Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 17, 12 February 1892, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A BPBKCH made the other day by Lord Salisbury at Exeter Hall seems to have been worthy of the traditions of the building. No rev. gentleman bent on impressing his hearers with the wickedness of Borne and the danger of allowing Catholics to exercise the ordinary privileges of British subjects could possibly surpass the Prime Minister in the venom of his discourse, Nor could any rev gentleman of the Exeter Hall type speak more blatant nonsense on other subjects — and that is saying a good deal. One wonders a little whether Lord Salisbury can be quite in his right senses when h« talks the folly for which he is thus accountable. Surely any man capable in any way of performing the duties of Prime Minister of England mast have a better understanding than that betrayed by Lord Salisbury if he actually is in his right mind. But what shall we say of his argument to the effect that unless his design be carried out of twenty years coercion, with prolongation ad infinitum, for Ireland Great Britian must lose all her colonies ? Wbat kind of a tie, then, binds the colonies to Great Britain ? Is it a yoke to which it ib dangerous to call the attention of colonists, lest they should perceive its undesirable nature and shake themselves free of it ? Colonists, we, fancy, are not so dull of perception. Not even the sight of 111 1 el and Buffering from coercion will be able to blind them to tbe disadvantages of union with the old country, if each exist. Or is it intended that they should take warning by coercion in Ireland as to what tbe old country could do if she saw any necessity for it ? Tbe union of the colonies with Great Britain, nevertheless, must rest on no false or visionary basis. Even the worthy sentiment arising from kinship and intimate associations will not be found sufficient. How much less tbe example of injustice suffered by another country 7 It ia impossible, we say, to take each an argument as that of Lord Salisbury for the reasoning of a sane man, and it is absolutely insulting to the colonies. The fact ia the concession of Home Bule to Ireland must, on tbe contrary, have the effect of tightening the bond that binds tbe colonies to Great Britain. Tbe chief advantage we have to gain from this union ii secirity against invasion, without the necessity of supporting a fleet and constructing fortifications, both at a cost which must be ruinous to tbe colonies in their present stage of development, and for very many years to come. We have especially to dread the growing power of China, which threatens in a short lapse of time to become a dangerous neighbour to ua. Nay, even as things are, were tbe seas not swept by the British fleet, we might be now in peril. Piracy still exists on the Chinese coasts, and quite recently we heard of the exploits there of a force of these outlaws of tbe deep, numbering 1000 men. Such a descent on Australasian coasts would not be impossible were they not protected by tbe English fleet. In any ca9e tbe Chinese navy, which is a'ready sufficiently formidable, and to improve which effectual measures are being constantly taken, will bj hardly more to be depended on tbau if it were a fljet of pirates should the opportunity offer. Russia is another power that we must take into consideration, and it would be difficult to speculate as to the use t j be made of her strength by a country so completely out cf touch with the spirit of the age, as to contemplate, as we are told she now does, the restoration of serfdom. Separated from England, the colonies would, in short, occupy a very precarious position. 1 heir welfare and safety depend very considerably on the prestige end power of England. But with a discontented Ireland continually drawing on her resources, and with a majority of the Irish people still ready to be allied in any crisis with her enemies, as Lord Salisbury complains they have always been, England's power and prestige must necessarily suffer. The majority in Ireland, moreover, is now made more formidable by the millions that, outside of Ireland, are in close sympathy with them, and on whose assistance they may always reckon. Home Bule for Ireland, therefore, does not imply, as Lord Salisbury foolishly argues, the disloyalty and separation of the colonies. On the contraiy, it implies the strengthening of one of the chief ties that binds

THY BEY. BOANIRGEB OBOIL.

fcbe colonies to Qreat Britain. Aa to Lord Salisbury's argument that Home Bale would mean, according to the old cant-word " Borne Bule,' or the rale of Archbishops Croke and Walsh, it was an argument, ai we have said, worthy of Exeter Hall. The Prime Minister of England cats a pretty figure in thus identifying himself with the " NoPopery '' Boanerges. Bat, even morn than his hereditary taint of anti-Catholic bigotry, the straits in which ha finds himself may be urged as in some degree his excuse.

THE BITBB BITTEN.

