Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 19, 31 August 1888, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A. TBKBIBLE PICTURE.

The commissioner of the Pall Mall Gazette does not give us a picture of Prince Bismarck that is in the least reassuring. He shows us the Chancellor in a light eren leas favourable than that in which we had been hitherto taught to regard him. The Chancellor controls the world by means of a reptile press hire 1 by secret service money to do his bidding, and in the most cunning way carrying out its task. But if any editor less degraded than the rest attempts to offer any resistance, his fate is sealed. Some breach of the law, for example, s brought home to him and his ruin is ea9ily effected. Nor is the power of Prince Bismarck confined to the Press of Germany. Correspondents of newspapers in other countries are also under his influence and notable among them are certain correspondents of the London Times. It was to serve the Chancellor's purpose that the late reports of a Russian advanca towards the German frontier were spread adroid« He wanted to obtain a vote of the Reichsia^ for the addition of 700,000 men to the German aimy, and also to persuade Austria to increase her military expenditure. Therefore the mere trifle of a despatch of 40)0 soldiers from Moscow to Warsaw, was magnified and distorted in every part of the world. The Russians themselves were puzzled and astonished. The Bourses of Europe were disturbed. But Prince Bismarck carried his point. And how is the welfare of Europe affected by this " Demon Oinnipotens at Berlin," as the Commissioner calls him? Despo'ism rules supreme in Germany, and freedom is unknown there. " Germans have disappeared. Only Germany remains — a gigantic figure which has only one brain, and the grey matter of that brain is Prince Bismarck." " Prince Bismarck reoently boasted that the Germans feared God but that they feared no one else. Excepting on his authority Europe would have been incredulous, for to other nations the Germans seem not to fear God so much as Prince Bismarck, and, unless he is cruelly maligned, there is Tery little fear of God before his eyes. What is said in many quarters is that the Man of Blood and Iron sticks at nothing ia order to secure his ends. Fa school, force, intrigue, treachery, war, are alike instruments in his hand, and are judged by him exclusively from the point of view of their relative efficiency. He will not lie if truth will suit him better, but if not, then for him, they say, falsehood is better than truth." As to the shadow which, says the Commissioner, " the Buccess of blood and iron has ca9t over the human heart," so that men should admit it as excusable in Prince Bismarck to have no scraples, to have, for example, had fikobeleffand Gambetta poisoned, as he is falsely accused of doing, perhaps it is more due to the failure of moral perceptions in the men who make such admissions than to the fcuccess in question. Men, at least have been able to look upon successful villany with abhorrence. If men in Russia look upon it otherwise, perhaps the fault is ie the men themselves. But this we confess to be deplorable.seeing the part that Russia must of necessity take in the future of the world. The Commissioner tells us that Prince Bismarck is at present accredited with peaceful designs. He, nowever, enly gives him credit for such in so far as they are compatible with the interests of Germany. To these he is ready to sacrifice the rest of the world without scruple or remorse. To thsse, in fact, he has already sacrificed a good deal on the part of otber nations, having encouraged France in her undertakings against Tunis, Tonkin, China, and Madagascar, and incited Russia in 1877 to go to war with Turkey. The Commissioner, nevertheless, believes that, as he says, " Germany remains at present the keyßtone of the arch of European peace." If England, Germany, and Ruesia, he says, hold together, the peace of the world ia secure. We may, for our own part, inquire, meantime, as to how far it is to be desired lhat such should be the case, and as to whether those who are the advocates of peace under the circumstances •re not the advocates of peace at any price. The picture we have been given of Germany under the control of Prince Bismarck, and as she must certainly continue, with increasing strength, under an Emperor and statesmen trained in the school of Prince Bißmarck, is an alarming and revolting one. It is a condition of unscrupulous criminal despotism degrading to the country in which it exists, and dangerous as well as demoralising to surrounding nations. Is a peace

under which such a system of things most grow and strengthen a matter to be desired ? A war for its destruction might, on the coo. trary, seem much preferable, and the chief thing to be feared from a war under the circumstances|would be a German sneoess. At any rate, the Commissioner justifies most fully the rebellious spirit against German rule of Alsace-Lorraine, and the desire of France for their deliverance, which he deprecates as a possible source of war, and things therefore to be resisted, If hia picture of Prince Bismarck, and of Germany under the control of Prince Bismarck, is true, in a word, he conclusively proves, contrary to his intentions, that in war alone lies the hope, even it ba a forlorn hope, of the world. To ear* the world, and even to save herself, the power of Germany must bt broken.

