister of religion, we shall find in bis moral character, or past history, the stain that provps the theory we have maintained. These persistent attempis to goad Roman Catholics into madne&B are so contemptible in themselves, and so contrary to the genius of colonial life and the spirit of good citizenship, that we are determined to put them davn in Auckland. It is a disgrace to anyone calling himself Protesiant to peisist in stirring up angry passions over events of two or three hundred jears ago, and it is satisfactory to see that Protestant clergymen and nil good citizens are repudiating any sympathy with such un- Christian and brutal proceedings ; and we have resolved that as far as in us lies we Bhall subject any illdisposed citizen taking part in them to the cat-o'-nine tails of the Press.

United Ireland, rcfeniog to certain gross remarka THE made concerning the people < f Ireland and their ANONYMITY representatives by the St. James's Gazette complains OK THE pre&b. of the anonymity of the Press, which, in many instances confers upon the utterances of worthless men a fictitious importance. " Sooner or later," says our contemporary, " this will all come right, aud the opinions printed in a newspaper will have just as much respect a 8 the character and abilities of the writer may deserve and no more. Sooner or later also it will flash upon the English mind that the most dangerou B moonlighters and dynamiters going — the only really dangerous moon" lighters and dynamiters going — are about a dozen men in the London newspaper offices, armed with quill- pens and disguised with maska after the Mokanna pattern." We fully agree with our contemporary's views concerning this matter, and deprecate strongly the aid lent to malice and Btupidity by the system complained of. In. no shape or form should the Press prostitute its columns to the uses of the literary coward or assassin — and when a newspaper owes all its influence to the secresy in question, it is evidently for the advantage of the public that it should cease to be published. The abuse, however, is established, and may be found in every department of the newspaper, but more disgracefully, perhaps, as a rule, in the columns allotted to correspondence. There it is the common instrument of the dastard, bully and literary cut-throat, and there the editor's wings, if they be kindly to the task, as we have lately seen, for example, in the case of our contemporary the Dunedin Evening Star, often lend shelter to " lewd fellows of the baser sort," who

pour out against respectable peopla tbe stink-pot of tbeir filthy minds. These fellows thus obtain a consideration that otherwise would be impossible— they being such when fully revealed as no decent man could touch even with a pair of tongs. The evil, however, is a crying one aad it is a blot upon that British civilisation wkich boasts itself so honest, brave, and manly.

The Neo-CaUdonienoi October 22. contains an item good news, of intelligence that cannot fail to create a sensatioc among the good Evangelists who have pitched their tents in the New Hebrideß and those in these Colonies to whom their cau6e if* deir,. Our contemporany reports that orders have been received in Noumea from the Government at Paris that passages are to be provided fcr certain of the Marist Fathers.—" One of these days," says the M», " the Guichen leaves for the New Hebrides, and it will carry there, by special order of the ministry of which M . Goblet is the ornament, the head of the Catholic missioa of New Caledonia and its dependencies, who goes to prepare the way for bis confreres, already Bet out from Europe with ihese islands as tbeir destination. The Society of Mary are going to resume possession of that part of the Vicariate Apostolic which fevers, death, and the wickedness of the natives and tbeir pretanded English Piotestaut civilisers, have forced them several t'mes to abandon. The journey of Mgr. the Vicar Apostol'c in France and to Rome bad, among olhet s of a high importance, the end of reopening the country in question to Christian and French civilisation. It is our religion, the same tbat created France herself, which is about to complete the French occupation and to combat tbe rival influeace too long rooted in these islands. That which the valiant undertaking of Mr. Higgenson and the Society of the New Hebrides wanted to make of it a truly patriotic work, is now being given to it by ourjtroops at Pors Havannah and Port Sandwich. The mi 3sion will bring its perfection to it and will bind it to the very heart of tbe natives. Preparations for this expedition have been made noiselessly but maturely and seriously during these last years. The Society of Mary had never lost sight of this land watered by the blood of their fiibt apostles ; but it was very nececsary to yield to the necessity of the times and to wait for God's appointed hour, while losing no opportunity of making themselves ready for it and insuring tbe succesß of an enterprise that was daily becoming more difficult. — Tbat hour now seems arrived, and we salute it with all our faith and all our patriotism. — Bon Voyage to the Rev.Father Pioneer !" — So far our contemporary the Neo- Caledonien to whose concluding aspiration we, for our part, heartily answer Amen.

