Colonial Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 5, 31 October 1890, Page 2

Colonial Notes.

These actually ia honour among thievss then, and they are expected by one another scrupulously to observe it. The London Freemason protests in a highly iudignant, and, indeed, a somewhat violei>t strain against the iniquity of the Grand Orient of France in setting up ■ lodge on British soil. Sr Robert Stout incurs th-3 especial anger of the Freemason as the chief offender against honour. He is accused, as " Depu y-District Grand Master of Otago and Southland, and one on whom His tioyal Highness the Grand Master was pleased to confer tho brevet rank of a Past Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies of England at the time of the Queen's Jubilee," of having deliberately insulted the English craft. Toe Freemason, finally, proposes that Sir Robert Stout and his confreres in this business should be ignomimously expelled from English Freemasonry —and if Sir Robert has not an uncommon taste for titles, we may remark, in passing, the expulsion should in some sense prove a relief to him. What, meantime, is that other proverb about the falling out of thieves 1 At any rate, if English Masons were as chary of their independence as they are of their less important privileges, and showed themselves equally determined not to accept the obligation of carrying oat tho designs of the foreign lodges, honest men would find their neighbourhood a much more wholesome one, and would be much facilitated in holding their own. The correspondent of the Otago Daily Times wires as follows, under date Auckland, October 23 :— " B.sbop dwie, in his synodical addre9B, said it was never more necessary than at the present time that the clergy should be men of education. The melancholy exhibition of defective knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and of superstitious application periodically displayed in Auckland by travelling and unaccredited lecturers on the Bible might well cause dismay to those wbose prayer it is that the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified. Tuese remarks evidently weut into the breasts of some of his hearers, for in the course of the discussion that took place at the Diocesan Synod last evening as to the desirability of making an appeal to the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge to augment the home missions fund, the fiev. Mr, Beath scored ve*y strongly against the proposal. He urged that if such an appeal were made the S.P.C.K. snould be put in full possession of tho facts. They should know, he said, that the people of Auoklaod, though not very liberal religiously, thought nothing of putting thousands of pounds through the totalisator, kept opera and other professional companies going all the year round, entertained all sorts of travelling preachers, fed them profusely on tea and cake, and sent them away with their pockets well lined, while the actual wants of the church were neglected. These remarks were received with loud applause, and caused a good deal of merriment." — A divine, nevertheless, who, like Bishop Cowie, holds the right of private interpretation, appears rather inconsistent in the conditions be would impose upon preachers of the Gospel. Where, iv fact, is the Bishop to find the authority necessary to accredit them 1 The stump evangelists have decidedly the advantage of the Bishop, aud would be dull, indeed, not to keep it. What freer course, indeed, can the Word have than that which they bestow opon it ? And as to its being " glorified," that also is a matter of opinion. In fact, so far as the Word of the Lord has been glorified at all among Protestant peoples, it has been so chiefly by means of uneducated preachers. The Anglican Church, least of all, cad justly complain concerning the matter, seeing that at the beginning of the century England was saved from infidelity, risked by tne^neglect and worHliness of her educated ministers, by the wild and untutored preachiLg of the Wesleyans, and that all the religion now obtainiog among certain portions of the masses is due to the riotous piety of the salvation Army. Neither by reason nor experience can Bishop Cowie establish bis argument. As to the Ruv. Mr. Beath's tilt against " wine and cake " in the cause of bread and butter, it was not very dignified, and hardly harmonised with Bishop Cowie's plea for educated preachers. No wonder the occasion was one of merriment. As reported, at least, it seems to have been in several particular! highly ridiculous. We owe to our friend, the misplaced emergency-man of the Napier Telegraph, a knowledge of a possible derivation of the word '• end." Our friend, it seems, as he lately explained in a note to a much admiring circle of subscribers and th« public generally, betfan