A HORBIBLB SYSTEM.

Mr. T. Wemtss Beid has published a life of the late Mr. Forster, which shows the frightfully demoralising effects of the task he hud set himself to perform in Ireland. He began hia work a humane, kindly man, recognising the evil plight of the people whose fortunes were placed in his bands, and anxious to ameliorate their condition. The granting of loans ; the reformation of local bodies ; the compensation of evicted tenants ; a liberal Land Act : such was the programme he proposed to himßelf. The first of these measures, however, taken in hand, that is, Compensation for Disturbances, was cruelly thrown out by the House of Lords, and this, unhappily, determined Mr. Forster' a course. It would have been well'f or him[had he followed his first impetus and resigned his position, but he held 00, to his ruin. v The Czar of Russia," he said, "is not mora of ft personal and absolute ruler than I was during that last winter in Ireland. My colleagues loft me to do as I pleased, and the whole thing was on my hands." A great writer has likened Hamlet to a chia a crock in which an oak tree is planted, with the inevitable result that the 'strong growth of the roots breaks the crock. Despotic power, in lika manner, proved too strong for Mr. Forater. But, unlike the china crock, he did not break, but was distorted and beat all out of shape by the force that controlled him. He used his power as foolishly as tyrannously, going from one coercive step to another, although he was forced to acknowle ige th%t every step was vainly taken. But so demoralised did the man who had begun with a kindly, pitiful, heart and good intentions become, that his resignation was at last caused by Mr. Gladstone's determination to put an end to coercion and try more merciful methods. Mr. Forster is dead, and another fills the place in which a power as despotic as that of the Czar of Russia distorted and demoralised his nature. But, in his succsssor, despotism takes root in a fostering soil, with plenty of room to grow. We cannot rejard Mr. Forster's career without sorrow for the man himself as well as for the people he misgoverned. In Mr. Balfour, however, we recognise only the petty tyrant by nature, who carriei oat a congenial task, and in whom there is nothing to spoil. It is a hard case in which we find no relief except that arising from the knowledge that the minister of evil has from the first been on the level of the lowest, and bad nothing in him that could possibly be degraded. Nevertheless, a system of government whose administration necessarily degrades good and honest men is a thing to be abhorred and detested.

A SNUBBING FOB US. I

We have received yet another copy of the Whiieliall Review, containing also a passage marked wit i a dog-ear, bat this time with a lead-pencil as well, a. lead pencil that acribbleß, as if ih the hand of one who would cay t) us, " Take that now." And we take it accordingly . It places before us with more or lees severity, six points, as follows. (l.)ltis a comfort to think the Whitehall Review is known in New Zealand, and circulates there among the Irish. (2.) The N. Z. Tablet is very unlike the London Tablet. (3.) The N. Z. Tablet deals with the line pursued by the Whiteliall Review in terms that vary between peiaonal and vulgar, and incoherent and incomprehensible. (4.) English Catholics were laudably consistent 300 years ago in throwing off their allegiance to the Pope. (5.) The N. Z. Tablet has had time to digest and profit by the remarks of Dr. O'Dwyer of Limrrick. (6.) Irish Catholics are a nuisance, from a moral and criminal point of view, in comparison with the population of Great Britain, and the women are worse than the men,— Well, here is what we hare to say

