Current Topics.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 33, 15 May 1891, Page 1

Current Topics.

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

M. Anatole Leboy-Beatjlibu, in the Revue da Deux Monde* for March 1, gives a view of the Jewish qa stion more favourable to the people concerned than gome which have been put forward elsewhere. In the article referred to, which is to be followed by others, he examines the mater from a religious standing point and defends the Jews from certain accusations that have been brought against them. The Talmud, he tells us, on which some of these charges are based, is not of binding authority on the Jews, but contains chiefly a body of rabbinical opinion propounded during a period extending from the century preceding the Christian era to the fourth or fifth century embraced in it,— the most troubled epoch, he says, in all the long history of Israel. As an example, he gives us a sentence often quoted from one of the rabbins named Simon Ben Johai, who expressed himself thus : " The best of the Gentiles kill him ; the Ust of the serpents crush his head." But Simon Ben Johai, says the writtT, had in his eye the Romans of the time of Adrian, the profaners of the Holy City, and ho only applied to them the law of reprisals, the lex talioni*. It by no means follows, therefore, that the Jew of to-day considers himee'f authorised by his religion to kill even the best of bis Gentile neighbours.— Another accusation that has been brought against the Jews M. Leroy- Beau lieu explains as most especially revolting to the people accused and violently opposed to their religious precepts. It is one, nevertheless, thit has been frfqueatly repented, an instance of it having again occurred as late as last jear, and once more at Damascus— namely, that of killing Christiane— children particularly — to mix their blood with the bread of the Passover. The use of blood in any shape or form, the writer reminds up, is strictly avoided by the Jews. This charge, moreover, has been especially inquired into and refuted— and we may for our own part remark in passing that when Cardinal Manning, in response to an appeal from the English Jews, recently repelled it as false, his Eminence had high authority on which to act.— The Jews of Jampol in Poland, we are told, had been accused iD 1736 of having assassinated a Christian to use his blood in the making of their unleavened bread. In their distress they did not fear to invoke the intervention of the Holy See. The study of the question was confided by Pope Benedict XIV. to Ganganelli (afterwards Pope Clement XIV.), Mid who was then Consultor of the Holy Office. The learned Franciscan drew np a long report in which he concluded as to the emptiness of the accusation brought against the Jews, after having examined one by one the principal cases of ritualistic murder with which they bad been reproached for centuries. These conclusions were adopted by the Roman Curiai, who charged the Nuncio at Warsaw to protect the Jews against such calumny.— Nor was this the first time the Holy See had interfered in the matter. The Popes Gregory IX. and Innocent IV , the one in 1235, the other in 1247, by a Bull dated from Lyons, had publicly condemned this calumny, so much so that three centuries later the Protestant compilers of the Centuries of Magdeburg affirmed that Pope Innocent IV. had allowed himself to be purchased by the Jews —We do not know that the people in whose defenc- he writes will very highly appreciate the line of argument which M. Leroy-Beauheu adopts to e'ear them from the charge of taking a leading part, as religious Jews, in the anti-Chris-tian movement of the day. He challenges their claim to have promoted in any exceptional degree tha peculiar progress of the times. On the contrary, he believes that the religion of the Jews, as well a* .'that of the Christian*, is seriously affected. If Christians had remained more Christian, he says, the Jew would have little advantage over the Christian. What you call the " Judaisation " of our modern society Chris'ians and Israelites mignt equally call the " paganisation "of society. Aryans and Semites, un-Cnmtianisied Christians and un-Judaised Jews are going back practically to a sort of unconscious paganism. Is there, he says, in this decline of the Christian idea the revenge of one form of worship on another, and ot a distaDt past on the past of yesterday. It is that of the old paganism, of the immortal paganism, our neo-pagans woald ny

THE JEWISH 'QUESTION.

ready to triumph equally over the Law and the Gospel, own Jehovah and Jesus. What is in conflict with the Christian spirit it still tag the new science, and the modern spirit with its confused aspirations, than the old pagan instincts, the lusts of the flesh and the pride «f life nnbridled anew by the centuries. The idolatry of nature, tlw idolatry of man erected into God, such is the new worship to wbiok our western civilisation seems returning, and this false religion of the human substituted for the divine is, perhaps, even more repag* nant to the Old Testament than to the Gospel, to Sioai than to Oalvary. Individual or collective the apotheosis of the creature if the formal negation of Judaism. — According to M. Leroy*Beaalieo, therefore, the J.'ws who are prominent in the warfare against Cbrls* tianity, whether in the Press or the secret societies or anywhere elee, are themselves men who have lost their faith and who make war against revealed religion in any form. — But with the influence exercised by Jews over the secret societies, and with other aspects of the question the writer tells us he has still to deal.— lf be deals ai ablj with these matters as with that to which we have referred, the Jew* will be under heavy obligations to him, and, indeed, they are already his debtors in no light degree.

BATHER DOUBTFUL.