life in the colonies as a "cadet." Here is another example of how our friend makes good his claim to the abbreviated title. " Oar cablegram the otner day mentioned a report that the Pope desired to confer with Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien. We thought it strange that His Holiness wanted to confer -vith a couple of runaways. A cablegram tc-day puts the matter right. Dillon and O'Brien wanted to s c the Pope, but His Holiness declined to receive them. Dr. O'Dwyer, tha Bishop of Limerick, is the only [riso Prelate who has faithfully carried out the decrees of the Vatican by denouncing Dillon as the man deserved. For this the Bishop haa received the acknowledgements of the Pope, so it was not likely Dillon would be listened to at Rome." Much our "cadet" knows about the Pope — and as for Dr. O'Dwyer — the Bishop has hardly bargained for the admiration thus bestowed upon him. A poorjlady.who writes a paper called " Five O'clock Tea " for the Canterbury Times, and who ventured on a little vapH joke as to the impropriety <>f speaking of wine and ham-sandwiches uuder the name of teH, has been taken to task by a correspondent stgniug h rsalf " An Irith Girl Graduate." The poor lady expressed herself thus "I am glad we are not Irish euoagh for that sort." It snuul i be sweet revenge for tt c " Irish Girl Graduate " that the editor feelß himself obliged to explain in a foot-note,that the poor lady only meant to allude in a harmless kind of a way to the traditional bull of the stage Irishman, whom the editor stupidly takes for a real character, and Bince sucu was the lady's taste aud her necessity, she nuy well be excused,

The editor, however, goes further and stigmatises bis fair contributor as the '" Five o'clock Tea ' lady." Surely the correspondents cup of vengeance is li.led to the brim with Bweetness. The professional Treizieme himself was a dignified character compared tv that. As to the mauvaise plaitanterie, " Poor Ireland ''rushed Again," with which the editor h* ads his correspondent's letter, it simply shows that his own taste is, if possible woree tuan that of hia contributor and his wit quite as rusty as hers. It that another example of " pure Socialism " afforded us in the speech of Mr. M'Lean, th Labour candidate at Wellington ? Mr. M 'Lean declared he would not support a Private Schools Bill. "If some people " said be "did not take advantage of the public schools, they were simply refusing their rights and privileges." "In a Bocialiat community," we have been told, every creed would be placed upon an absolute equality, and none would be allowed to tyrannise over a weaker sect." The Secular creed, nevertheless, as we see, would command a monopoly, an i any body venturing to dissent from it would be subjected to heavy penalties — at least if Mr. iM'Lean, as we conclude he assumes to be, is an interpreter of pure Socialism. The cool impertinence with which the gentleman lays down the law as to the rights and privileges of people quite as capable of forming judgments as he is, is also deserving of notice. As to the chances that a man capable of putting forward such crude arguments on one all-important question, as those of Mr. M'Lean relating to education would prove in other respects an advantage to the Legislature of the colony, we leave it to the common sense those of whom it concerns. But it Bbould be recognised that to place the affairs of the colony, at a hazardous crisis like the present, in the hands of irrational and stupid men would be a very dangerous undertaking. Mr. Iz&rd, speaking at the Hutt the other day, excused himself for not voting against Mr. Pyke's Bill, by Baying he had been ill and obliged to leave the House. He also said be had been unable to pair, bnt without giving the reason why. The hon,, Member's illness perhaps, was of a sudden nature. He has, however, made the amende honorable by declaring tnat he will support the secular system without alteration. The candidate's pretence is the number of sects who might otherwise claim aid with the result of breaking up the sys em. No intelligent man, however, who makes use of his powers of observation can really believe there is the slightest force in such an argument. In fact were honesty oi 1 ability among the requirements Bought for in our legislators, such an argument should disqualify the ma i employing it If he be sincere in employing it he proves himself a dullard, and if be be not sincere he is, of course, dishonest. There is nothing, meantime, to preveot a candidate from being both the one and the other. On the contrary, the m»noer in which New Zealand has so far been governed proves that the combination h>is b?en by no means uncommon, Mr, Izard recommends parents desirous of educating their children in religion to give them iastructioos