to all this : (1.) Our contemporary is easily comforted. The Irieh in Mew Zealand are by no means proud, and, like ourselves, aiiy one o r more of them to whom he will post his paper will look it oveiEither the direct m»il or the San Francisco mail will bring any paper he posts, just as it does that he now and then sends us, quite safe, and there is nothing in the matter to surprise him in the least. (2.) The Tablet from which the N. Z. Tablet took its name was the admirable newspaper conducted by Frederick LucasWe should be ashamed to have anything in common with the priggish production that now bears the name. (3.) For the Whitehall Review to say that we are personal in our term?, is for the pot to call th« kettle black. His own columns are grossly personal, and he spares neither the living nor the dead. But does not an editor court personal remarks when he sticks his name up in the middle of his paper, and tells his readers that he, and he only, is accountable for every word published. If we have been personal, we have been to on his own invitation. The vulgarity we admit. "Je suit rilain, et ire's vilain" We have nothing at all in common with Lady Vere de Vere, but a good deal in common with the plain woman who called her ladyship by a name she richly deserved, and which truly belonged to her. For our part we do not enter into genteel competition with our contemporary, and are not advanced one step higher than fresh eggs, as he is by many steps. We may also be incoherent and incomprehensible, but our contemporary provesjto us that we can easily make ourselves understood and that is all we aim at. When he understands us no one else can "be far out. (4.) Our contemporary finds it convenient to overlook what we said about good Catholics in England in the reign of King Henry 111. How did they show tfceir allegiance to Borne ? we ask again He iB, however, not of one mind with George Eliot, who says it is the protince of common seus3 to hinder extremes. " The whole hog or nope," is his sporting maxim. The Devil Advocate should have hard work to pick a whole in our contemporary's halo when he is brought np hereifter for canonization. But if he has no halo and it not brought up for canonization, it will not be hard for those of us who survive, to guess where he is to be fonnd. A purgatory he perfectly drspises, or any other refvgium peccatorum. But every man to his taste. (5,) Oh, then, not a thing have we to do with Dr. O'Dwyer toy more than with the man in the moon. And thank God for that same. (6.) The "most Catholic people "do not fill prisons to an extent disproportionate with their numbers in Great Britain. Their numbers there are compared with the whole population, including even Mayfair itself, and the comparison is misleading and »njust. Nor does the fact that large numbers of people who leave their own country and fall among thieves are demoralised by the process, tell against their nation. The Irish people who immigrate into Great Britain commonly encounter a degraded and degrading hatred, like that which disgraces our contemporary himself. It is not in human nature that it should fail ia its effects. The black savage of Australia, the lowest of the human race, kills his fellow black, if, being the member of another tribe, he dares to enter upon his territory, and civilised white men, like our i contemporary, sink to the level of the savage in giving way to a similar hatred. It degrades those who harbour it, as well as its victims. But even the Irish population of Great Britain which gives up a large proportion of its members to the prisons compares favourably with that higher section of society, whose actions do not enter into the criminal statistics of the country, but which, for example, is accountable for the state of things described a few years ago by the Pall Mall Gazette, described, perbaps, with some exaggeration, but fully confirmed as existing by abundant proofs. It compares well, moreover, with that class of the English population that yearly sacrifices thousands of infant lives to Becure insurance money but which still goes undetected. As to the Irish women, again, in what are even the worst of them more degraded than those high-bred dames and damsels whom " Scrutator"' in Truth exposed to us the other day as daughters discussing their mothers' frailty, and mothers winking at their daughters' licentiousness, who, besides, frequent those places of public entertainment where, as we are told by the same authority, " the half-drunk lean over the half-dressed." Neither let us be too sure that even the half-dressed are themselves perfectly pober, for according to the information givtn us some time ago in one of the London periodicals by the preseot Duchess of Rutland the drinking as well as the eating habits of high society are excessive even among ladies. " Madge," moreover, also tella us that cases of sucb excess were quite conspicuous last June at Ascot. Finally, Modern Society of July 7, gives us the details of poker-playing, to which ladies of the very highest rank are devoted, and in connection with which there is a good deal of dishonesty. We fancy, then, the easily detected Irishwoman sent to gaol for some petty offence, may not, after all, compare so ill with the great lady of May fair who follows the ordinary habits of the period. But, as the chief object of our contemporary's publication is to uphold high society in the unreBtricted enjoyment of its privileges, we can make allowances for his zeal. The drunken Irishwoman taken off the streets of an English town, whither hatred such as that shown so shamelessly by the