That was a very conservative speech that Lord Salisbury delivered recently at the annual dinner of the Associated Chambers of Commerce. Accord* ing to the speaker the economic system that has hitherto prevailed is the best possible — so good, indeed, that a Royal Commission about to be appointed to examine into the question will virtually te appointed to confirm existing conditions, btill, if there be one thing that eeems more clear thaa another, it is that the existing system has proved a signal failure. " Every year," said Professor Marshall, President of ihe Economic Section of the British Association, in bis address last Septemher, " it is more manifest that we need to have more knowledge, and to get it scon, in order to escape, on the one band, from the cruelty and waste of irresponsible competition and the licentious use of wealth ; and, on the other hand, from the tyranny and spiritual death of an iroc-bound Socialism." If, therefore, the excellence of t.ll that exists is not quite clear to people of ordinary understanding— as it, neverthehas, appears to be to Lord Salisbury, they perhaps are not very much to blame. Far be it from us, for example, to enter upon the vexed question of Protection or Freetrade. Sti.l we can perceive that, if, as Lord Salisbury complains, a recrude-cence of Protectionist feeling is a distinguishing feature of the prevailing democracy, the people may have something to urge in its excuse. If, as we are told, the tendency of wages it to fall to the lowest point at which it is possible for the working-man to live, we can understand that for the capitalist to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest may be but a doubtful advantage to the masses. It is certain that, notwithstanding the prosperous com* mercial career of England, run on Freetrade principles, great misery is still rife among her people. There are 3,000,000 of them, General Booth says, who can only live even a miserable life by beggary or thieving— and we have reason to believe that General Booth understates the number. A point on which Lord Salisbury also displays a liberal mind, is that regarding the unions. He cot only hopes that the spirit from which they proceei will continue but that it will even increase. But the orelative of nnions, "he said," waa perfect freedom not to have unions " — and here is the enigma. How, in fact, are unions to exist and thrive in presence of an element directly calculated to neutralise all their action ? We fancy the popular leaders themselves see the difficulty. " What, however, is not yet fully admitted," says Hyndman, " is that all combination is based in the lone run on force and fear of punishment " (Historical Batit of Sfdalitm, chap. VIII., p. 285). Lori Salisbury, again, has the deepest sympathy for the demand for a woiking-day of eight noun only. That length is all, he says, that a man's powers, mental or bodily, are able to endure. Still, he says, it will not do to make the matter one for legislation. All sorts of inconveniences and hindrances, ha <ells us, would arise from that, ending in a complete stifling tf industry. But has nothing of this kind been heard ot before ? What of the powerful arguments, for instance, urged against limiting the working-day in the factories to 10 hours ? "In oar reflecting and reasoning age," says Hegel, quoted bj Earl Marx, "a

mam is sot worth much who cannot give a good reason for everything, 00 matter how bad or how crasy. Everything in the world that has been done wrong has been done wrong for the very best of reasons." Professor Marshall says we want more knowledge to prevent a catastrophe, and even the few suggestions we have ourselves made Mem to bear oat his words. But Lord Salisbury's Commission is expected to arrive at the conclusion that the tconomic principles hitherto prevailing in England are the very best that can be thought of.

WASH! SACKED 1

Ah •• Ex-Teacber " at the Thames has found out that there is not a word of truth in the Tablet's arguments against the secular schools— so he writes in a letter to the local Star. And, by toe way, is it BOt joit at well this alarming pundit is an ex-teacher ? How long has be been to, let;us atk, or has he sung his Nune Dimittia so recently as to hare bad his share in the condition of educational affairs described tbeotherday by the Auckland Herald, and more recently still confirmed by the Otago inspectors. Where the Tablet, the Catholics, and the ■ecular system are concerned our pundit is as complete a know-noth* ing as if he hadneyer instructed a bantling in the " A B C," or known bow to do so. Religious teaching and the Bible were net excluded from tbe secular schools to accommodate tho Eoman Catholics, as thw" Ex-Teacher" says. They were so excluded to carry out the plan of the anti-Christian and secret sects of continental Europe. And before the secu'ar Act waa passed, the Catholics of the colony had met publicly and warned the Government that they would not accept the system— either with the Bible or without it. As to the advantages which the system offers— and of which our "Ex-Teacber" boMts— having perhaps had a consistent share in them— as we have •een, they are not without their flaws. But even if they were so where the bare matter of the " three R's " ia concerned, the disadvantage of sacrificing conscience for their sake would more than counterbalance them. Once more this pundit treats us to the numb-skull's argument as to the schools being open to all, and our having no right to object, because they are purely secular— as if pure secularism, unmitigated godlessness, was not the special object of our reprobation. But we must not be too hard on a poor body who doesn't know. As to oar " Ex-teacher's " statement that Catholic countries, notably Italy and Spain, are the most ignorant of all civilised states— such is •imply not the fact. And if this be the general nature of our " ExTeacher's" information, no wonder he is an ex-teacher. We, moreover, are not so dead set against the secular schools as not to congratulate them on getting rid anyhow of a bad bargain. Did he resign voluntarily — or did he get the sack ?