Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 46, 7 March 1890, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

In these days when Protection versus Freetrade or vice versa, is a common topic, and also when the

COMING EVENTS.

relationship between a colony and its mother country is more or less discussed, some remarks recently made by the French Uader-Secretary of State for the Colonies— in which both of these points are touched on. may not be without interest for us. The report, from which we quote in effect, is given by the French Journal of Chambers of Commerce :— ln the past, said the Secretary, France could boast of having widely opened her ports, of having been a frej trader, and made the fortune of her neighbours. To-day she can no longer ignore what goes on around her. There are facts which Europe cannot misunderstand. America, for instance, having built up her industries behind carefully closed ports, thinks of creating a Zolverein limited to American products. France, thei, should take care to reserve for herself her own market — that of her territory and that of. her colonies. What proves that in speaking thus we speak truly and for the interest of the country is the irresistible movem3nt that carries Europe away. Th6re is a country which we were the first to explore and colonise, that is Africa. All tha nations of Europe are rushing to this country, even those who formerly professed the deepest disdain for colonial enterprises. Germany has entered there on the East and West. Italy has penetrated there on the East, and her situation is much more important than is recognised. As to England, she is everywhere in Africa as she is everywhere throughout the world. Her activity and perseverance disconcert tbe most active and persevering. The reason is that, with increasingly rapid production by machinery it is necessary to seek an extension of consumption. France must, therefore, go abroad ; she should go to Africa and the Indies. In Africa our task has been long accomplished, and it only remains for us to profit by it. In Indo-China we are permanently installed, and we shall remain there, let them say what they will. But we should not stay there for the Annamites only. Wa should thence reach China without letting ourselves be preceded by a people that neither hesitates nor shirks its work — that is, by the English, who have two routes by which to arrive there, Siam and Birmab. We have the good fortune to occupy Tonkin, a country which leadsimore directly to China by its roads and its river. This will f jrm the everlasting honour of the man who undertook the conquest. Europe, before many years, will envy us this country. — This utterance furnishes us with another proof that the colonial rivalry of European nations is a matter that must increase from year to year. Whether it will ever go to the length of provoking war between them it would be rash to say, but it may certainly exercise a more or less direct influence on other questions that from time to time arise. It will also in all probability be necessary to take it into consideration in any projects for division or union that become prominent in these colonies.

A GBIEVOUB announcement is made. It is to the effect that the Vale of Avoca, or a large portion of

DESECRATION.

it, has been purchased by an English match company, with the design of using up its timber in the shape of Lucifer matches. But does it not almost seem as if it had been with a prophetic eye towards this catastrophe that the name of Lucifer was originally pitched on ? The idea, aesthetically considered, is, indeed, one that might have arisen from the deepest shades of Erebus. Fancy that " brightest of green " sliced down into match-wood, and stuffdd into miserable little boxes, whose very sight is suggestive of the sweater and all that is distressing. There are sermons, we are told, in stones. A'as that the day should come for us to find poetry smothered in match-boxf s. But to what dirges may not the greenery of the Vale of Avoca, reduced to such a condition, give rite? All that now rrtaains is for the " clearest of crystal," the waters themselves, to be d/verted to some base use. Is there, for example, no fell-mongery to set up upon their brink, or can they not be conducted away to flush a system of sewage 1 But there is horror in the thought of " 'Arry " lighting his Sunday -out cigar with a match so associated. Irish

A NECESSABT FAILURE.