Whitehall Review had largely contributed to drive her, is a disgrace to her nation. The high-bred English lady at whose licentiousness her mother wicks, or who discusses her mother's frailty, who is not free from a suspicion of intemperance and of dishonest gambling, is a glory of the age, and one in whose support, hatred, malice, all uncharitableneßs, nay, even killing itself, is lawful and praiseworthy. Such is the argument we derive from the Whitehall Review. But if, indeed, our contemporary is a fair exponent of the party to which he belongs, not only the interests of Ireland but even those of humanity and civilisation at large, demand the overthrow of that party, and the permanent and final destruction of its influence.

Thh Pall Mall Oaeette publishes an interview with Mr.Paraell,in which he ex presses himself favourable to the retention of Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament. He explains the opposition given to the proposal by the Irish party during the discussion of Mr. Gladstone's Bill as arising from their loyal determination to Eupport the Grand Old Man, and not from any prejudice of their own in favour of it. But he believes, and no donbt believes rightly, that those who opposed Mr, Gladstone's measure because of the exclusion in question would have opposed it still more vigorously had that exclusion not been made. Mr. Parnell looks to the next measure for Home Bule introduced as making provision for the retention of Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament, which he believes is destined to take the character of a federal assembly, including Members from the various divisions of Great Britain— England, Scotland. "Wales— and Ireland, as well as from the colonies — and to replace the present House of Lords, the House of Commons having become exclusively English. By entering into thi* scheme for federal union of the Empire, Mr. Parnell has secured the full sympathy and support of Mr. Rhodes, aa ardent Imperialist, who has made a large fortune at the Kimbeiley diamond fields,and who has contributed £5,000, with the promise of another Bum of equal amount, to the funds of the League, Mr. John Morrougb, an Irish resident of Kimberley, contributing at the same time £1.000. Mr. Rhodes is an Englishman, and a graduate of one of the English universities, where he returned to prosecute his studies on meeting with success in South Africa. There are few of us, meantime, who will not agree that in the federation of the Empire the trua solution of many difficult and all important questions is to be found, and that it is a splendid privilege for Ireland to have taken the leading place in a movement to bring it about, for this is in fact the ultimate meaning of Home Rule.

The libel action taken by Mr. O'DonDell against the Times, in connection with the publication by that paper of the articles on ParDellism and Crime, terminated in a verdict in favour of the defendants. The effect, however, was not to criminate Mr. Farnell and his colleagues in the eyes of the public, but to evoke the genera* opinion that they had been unfairly treated. The Chief Justice himself, in fact, though no friend to the party, found fault -with the manner in which they had been treated, and stigmatised it as grossly unfair, they having been accused but afforded no opportunity of defending themselves. What, however, produced a still more marked effect, was the determined refusal of the defendants to give any account of how they became possessed of letters asserted to be written by Mr. Parnell, among them that published a year or two ago, and commonly accepted as a forgery. Their refusal to do so was taken as a most suspicious circumstance, especially as the limes had alwayß implied that an opportunity wa9 all that it needed for the production of its proofs. And in this case proofs other than that of the authenticity of signatures is needed. Signatures are easily forged, so that e?en experts themselves may be deceived by them, or, if they be shown beyond all doubt to be genuine, there is still the possibility that the documents to which they are affixed are spurious and that their contents have been substituted for the original matter, by its being erased with the aid of chemicals, and their being wriiten in its place. No proof, therefore, could be valid or convincing except that given by showing by irrefutable evidence of witnesses that the man accused had actnally written the letters he was accused of writing. The fact that the Times flatly refused to bring forward 6uch proofs leaves it open to the suspicion of knowing that the letters produced or published by it were forgeries — whereas so far the belief had prevailed that the Time officials had themselves been deceived. The disingenuousness of the Times, moreover, was taken up and repeated by the Government in refusing the Parliamentary committee which Mr. Parnell demanded to examine into the charges brought against him, and their resolution in appointing instead a commission of judges which it was competent for them to pack, — as well as in their insisting that instead of limiting the examination to the definite charges brought against Mr. Parnell an inquiry should be made into all the accusations affecting the party generally, bo that the question of authenticity might be obscured and the time of the inquiry protracted indefinitely. It was on this unfair method of procedure that the Gorernment

