Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 12, 19 December 1890, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

BRILLIANT AND PHOFOUND.

correspondent who signs himself " Catholic," assuming the character of a man who has taken ever so many steps in advance of his people, who indeed has so far outstripped them that the wonder is the name they bear is any longer patronised by him. The Argus, however, notwithstanding his learning and brilliancy, Bhould abide by the truth. It is not true, that the Tablet, as he says, devoted an article to the term " bowling bigots,' as reported to have been used by Mr. Guinneas. The Idblei in an article on quite another passage in a speech made by Mr. Guinnes3, referred incidentally to the term " howling bigots," not having at the time received the contradiction published by the paper which had given the report. We do not know to what Christian denomination the Argns belongs, or whether indeed he belongs to any. His standing in religion, however, should be high, if we may judge from the way in which he lays down the law. It evidently requires an intimate insight into religious conditions to guarantee Catholic parents, as our contemporary does, that the moral and religious welfare of their children who attend State schoolß will not suffer. But the Catholics of his district, no doubt, will know how to appreciate our contemporary's assurance. Those of them who, as ha tells us, send their children to a S:a f es3iool, although a Catholic school is within reach of them will, perhaps, place the highest appreciation on it. As such Catholic parents, if such indeed exist, have but little scruple about the moral and religious welfare of their children, it should be easy to reassure them. We beg to congratulate them on their having a congenial patron in the Grey River Argv<: Catholic parents worthy of the name, meantime, will continue to look upon Catholic schools as the only schools their children can with perfect safety attend. They will prefer the teaching of their Cburrh and the experience of the Catholic world to the doctrine of even the most profound and religious of our secular newspapers, and religious as well as profound, no doubt, our contemporary the Grey River Argus is, particularly qualified, perhaps, also to act as a guide and leader of Catholics, and particularly deserving of their confidence. Still after all, you know, he must come a step or two behind the Pope. No offence to our good contemporiry, however. All the world acknowledges Pope Leo XIII to be a man of very exceptional abilities. As to our superior friend " Catholicus," we have to acknowledge with gratitude a word or two of commendation he deigns to bestow on us in passing. Coming from a man of his distinction, if we only knew whom he ie,it cannot fail to be flattering to us. The Catholic, however, if such there be, who sets aside the religious education of the young as a trifle compared to any other question, even the most important which can concern the State, is a Catholic who let his distinction be otherwise what it may has forfeited his right to the name. He is, besides, a very short-sighted and unwise politician, for, whatever in other respects may be the wisdom of the course pursued by it, no State that repudiates Christianity can, in the long run, prosper. And the State that excludes religion from its schools repudiates Christianity. But really the profundity of our contemporary the Argus ia difficult to fathom. Listen to this for example. "It would seem to the great majority of mankind " says our contemporary " that the potential truthsof Christianity, which underlie our social and raligiom w lfare are not of so abstruse a character that thpy must nece^arily be drilled into children along with the three R's six d*ys a we^k, backed up and aided as they , very where are b/ horns pr cpt and example, an i the weekly ministrations and djvo'ions at places of public w jrsnip." An oraan that is an authority as to the inmost mind towards Chnstnnity of the " great majority of mr nkinc? " must neceseanly be a formid-ableorg-an to differ from. For our own part, we possess no such universal insight or information. Whit we do know perfectly well is that the vast majority of Christians who should certainly be the highest authority on the matter, are fully agreed on the necessity for

OtTB learned and brilliant contemporary the Grey > River Argvs has hononred ne with some attention. He has had also the privilege of being assisted by a