of a Home in the South of Eigland by a " Sister " who presided there. The Sister was a lady of the Ritualistic party in the Anglican Church, to whom tbe Honn belonged —and a lady of a very mortified spirit no doubt she was— that is so far as other people were concerned. We hardly Deed this proof, however, of the vanity of attempting successfully to work institutions that are out of harmony with the system in connection with which they are adopted. Monastic institu ions, Sisterhoods and Brotherhoode, belong properly to the Catholic Church. Under her guidance and in communion with her they have their use and are admirably qualified to fulfil the ends for which they are appoiutel. Separated from the Cnurch which gave them birtb, and in whose bosom they grew up and nourished, it would be unnatural were they to flourish. The Reformation, indeed, was very particularly an outbreak against such institution?. Rebellious monks were its first apostles, and against the monasteries its rage was chiefly directed. Protestantism grew to maturity in unmeisured condemnation of such institutions, and the new departure by which one of its branches attempts to adopt them is abnormal and absurd. "Popery male easy for srnail minds "is the definition given by a character in a boo'i by the late Canon Kingsley of High Church or Ritualistic principles — not so extreme then, however, as they are now, ami, to a certain degree, we may admit its fairnes*. It is, as it were, the shell of Citholicism or "Popery" that these people imitate, without knowing anything of what lies within, and by which all tbat meets the view is quickened and sustained. So far, therefore, as Catholicism or '• Popery "as they call it, may be imitated by those who see it only from the outside — and, after all, that is not very far, wn may admit that it is made easy for them, We do not admit the justice of stigmatising the adherents of Ritualism as people of small minds. Mistaken religious views, on the contrary, as experience prove 3 , are consistent with the highest and broadest gifts of intellect. This punishment, however, devised by the " Sister " to whom we have alluded, of rubbing stinging nettles across the lips of children confided to her care, is a piece of monastic discipline that seems anything nther than made easy. It is, in fact, an exaggerated and unnatural development of the idea of penance, such as seems especially charac-

woods before now, however, have been levelled and carried off, leaving the country they had enriched bira and disfigured, under worse conditions than those of purchase. Ireland, until the reigi of Qieen Elizabeth, was a country covered with forests, abounding in noble trees— and one of the perquisites of the captains who worked such cruel havoc in the island was the timber they felled there. Sir Walter Raleigh, in particular, made large sums of money in this way. The conqueror who lays disfiguring hands on the Vale of Avoca wins not by the sword but by means of hard cash, and it is to be feared that some unsentimental son of Erin may, as the seller, be his aider and abettor. But do we not live in the age of utility ? "Ouida," for example, in her " Village Commune," while she tells us many things that call undeniably for condemnation, weakens her plea a little by placing the mere »3thetic on a level with the just and equitable. One of the changes she looks upon as deep offences is the substitution of an ugly steam-mill far a picturesque water-mill, aod another is the cutting down of a copse to make room for a tram-way. What destruction, again, among romantic nooki and beautiful hedgerows has uot been wrought by improved farming. Nay, oue of the results of Home Kuie itself may bi inimical to the picturesquetaking thd form of an invasion of solitudes b/ factories aad workshops. We hvd in a prosaic and practical age. One of the misfortunes of Ireland, indeed, ig that her coniitiou has too long furnished a theme for the poet. It is to be feared, then, that the Vale of Avoca is doomed — 90 far at least as any hindrance can be offered to its being made use of as furnishing a supply of timber desirable for match-wood. The spirit of the age — in some of its aspects a very ugly spirit, perhaps — but one, nevertheless, that cannot be resisted, even if the attempt might legitimately ba made, is too strong for the poetic situation when it comes in contact with it.

Stinging nettles applied to the lips. Such was the form of m)rtificUiou acknowledged the other day at a Government inquiry into the management

teristic of an ill-imagined and grotesque imitation. It is the device, in short, of a step-sister, rather than of a sister, and may very fitly be taken as symbolical.

It would seem that there are States in tbe great Republic of the West, in which if a man marries