But the agitation for Home Rale, maoh m the Tories affect to despise and condemn it, has atill taught them a lesson, ani very effectually altered their traditional policy. Without this agitation, for example, what chance would there have been that a Tory Government would introduce and pass the Irish Land Purchase Bill. While they have advocated coercion and insisted on its efficacy the Tories have not had the courage or the power to enforce it in such a manner aa to make it truly effijaciom. They have been obliged, in spite of themselves, to make concessions to Ireland tbat prove the vanity of their boasting and give encouragement to the National majority to persevere. Nor is it only in Ireland that a change in their policy has been forced uoou them. The proposal that Lord Salisbury now eagerly makes for the creation of a peasant proprietor/ in England also, in all probability, owes its origin to the necessity he perceives for gaining support among the English masses, and keeping them from giving their Bymptthy to the Irish movement. We should say such was certainly the case, did ie not seem possible to us that Lord Salisbury, in the way alluded to, hopes to restore, in some measure, the former conditions. The Budsian Emperor, we are told, proposes to restore serfdom. Lord Salisbury, perhaps, believes that he cat bring back Hodge to his primeval state. No condition, we know, has ever been more favourable to the order of things tha Tories would maintain than the dispositioa anl mental standing of the English agricultural labourer. Nj being on earth, as a rule, has ever been less intelligent or more fifed to slouch aloDg through life in the time-honoured ruts pursued by his forefathers. The old squirSe who, fifty or a hundred years ago, opposed every project advanced for tha education of the peasantry, knew very well what they were about, and, stupid aa they miy have seemed at the time, the course of events has proved their cunning foresight. They knew very well that the education of the rural classes meant the overthrow of their ancient solitary reign. Education has driven Hodge out of his time-honoured coarsas. It has seat him out of the country into the towns and made him a formidable agitator. Lord Salisbury hopes, perhaps, that his return to his rustic surroundings, with a sufficiency to content him there, may bring him back as nearly as possible to his former condition. Otherwise the Prime Minister's sole motive is that of counteracting the feeling in favour of Ireland which is growing among the Eughsh psop'e, ani this indeed appears the more probable view. The measures, however, adopted to carry out the design in question must be m >rj string jut than those authorised by the Land Purchase Act for Ireland. There, we are told, an impediment is offered to the change desired by the unwillingness of the land owners to sell, and there are no provisions in the Ace to compel them. In order to form an English peasant proprietory it will be necessary to force the landlords to part with their acres — and this will seem even harsher to English landlords, who in an infinitely greater proportion have inherited the estates of their ancestors, and are not, as perhaps the larger number of Irish proprietors are, the heirs of men who purchased their holdiDgs in the Encumbered Estates Court. As to the effect to be produced on a man who is obliged to part with lands hell from time immemorial by his forefathers, we may judge by the case of the late Duke of L-inster, whose death was a consequence of such a sale. This case, indeed, maj be taken as extreme, but it still informs us as to the strength of the feelings involved. It is the irony of fate tbat obliges a Tory Government to inflict such suffering on its own chosen adherents in favour of the canaille. Coercion, therefore, where Lord Salisbury is concerned has proved a two edged tool, and has severely wounded tka hand that has wielded it.

A LOST CHANCB.

AN article written in Unionist interests and contributed to one of the London periodicals by Lord De Vesci, recalls to us an undertaking once Bet on foot bj his Lordship's grandfather, and which, though in all probability no each intention was connected with its inauguration, had it been successful must have proved hostile to the Union. The undertaking was a school at which it was proposed to educate the sons of the nobility and higher gentry of Ireland, so that the absenteeism from which the country suffered so severely might be hindered by the affection for their native land, that boys brought up at home would naturally feel. For this end a suitable staff of masters was engaged, their head being a member of a noble family, and all of them capable of carrying out a refined education in its perfection. The time we speak of is now some sixty or saventy years ago, and it certainly was fraught with momentous iesaues for the Irish people. It bade fair, moreover, to prove a decided success. Lord De Vesci' himself a landlord resident on bis property, and aaxioas for the wel" fare of his tenants, was very active and influential in bis patronage' aod many of the sons of the classes he desired to reform were sent to his school. Everything was proceeding thus prosperously when, by misfortune, a lad , the heir to an earldom, and whose earlier boyhood bad been passed in Italy, was entered among the pupiie. This youth in a boyish way, had obtained some acquaintance with the methods of the Carbonari, and, on his arrival at the school in Abbey leix, he proceeded to initiate his schoolfellows into the principles and practices of the conßpiraturs as be understood them. At that time the members of the higher classes both in England and Ireland wsre nearer to the French Revolution than we remember them in later days, and in noble and gentle abodes in Ireland the memory of Lord Edward Fitzgerald was possibly preserved as a warning. At any rate, the sympathy for Garibaldi and his evil cause that marked a period then still far in the future seems to have bad no counterpart. The alarm was taken at once, and a violent alarm it was— the upshot being that the school was completely broken up—and thus another good intention of which poor Ireland waa tae object went the way proverbially common to such intentions. Would that it had been the last so to perish. To give a greater verisimilitude to this our old recollection of a past now probably recalled by few — if by any besides the writer, we may mention that among the pupils of this school was, for instance, the late Mr Horace Bochfort of Clogrennon, in the Count? Carlow. We also know the name of the young would-be Carbonaro, but, as in after years, when he wore the earl's coronet, on being taxed with his boyish escapade, he boldly denied it, and even declared that be bad never heard of the school in question, be had evidently repented sincerely, though secretly, in sackcloth and ashes, and was thoroughly ashamed of his former self. We, therefore, spare his memory. But is it not evident that Ireland lost a chance? Is it rot evident that, whatever may have been tbe limits of Lord De Vesci's intention, had a mtjority, or even a considerable minority, of the nobility and higher gentry of Ireland been so educated as to repudiate absenteeism and regard their conntry with a genuine affection, they must have exercised a powerful influence in rejecting; an alien government and claiming the repeal of a degrading and injurious union? Tbe article, meantime, to which we have alluded does not seem to suggest that tbe present Lord De Veeci has inherited the benevolent desires of bis grandfather.