community, or more respected as parents than those brought up in godless schools, and we have answered him to the effect that tbey are so, Here, for example, is a case very moch to the point in justifying our reply. Wt take it from M. Charles de Mazide, the political writer of ihe Revue dps Deux Mondex.the particular number of the periodical beiogthat for September 15 :— Since the fiist years of the century, says M. de Mazade, the years following the overthrow of those ecclesiastical forces of which our contemporary has spoken, and when godlessness in France bad begun to run its course, the birthrate has not ceased to follow a continuous uninterrupted movement of decrease, and by degrees has fallen from 32.0 for one thousand of the population to 23 9, and even, during the last years, to 23.4. Tina is a diminution of a quarter in the number of births. There were, in 1800-1810 3.93 children for each marriage ; there are now only 2.96. M. de Mazade, moreover, mikes it plaia that the result in question is one attending on culture, and consequently on godless education which dow more than ever prevails. It is, he says, the populations suffering the greatest hardship, the poorest, the most removed from, progress and the enjoyment of well-being, the populations of Finistere and Lczere— devout Catholic populations, we may add, who have the most children. M. de Mazade goes on to refute the argument, as a matter of course advanced, that religion lay at the bottom of the evil. The causes, he says, are surely not the philosophic fancies of the author who hns advanced this argument, and who insists that if France is sterile, she is so because the dt-mocracy remains centralisad and Catholic, because she has not yet succeeded in freeing herself from the influence of the past-. o f royalty, aud clericalism. The fact is, on the contrary, says M. de M ztde, that the depopula ion has commenced and kept pace with the emancipation spoken of, that it has Lot since ceased to develop itself ivithout inteiruption, to attain, in these last few years, us most maiked degiee. The remedy, as proposed by M. de Mazide, he explains at the same time, as being out of harmony with the policy of the period, that namely, as we know, of secularising everything, especially the schools, with which New Zealand also has entered on a similar policy, The

a religious education. Especially is this the ca*e with the members of the Catholic Church who form the majority of the majority in question. Our contemporary is equally profound in his explanation as to the losb of temporal power by the Christian Church. "It was not for the successes they achieved," he tells us, •' that, by a consensus of the opinion of the leading civilised peoples, the power and influence once possessed by the ecclesiastical forces of the day hava now largely, if not altogether, passed into the hands of the people." But was there such a consensus, and how did it come aboat, and when did it occur ? Historians tall us.for example, that revolutions by which s-ich chaoges have been brought about were, in fact, the work of agitators comparatively few in number. M. Tame, for instance, Bays, that such was certainly the case in France. We know, moreover, that to-day the great body of the people of Italy are still in favour of the ecclesia^ical power that of more reseat years has bean destroyed among them, and during whose existence nothing of the misery now rife in the country was known there. Had not the ecclesiastical forces, besides, achieved success, ths course of the world must have been very different, for they alone kept oppression and tyranny in check, and spread abroad education and enlightenment. la the degree, in fact, in which the people are capable to day of managing their own affairs they are debtors to the ecclesiastical forces. Their ingratitude is one of the worst and mo3t in;nicing charac eristics of the times. Finally, our contemporary asks. " Can it be maintained by anyone of experience that the pupils educ ited at denominational schools are in any respect morally better than those taught at State schools 1 Do they become better members of the community or mike more respectable parents ? " Our answer is moit emphatically, (1) It can, (2) they do. The brilliancy of our contemporary then, and the superior enligbtment of his correspondent, are, as we see open to some doubt. Matters at least, we may legitimately coacluie, are capable of beiag considered in a different light from that in which they regard them.

PROOF POSITIVE ONCE WOKE.

Our contemporary the Greymouth A>yus wants to s know if people who have been educated in denominational schools are more moral.better members of the

most efficacious means, he says, although, undoubtedly, of a rather slow effect, would be that of an appeal to moral influences, of reviving the idea of duty superior to the calculations of a sterile egotism, of reaffirming family organisation and habits, of re-attaching the people to their homes, by fortifying them against mischievous seductions. Bat this, he adds, would be to run counter to the policy of the day, aDd, hitherto, nothing better baa been found to cure this evil of sterility, of which we complain, than to flatter the instincts which have contributed to create it. It is evident, then, that generations educated in eecular schools are morally inferior to those who have been educated religiously— and that, as parents especially, they are much lees respectable. Could our contemporary's question, in fact, receive a more significant or a more conclusive answer.

BETHOGBESSION.