LOOSE BONDS,

he Is expected not only to revere his wife, but, also, to hold her relations and all her belongings in due worship. We have no data before us as to the esteem in which a Benedict must hold his mother-in-law, but that perhaps, is understood . The relationship was traditional even before the pen of Thackeray made it classic, and iron itself could not enter more weightily, or with greater sharp* ness into the soul of mankind. But what must it be to disregard a mother-in-law in a country where a wife's sister is sacred and even a wife's poodle is worthy of respect. To call a wife's sister a thief, in fact, in one or other of the United States is, if not a hangable offence, at least an offence that isdivorceable, and to kick a wife's poodle is equally criminal. A disagreeable sister, then, or an objectionable dog Is all that a lady tired of the matrimoniil bond^need there introduce into her household to bring about her freedom. Such cases, we perceive, are among those published recently at Washington in the official returns of divorces during the past 20 years, amounting in all to 328,716, A still more suggestive case ia that of the husband who was used to return home at mid-night and who then kept his wife talking, although she wished to go asleep. Unusual, indeed, was the taste of the husband who took pleasure in hearing his wife's tongue beguile tbe smaller hours of the morning. A gentleman phenomenal as that might almost be exhibited in a show. But might not Mrs Caudle herself hav3 sued for a divorce on such a flea ? Was it not her desire as a deserving matron to take her natural rest undisturbed, and was she not unwillingly kept awake by the necessi f y of lecturing her delinquent ? We are sure every married lady will bear us out in affirming that, when at night she has to explain to her husband his transgressions and to point out a way of amendment, it is he by whom she is kept unwillingly from her slumbers. The wife who obtained a divorce on such a plea as this established a precedent of which, if the sex is not libelled, there are many who may avail themselves. The wife nevertheless has not everything on her side. Tender thought has also been given to the condition of the husband. A refusal to saw buttons on in one case gained the day for him, and in another as much was done by his being prevented from approaching the fire in cold weather In the States alluded to, in [short, tha trick of putting asunder what God has joined together is easily played — easily enough to make the marriage tie a scandal and a laughing-stock, at least in counectien with those who acknowledge the lawfulness of such laws. Instead of securing to husband and wife the esteem or fidelity of each other, such laws would seem in themselves to form grounds for distrust and disunion.

enlarged changes in life which it gives him, he is quite as much benefited by his education as if he had sought to earn his living by means of it directly." But will scholarship, indeed, give " enlarged^ chances in life," when it has become general and all tradesman are! in this respect on an equal footing ? Is there not a danger, besides, that the man disappointed by the results of his own learning may be Tendered careless as to the education 'jot his children, so that progress will be retarded ? A universal scholarship delighting and benefiting a world too much occupied in unschoUrly pursuits to make nse of it would certainly seem to involve something of a contradiction.

The London Standard refers to a statistical work recently published by a German professor, and in which the auther deals with the number of students

TOO MUCH LEARNING.

at the Universities and the resnlts to which their studies must lead. " The Professor shows," says the Standard, " that fully one half of these hopeful youths are doomed to a life of poverty and disappointment. The vast majority of these twenty-nine thousand Burschcn are looking forward to becoming lawyers, or doctors, or pastors or schoolmasters, or ia some other way, either in private life or aa servant 9of the State, to earn their bread by means of the education they are at present so laboriously acquiring." The Standard adds that Professor Vuchow had already spoken to <* similar effect and warned young: men not to look to medicine for a career. " Both in America and in Great Britain," it goes on to say, "figures have been published bhowing that there are not patients for half the doctors, or clients f>,r half the lawyers, or churches for a fifth of the curates, who are every year let loose upon the world.' As to the cause of all this it has been variously assigned. The Standard explains and enlarges upon it as follows :— " The real cause will, we venture to think, be found in the ever-increasing tendency on the part of parents and their sons to look to the ' gentlemanly professions' instead of the more lucrative and more certain callings of a lees ' genttel ' description. In Germany aud America this trait is perhaps exhibited in its most exaggerated form, simply because in these countries professional training is cheap and the preliminary education abundant or easy to attain. But we see it everywhere else. Since the School Boards brought the three R's within the reach of every child, it is notorious that these youthful graduates have displayed a repugnance to the useful lives in which tuey have been born. They want to better themselves by becoming city clerks or nursery governessep. It is the first result produced by an unwonted state of affairs. By and by edjcatioa will get too common to be marketable. It will then be regarded simply as. a preliminary to any cal.ing, and not as a necessary antecedent of what the Germans call bread studies. A carpenter, or a b acksmitb, or a merchant, or a shopkeeper will discofer that he is none the worse for being a good scholar, and will even find that in the enhanced esteem, the greater pleasure, and the

A NATURAL OUTCOME.