Among the many rumours of the day. not the least AN curious, and certainly not the most credible, is tha INCREDIBLE of a Franco-German alliance. The occasion for BUMOCK. the proposal is eaid to have been some negotiations undertaken by the German minister at the court of Morocco with the view of obtaining from the Emperor of that country certain territory on the Atlantic coast, as a basis for colonial enterprise in Africa, the adherence of France being gained by the German recognition of her supremacy in the Mediterranean, and German aid in recovering her former position in Egypt. France would further co-operate in all the colonial projects of Germany. Not, however, to allude to any interference undertaken by Germany with a view of restoring the French position in Egypt, the attempt alone to establish the predominance of France in the Mediterranean would be a blow aimed at England which it would be impossible for her to submit to. Even should she retain possession of Egypt, without the chief command of the Mediterranean she could not rely on uninterrupted communication with India, which absolutely depends on her holding, at least aa impregnable coaling. stations, Gibraltar and Malta, and in all probability Cyprus as well In fact, among the difficulties involved in the apparently approaching seizuie of Constantinople by Russia, there enters that of the in creased necessity for England strengthening her position in the Mediterranean, bo as to make unhampered use of the equivalent proposed to her in the annexation of Egypt, whereas the position of Brssia on the Bosphorus would necessarily have a directly opposite tendency. We may, however, probably dismiss this rumour as to a Franco-German alliance as unfounded. Whatever advantages might accrue from it to both the peoples concerned, the animosity that divides them is too great to be surmounted.

Among the news of the day there is at least one A dakgebous item that should belong more properly to an earlier POTENTATE, age. Hardly has Europe recovered from the astonishment caused by the abduction of Prince Alexander, than a rumonr iB spread abroad that the Czar, in a fit of ungovernable passion, has killed his chamberlain, Baron de Eeutern. at his palace of Gatschina. The rumour, indeed, when received here by cable wbb contradicted in a day or two afterwards, but now the San Francisco Mail brings us details that seem to confirm it. If it prov»true the danger of the litttfttion if manifest. A madman hp*

already in modern times occupied the Imperial throne of Russia, and besides the sufferings inflicted on his own people, the condition of Europe was seriously menaced by his unhappy state. He betrayed an especial jealousy of England, and the English fleet were only prevented from proceeding from Copenhagen to Kronstadt, in 1801, by the news of his tcurde p . — We allude, as our readers are doubtless aware, to the Emperor Paul, whom Pahlen and his fellowconspirators strangled on his refusing to sign tbe form of abdication they laid before him. — But the consequences of insanity in a potentate possessing the irresponsible power of the autocrat of all the Russias, can hardly be feared too much. Even should the rumour prove false, indeed, the fact of its being grounded on fits of uncontrollable passion to which Alexander 111., is subject of it" elf is sufficiently formidable. The issues that depend upon his uncontrolled will are of unspeakable importance, and the influences that may be brought to bear upon. hiß frame of mind, according as tbe interests or humours of those who are about bis person direct, are incalculable. While Russia remains absolutely at the mercy of a man so affected i there is no guarantee for the peace of the world and all provisions . however wise, that are made to promote a good understanding among the nations stand hourly in jeopardy.

There's a philosopher at Westport that perfectly A DIVING despises the top of the pool when he takes a bath, philosopher. Down he goes right to the bottom, and sticks in the mud occupying his inquiring mind with all the beauties of nature and the uses of the water all about him. The frogs and the little fishes, and the bits of weeds and things, engage all his delighted attention, and it charms him to see how the dirt takes its departure from his skin under the influence of the" elements that surround him." We should like to know whether Mr. Sloan who writes to the Westport Times in support of godless education, and to whom we allude, makes use also of a lather of soap when he take 3 his wash underneath the wave, and whether in contemplating the salutary nature of that article as well his heart and soul are raised aloft to the empyrean. But how the mischief does Mr. Sloan keep himself from being drowned while lie is engaged in this philosophy of the deep ? Does he take his bath in a diving bell, or has he some natural affinity with the mud that keeps the life in him under such unusual circumstances ? Mr. Sloan engaged in a diving expedition would probably be as interesting a phenomenon as any student of nature need desire to contemplate. Mr. Sloan accompanying the world in its flight through space, or wrapped in ectasies over the posies, or geologically poking his way through the ground after ante-diluvian creatures, ia far beyond our reach, and we must leave him to soar or bore uninterrupted. The man we admire is he who despises the top of the water, throws the life- belt aside as a useless encumbrance, and goes right down to the bottom in pursuit of the hidden mysteries. We wish Mr. Sloan joy of all he has discovered.but we have no desire whatever to Bhare the treasure with him. His educational researches can hardly prove of advantage to any one but himself.