The false pretensions of the period are in nothing made more manifest than they are in this matter

of education. By nothing is it made plainer that the world has virtually returned to where it was in times that are now condemned as comparatively benighted. When all plausible arguments brought forward against denominational schools fail this becomes evident. They tell us our schools are lees efficient, but we Bhow them that they are undeniably more so. They say our system is more costly, but we prove it to be less so. Then they exclaim— Your schools produce criminals. And what is this in fact ? An adaptation of the old accusation on which tha penal laws were based. Your religion produces rebels, the Catholics were told ; bence it is necessary to restrain you, and, in consequence, the priest and the school master were outlawed and all the other villany likewise ensued. The principle on which we are now plundered in support of a system of which we cau make no use, is the same, in short, as that on which a. former generation was openly deprived of its estates »nd its personal effects. Another argument is to the effect that it is desirable to do away with all religious disagreements among the people and to establish one uniform rule of harmony among them, to es'ablish, in fact, a reign of indifference as regards religion. But here again, we have the penal days returned upon us. Queen Elizabeth, for example, was exactly of euch a mind. She would brook no religious variance among her people. Consequently, attendance at the parish church was made obligatory under penaity of heavy fines —not to speak of other means of a more extreme kind. But this illustration seems to us particularly appropriate, considering the fine now levied on Catholics who desire to follow the dictates of conscience. Again, Louis XIV. was bent on uniformity of religious opinion among bis people. As a consequence his Majesty organised the Draggonades and revoked the Edict of Nantes. The principle of religious persecution, therefore, has been re-introduced in these enlightened times of ours, and expediency only can determine the degree in wbic>> it is to be enforced, or the cases to which it is to be applied. There ii still another p.ea unbluabingly advanced for which we seem to look in vaio for a precedent, even iv tbe times of acknowledged persecution, that is, that the minority must in all things submit to the will of the majority. But what infamy is there, in fact, that can not tbos be justified 1 The negroes of the slave States, for example, were a minority. Therefore, according to this argument, all tbe horrors described in Mrs. Stowe's famous bookmatters most profitable to the majority— were justified. There is no scheme of confiscation, no act of oppression, no public crime that could not be justified were such an argument admitted. Fiat just it ia mat cwlum, so ran a motto of the ancient world. But, for our part — " nous aeons change tout cela ' — we have found a better axicm. or one, at least, more suited to the spirit, if not to the pretensions of the day. Lst us do justice only to the big numbers — Providence favours the big battalions — and as for the small ones, let us make our profit of them, Let the sky keep in its place and justice take its chance. There, then, is our enlightened period before us, our /in de sieclc, emulating the persecutions of Queen Bess or the Graud Monarque, and inventing a plea of policy that would have made the heathen world blush for Bhame. The augury certainly is not promising for a Dew country— a new country, moreover, apparently making a new departure.

It is an ill wind, they say, that blows nobody good. , For our own part, if our attitude on the education

six or one Ere,

question removes us from tbe ordinary sphere of politics and places us without the reach of party coosiderations, we have still our consolation. We do not, for example, feel any of the devouring anxiety that just now possesses the minds of the majority of our neighbours — whether they be on the one side or the other. We can, therefore, take a calm view of affairß and await developments without impatience. Not bo, however, our old acquaintances of the Conservative camp, nor yet our future benefactors, as we may hope they may prove to be— wno are newly come to the surface, and who, or at least aime of whom, boast their proclivities to be socialisttc. Ibere is on the one si ie a 1 njing to see bir Harry Atkinson bold on, by at least the skia of bis teeth— -in the forljrn hope, nc doubt, that something may happen before the new Parliament meete

AN INDEFINITE ARTICLE.