insisted and they succeeded in carrying their proposals. Chief Justice Coleridge and Justice Stephen however, have been excluded from the commission as the Parnellites demanded, but Jnstice Day, who is no less objectionable, has been admitted to it. Meantime, Mr. Parnell has known how to counteract the tactics of his adversaries. His action against the Times will bring out the points the Government labour to obscare, and, independently of the commission, he will have the authenticity of the letters imputed to him examined into before the eyes of the country. We may be confident as to the results,— But with regard to the Commission, we may be prepared to hear some hard swearing, for an indemnity is secured to every witness, so that ruffians may be tiansporttd into heroes, and perjury may have boundless scope.

The case of Wood versus Cox in which the premier jockey of England obtained a verdict of one farthing's damages, at an expenditure of somewhere about £2000 in costs, has not cast a very honourable light over the transactions of the higher ranks of society. A large number of the principal noblemen and gentlemen of the United Kingdom were examined in the witness box, and their testimony brought oat a good deal that was very doubtful, or still worse than doubtful in its unsavoury certainty. But omitting particular details, Lord Marcus Beresford's general calculation, for example, th*t 30 per cent, of mankind are direct thieves gives us a very striking view of the classes with which men of his lordship's rank are most f -imiliar. On the whole, therefore,' taking in the valuation of the premier jockey's character at one farthing, and the readiness of men of high position, at least, to make use of and deal with thieves, high society does not come very brilliantly out of the affair.

WHArEVBB we may think of the theories and . opinions of the commissioner of the Pall Mall Graeettc, he makes us acquainted with a fact or two whose importance is manifest. We may or may not believe, as he certainly believes, that Russia is par excellence the benignant power of the earth, on whom civilisation and humanity depend. We may or may not believe that Prince Bismarck is an evil genius who cramps a great empire, degrades men into machine?, and generally plays the part of the monster of a fairy tale. But we must look upon it aa a most important fact that the Russian people are increasing at a yearly rate of a million and a quarter, which, of couree, must became doubled and trebled as the years go by. With such a population, the nation must of necessity extend itself beyond the limits of its country, and fresh woods and pastures new are a vital requirement for it. It is vain to tell us, therefore, that .Russian designs on Asia are limited by the demands cf justice and consideration for the privileges of other peoples, that Russia has no designs on the Balkan peninsula, does not dream of threatening the independence of Bulgaria, or of inteifering with the rights of the Turks. Russia will do what she must do to provide for the necessities of her people, and nature itself has imposed upon her the part of an encroaching power. But to counterbalance the influence of such a nation as this must certainly become— a nation spread abroad over a great surface of the earth, but still bound together by insoluble ties — nothing but a perfect union of a like insoluble kind will suffice. Scattered communities, such, for example, as the British Empire at present consistß of, will be worthless for the purpose. We, therefore, see in Imperial Federation the only effective fortification that will preserve the Empire intact, and confer upon the British nation enduring strength and independence. Viewed in this light, how false appears the policy which still aims at separation, and which, by keeping the United Kingdom still divided by a falsa appearance of union, places an obstacle in the way of the sole assurance of permanent welfare and stability. Russia will be one nation, rilling many lands, but strong in her unity. To meet her on equal terms, the people of the United Kingdom and the Colonies must become no leap.