PRESBYTERIAN NOTIONS

The Dunedin Presbytery have also been uttering their periodical plaint, that in favour of Bible-re idiDg in the public schools. We see some reason to h« pc, moreover, that the Presbytery are actmlly attair,ing to a higher pitch of civilit-ation. They have not, it is true ( said aDy thing that can be interpreted as a positivj support of the Catho'ic claims. The Rev Moderator, on the contrary, has disclaimed any such intention. His method of doina so, however, gives us loom for some speculation. "He thought," Baid he, "it was not desirable that they should go to instruct Parliament how to deal with the Catholic? in their demands, but they should go as one man and ask what they craved for and what they thought they were entitled to.' 1 May we not hope, theD, for the negative support of the Presbjtery in their not instructing Parliament to deny our claims? And even that would be stmetbing gained, particularly if such self-restraint on their part withdrew the opposition offered by the members of their Beet to Parliamentaiy candidates inclined to favour the Catholic claims. Meantime, accustomed as we have always been to associate caution with the Scotch character, the following made by the Moderator, Levertheless, took us by surpiue. "He was surp," he said, "thit they were beginning to be ai-h imed of themselves in this matter*" Is it the camion of the Scotch char.cter that is excesßive, or is it the toughness* of the Scjtch cheek that retards its blushes? At any rate, the Moderator tells us ttut now, after some fourteen or fifteen years of godless educati)n, they are beginning to be ashamed of themselves. How ia it that these venerable elders begin where people of less pretensions leave elf? Catholics, at least, would have been ashamed to pat a foot upon the road along which the Presbytery and their followers have been travelling without

shame for so many years. But no* that they are beginning to blush what are they going to accomplish ? We fear the answer may be that alone which echo can return. We confess that if we were secularists we shonld not be much alarmed. Neither the Anglican Synod nor the Dunedin Presbytery would hare many terrors for us. It is not a peiiodic complaint, nor a periodic debate, in isolated quarters that is wanted, but constant, united, and determined, action on the part of all the Christians of the oolony. What hope is there that the Dunedin Presbytery will enter into such a nnion ? Not even the grounds given ub by the Moderator's speech for the conclusion that they are cot bent on continuing to offer a positive opposition to the just demands of their Catholic neighbours have much encouragement for us. Before we witness fruitful results their shame must outstrip its beginnings, and, considering the leisurely manner of its growth, the time of fulfilment seems still far dißtaot.

ANGLICAN IDEAS.

The Anglican General Synod at Wellington hare carried a resolution, moved by Archdeacon Harper, in favour of grants in aid to denominational schools. The debate which took place en the matter was an interesting one, and we are glad to see that most of the speakers seemed in favour of the Catholic claims. Indeed, so far as we can learn from the report telegraphed, the only marked and direct opposition offered was that of Mr James Allen. We do not know that this gentleman is exactly a Goliath, out he is, nevertheless, a very determined and egregious Philistine. Besides, he has something in his nose, as the saying is, for Catholics, and he will, consequently, persist in vexing his face by biting that member. Mr James Allen, however, ia not a very formidable enemy. His sweetness, as we may pretty surely calculate, must, for some time to come at least, be wasted on the desert Bir of synodß and other less influential assemblies, and the strong probabilities are that, before he re-enters Parliamentary life, if he does so, the question will be settled. Although there is a good deal to interest us, as we have said, in the utterances of nearly all the speakers, we find that of the Bishop of Ohristchurch most to the point. His lordship is thus reported :—": — " The Bishop of Christchurch Baid he was heartily sick of resolutions and discussions which led to nothing at all. Most people did not believe the Anglican Church was in earnest in the matter, and he believed the people were right. They were content to pass resolutions instead of putting their shoulders to the wheel and doing something for themselves. He did not believe their Church would live another 20 years in this Colony if they did not have the catechism and the fundamental principles of Christianity taught to the young of New Zealand." Dr Julius, we confess, seems to us to have hit the nail on the head. The Anglican Church is apathetic in this matter, and these frequent discussions and feeble pleadings in their synods have all the tone of conventional remonstrances adopted merely to save appearances, or at best as a salve to consciences by no means heavily burdened. Surely the Anglican clergy as a body cannot be so completely devoid of influence and so incapable of obtaining a lespectful hearing from their flocks, as that a determined and constant effort on their part should not produce some wholesome effect. If such be really the case, the 20 years that Dr Julius allots as the limits of bis Church's life under the undisputed rule of secularism is far too long. The opportunity, however, for proving how the matter stands is provided for in Archdeacon Harper's reeolu tion. A clause in this resolution, as carried by the Synod, provides for a petition to the Legislature, and we shall be able to judge by the manner in which this is carried oat what the condition of the Church really ie. A petition meant in earnest and fully representative of the Anglican body must necessarily command the attention of Parliament, Is it probable that such a petition will be presented 1