debted for such great benefits, we have asked wnat is the State ? and received for our answer — the people. We are dull enough, neverthe'ess, to find the answer indefinite. Is it the people forming each bia own judgment for himself, forming it on sufficient grouode, and with due enlightment, prudence, and moderation? And what guarantee can we have that this is possible 1 la it the whole people, or only their mijority / Are minorities, even large minorities only exceeded by a vote or two, hopelessly to be excluded, and to submit to the sentence passed on them by the equity of the period — namely that of obeying the will of the majonty, let it be ever so UDJust ? Is it the people instructed and enlightened, and making independent use of their instruction and enlightenment 1 Or the people rather stupid — " mostly fools," says Carlyle — and somewhat idle, sent to school, perhaps, but not having given much attention to their books, or if bright md attentive not so instructed by what was placed before them, as to have profited much mora lly or intellectually, but especially morally? Is it the people in a calm and temperate frame of mind acing for themselves, or the p eople excited aDd misled by demagogues 1 Is it the people actuated by a noble public spirit, or the people respectively seeking their own ends ? Is it the people, in fact, as they exist in theory aDd on paper in the study of some philosopher, or would-be philosopher, or the people as they exist in reality and in the flesh, and as we have, more or less, to do with them and to guard against them every day in the week, Sundays not excepted ? Is it the people developed, as >ye are told they will be in the time of our grand-children of a fifth or sixth generation, or the old creatures we have known, guided by prejudice, swayed by passion, and now and then goaded and driven half mad by panic ? If the former, let us consider ourselves blessed in being permitted to wait until the happy development has been fully worked out— when, for instance, tha last man, according to Saint-Simon's doctrine, consumes the last drop of water left in the world, and dies a raving maniac— that we may enjoy their benefactions. But, if tbe latter, let us make the best of a bad bargain, deplormg the plight into which a miserable f ate has cast us, and expecting the worst— for bad will be our best, ac

to give him an advantage. After Sir Henry Atkinson the deluge I Though what Sir Harry has done during his long tenure of office to prevent the deluge, it would, perhaps, be difficult to aay. Nay, might it not be argued that, having done nothing to prevent it, he had prepared the way for its flowing in i The potentate to whom the saying we have adapted is attributed certainly did bo. Under Sir Harry's management of affairs, at any rate, the discontent arosel and grew that has culminated bo far in the return of the Socialist^ Members. On the other hand, Mr. Ballance is quite ready to accept office at onee — indeed, it appears that he would pr. fer to do so. An opportunity would thus be given to him, he tells us in effect, to devise a policy which he might introduce on the meeting of Parliament, so that no unnecessary delay should take place in the bounding and leaping forward of the colony. And, naturally, there is a good deal of anxiety felt among Mr. Ballance's follower that he should be given his way in the matter. But a great deal is implied in the attainment of power by the new Membere. We await from it, for instance the clear demonstration that, after all, and contrary to the general opinion and experience of the world, only contradicted here and there perhaps, bj the inevitable exception that proves the rule—statesmanship is a quality easily acquired— more, that it is born with the ordinary individual and only needs that an opportunity should be given him to bring it triumphantly inio play. We conclude, meantime, that such popular governments as have been hitherto established fall short in some particular or another. They, perhaps, hamper their members by insisting on something more than the sweet simplicity of complete inexperience and want of training. If, for example, the artisan, pure and simple, taken, all unprepared, from his last or his goose, takes any principal part in the French Legislature, it is to be feared that the precedent is unfortunate. The condition of the workingman, which forms the criterion of the period, at least leavo 8 much to be desired in France. In France, moreover, under a popular form of Government the population regularly decreasee, threatening the very existence of the nation. In I-aly, again, a more popular form of Government has been attended by extreme destitution among the peopl* and the depopulation of the country through emigration . Let us hope, therefore, that some element enters into the popular forms of government respectively prevailing in those countries, perhaps a wider knowledge of the world among the members and, consequently, a deeper infection with guile, that will net be found to prevail among our oar own Social democracy. However, as we have said, for our own part we look on with comparative indifference. For us there is not much to choose between Conservative and Socialist, and we shall watch their struggle with an equal mind, gaining, at least, all the benefit we can in an enlarged experience.

WHAT is tbe State ? Everything we have been told is to come to us from the State, and, being desirous of knowing to whom we should be in-

the Baying is. We see, then, that the explanation that the State means the people is, as we have said, an indefinite one— but then, we admit, it would not eeem one whit the more comfortable were it as clear and fixed as anything could possibly be. The people working their sweet will without restriction have ever proved themselves the most relentless of despots.