at home, thus, as the old saying h<ts it, adding insult to injury. In reply to a letter in the Wellington dailies accusing the Catholics of that city of being divided, ami one of their sectu.m of following leaders anxious for their own pecuniary interests to tee Sir Kobert Stout return* d to power, one Wellington Catholic alone, nevertheless, having held office, under Sir. Robert Stout, and he a gentleman incapable of compromising principle on any inducement, and far above all suspicion of pecuniary considerations-another correspondent writes to say the Catholics continue united on the one important point. " The Catholic vote," he says, is eound on the Education question, true to the old s andard ; but there is a large percentage of the Catholic vote sound upon the Unionist question as well, and they mean to stick to it. The kind of candidate to suit these men is a man who will combine Unionist principles and State aid to the efficient Catholic 6chools." So be it. For our own part we have no other desire than to see the Labour party well represented in Parliament. Beyond all others, however, we distrust Labour candidates who display an unfair disposition towards the Catholic claims. The candidates in question announce themselves as Socialists, that is they adopt a system brought into suspicion by men who were the sworn foes of religion, and which has had at least one great irreligious illustration, that namely given it by the Commune of 1871. It behoves them, tbertfore, to prove 'hat they disassociate themselves from the irreligious antecedents of their system, which are, besides, sufficient alone to corrupt and render it in every respect harmful and abortive, so that ihey may not deserve the opp<sition of every man who has a proper regard for the public bafety. We are glad to see that the comspondent to whom we allude describes Wellington Catholics asdetermined to obtain such a pledge from the labour canaidates supported by them, Our Wellington evening contemporaries are not to be congratulated on t^e manner in wnich they comment on the passage in Mr. Jellicoe's speech relating to religious education. Ttie Post, to all inteDts and purpose, employs the incredibly mean and glaringly unjust argument to the t ffect that unai led denominational schools are useful as helping to reduce the expense of the system, and must be left unaided for the purpose — for that, in fact, is wh«t bis plea amounts to. Our contemporary, moreover, knows how to touch a particularly sensitive point, by appealing to the special fears of a very influential portion of our population. He utters a note of warniug as to the necessity that he says would arise for reducing the emoluments of the teachers. The Post evidently lays due stress on the number of very respectab'e and well-to-do families who are more respectable hnd bettei -to-do still because of the comfortable and genteel berths tDJoyed by their members as teachers and pupilteachers. Our contemporary, however, is of a veiy admirnbla candour. He admits the hardship under which the Catholic community labours, but tells us to grin and bear it.— The Press is still more brutally fcrauk, He eaye plainly that the secular system waa intro-

duced for the purpose of getting rid of religious systems. His leader on the subject, in short, is a very excellent sample of that *' blow " of which the lata Mr. Anthony Trollope, for example, recommended colonials to free themselves. We Bbould say it was writttn by a native hand, or at least by one that was in a very tender condi ion when carried on board an emigrant ship. If the usa of Yankee slang were allowable, and indeed " rot " of the kind may justify the use (f almost anything in dealing with it, we shouli say tint tne *>rt,ic c alluded to was " high falutin' "iv no email degree. Where there is question, however, of maintaining an outrage on justice we need not look for anything very brilliant. At any ra'e, in neither of our contemporaries do we find it. Our contemporary the Wellington Post, as we have saen, admits that people who cannot conscientiously make use of the secular schools suffer a hardship, but, at the same time, sentences them to its continuance, lest there should be inflicted, as our contemporary argues, "an equal or greater wrong on other and more numerous sections of the people." Nor does our contemporary stand alone in such a line of argument. It is one that we find commonly employed. But how different is the spirit of the period from that of a less enlightened world whose motto was the manly words— fiat jxatitia ruat ccelum Expediency now thrusts justice to the will, and all our more advanced lights support the iniquity. It would almost seem that where the heart of humanity beat of old there is now a gizzard — a grinder-down by means of indigestible stuff.