Chnrch," known as tbe Rev. R. C. Cave, has gone out into outer darkness carrying bis congregation with him. Mr. Cave, it seems, took it into his head preacb a stries of sermons in tbe very bosom of the Christian Church, denying the inspiration on the Scriptures and tbe divinity of Christ. "He generally belaboured the accepted doctrines of the Church unmercifully," we are told. — But on being cut off for his heretical expressions, nearly all bis flock, consisting of the elite of the citizens, followed him, and will build him a church where he may propound heresy to his heart's content. Supposing, however, a popular minister of any non-Catholic denomination to propound heresy, the natural thing to expect is that his congregation should adopt his opinions. They attend on his ministry or "sit under him," as the rather inelegant and completely dissentlike expression has it, to hear what his individual opinion as to the meaning of Holy Scripture is. This is the true meaning of private interpretation and belongs to it as an inherent right. There is no fixed standard to which they can refer the doctrine preached, and each man must examine it for himself according to the light that is in him, and what his personal judgment teaches him with regard to Holy Writ. What we should rationally expect, then, is that a congregation, under such circumstances, would follow their minister and, of their own inclination, find a sufficient justification for his teaching. His influence over them must be trifling and his popularity a vain show, if either is not sufficient for the purpose. Mr, Cave's defalcation, therefore, and the effect produced by it on bis flock may be a matter for regret. Such occurrences, nevertheless, are in the very blood of the system of private interpretation and arise .from it ai a matter of course.

The Czar, we are told, stands out against recognisimperial ing the Republic of Brazil while Dom Pedro is alive. humility. The Czar, nevertheless, must use a powerful micro-

scope to discover in Dom Pedro anything of the Emperor as he himself understands tbe character. Beranger tells a story of Talleyrand who, expressing a desire to meet him, and being advised, therefore, to ask him to dinner, replied that he was to great a man to subject himself to a refusal. Dom Pedro, on the contrary, knew how to take a refusal with becoming humility. He, in turn, expressed a wish to leceive a visit from Victor Hugo— who excused himself on the plea of age. A few weeks later on, narrates M. Catulle Mendes, Hugo was thinking no more of the matter when a stranger piesented himself at the rue de Clichy, where be then resided. He was received by Mme. Drovet — an actress, we may explain, who, thirty years before the death of Mme. Hugo, had replaced that lady in her husband's household— and by her he was taken for one of the numerous guests entertained daily by the poet. It was full half-an-hour afterwards, when Victor Hugo came down and recognised his Imperial visitor, whom he invited to staj to dinner — limiting himself to giving him the seat of honour without making any change in the fare. Dom Pedro, it is added, was delighted with the reception given him. Respect for the Imperial principle must indeed be strong in the Czar, when he respects it in the person of an Emperor of whom such an anecdote is truly told. As to the Government which the Czar refuses to recognise, is may be doubted as to whether Brazil has gained much by the change made in its favour — fiom an Emperor, as wesee,of sufficiently liberal views. To speak of nothing else, in Prance at least the Republic has been found much more costly than the Empire. Leaving out all calculations as to the war and the army, for which the Republic is not accountable— the civil service, without anything to show for the greater expenditure, costs £7,000,000 more this year than it did in 1871, and that was au outcome of the reign of Napoleon lll.— an Emperor much more after the pattern of the Czar than tbe free and easy Dom Pedro.

A priest rewarded may well be termed, under existing circumstances, "the reverse of the medal." M. Toussaint Chapel, cute of Carry- le-Rouet, in the Bouches du- Rhone, carried consolation to ihe dying and help to the living, almost every hour of the night and day, when last spring the hamlet of Sausset was being decimated by diphtheria. He has just received a silver medal ia recognition of bis devoted conduct.

The benefits of an irresponsible ministry hare had another illustration in a case reported from Bt Louis, U.S., where a light of tbe " Christian