Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 4, 22 May 1896, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Thb case of Spain and Cuba bean dose resentUMKiwu mothbb blanoe to the relations of England and Ireland. In Axn ill- both absenteeism, repression of industrial activity, rBBATKD child, alien and corrupt administration, have played

havoc with the progress and happiness of tbe people. Cuba has been a milch-cow to Spain, bat goaded on by unkind treatment the docile animal at length has kicked. The w ever faithful isle n has been squeesed like ao orange till there is no more juice. Tbe oountry has been drained of its resources to tbe utmost extent. The complaints of the Oubane are voiced by an able journalist Marat Halatead. " Cubans complain that the oastles of Spain, the actual Bpanish castles, wsre boiltoat of Oaban money, and they variously explain the phenomenon. They say they may pro. dace 490,000,000 a year for sugar and tobacco, and after doing so must spend it for importations of msohinery, flour, clothing, etc. The cost of money per year is 12 per cent, for undoubted security. That ia the price of it advanoed on sugar and taken oat of tbe new crop every year. The banks are Spanish and do not accommodate tbe people. They are Government agencies, milkeri of Cuba, not helpers. It is declared that the custom boose is corrupt ; that there !■ robbery both of the revenue and tbe people to enriob tbe offisiali. There are stories of looting the palace by retiring Captain-Generals, and few are ■pared in the ooandals. Campos is mid to be honest personally, but his brother-in-law is denounced so 1 udly and largely that there is no news in tbe ttory. We make about 1,000,000 tons of sugar per year, filling 700,000 beg*, says tbe Cubans, and tbe oost of an Roglish jate bag is 9 cents, and tbe duty it 10 cents. Spain pays no duty, and has, of course, a monopoly of the bag business. Tbe cost of bags to tbe planter is 20 cents each. Spain get) 4140000 a year out of Cuba for sugar bags. Fifty-two per cent, of tbe commerce of Barcelona is Cuban, and (50 per oent. of it is extortion through law*, discriminating for Spain against Cuba." At to tbe administration, we find, according to the special correspondent of tbe New York Journal that the Cattle system of Ireland has its counterpart in Cuba. Fully seventy five per cent of the government offices are filled by Spaniards. The fortunate Cubans who manage to secure the remaining twenty fire per cent have "to send money to Spain to get them." Tbe quickly recutiing changes in the administrative personnel is an intolerable evil. "Go to Cuba, ret ricb, and return soon," seems to be the motto with Spaniards who fill all the higher and more lucrative position!. The Cabans have a very just grievance in that while heavy export duties are imposed on the products of the ohild-lsland these goods are not bought by the mother-country, which, however, by manipulation again of duty, forces her own exports into Cuba. "Spain places heavy export duties on Cuban sugar and tobacco, and buys sugar in Germany and tobacco in Virgiuia for her own nse. The perpetual enforcement of this unwisdom is beyond the capacity of armies, for it is an intolerable abuse of authority and oontempt of the economy of civilisation. Cuba is forced by flagrant duty ditcrlminationt to buy the thingt she consumes that Spain produoes in Spain ekdusively, draining her sub> stanoe to meet exortion, and Spain, levying export duty upon tbe sugar and tobacco, into the production of which both labour and capital are coerced by the Spanish system, goes into free markets to get their own supplies of those product*, even in the case of tobacoo, of which the state has a monopoly, and Spain bays the bounty stimulated tagar of Germany and France rather than tbe superior product of her own mortgaged and overtaxed province." The day of reckoning, long delayed, always oomes at last. Injustice and oppression may not go on for ever.

/ <• Tbk fairest land human eyes ever nw," — this it ▲ VAIB DOWBJ- Cab* overtaxed and oppressed beyond endurance. tboddbx LAUD. Oonipiraoy has become obronio in Cuba. A few yeari ago Spain lost 200,000 aoldien In her supreme effort to retain the sovereignly of the island. After the war of 1868*1878 the oonntry was almost depopulated. Indeed, in some

districts scarcely one man was to be seen. The Mother Country broke faith with the Cubans. In 1812 a Liberal constitution, after a ashion, was grantsd to the colony. The provisions of the Aot were rendered migatory by tbe Cortes. Tbe deputies— one for every 60,000— who proceeded to Bpain wen refused admittance to the Chamber. Even when tbis was remedied, forcible exclusion was followed by an almost equally effective policy of boycott. Discussion of Cuban affairs meant an empty House. The old system of plunder and oppression, which the Captain-General, who suooeeded tbe old colonising ohiefs, almost invariably pursued, has really seen little ohange down to our own time. The country groans under taxation without, we think, a parallel on tbe face of the earth. Only three per cent of the islanders have votes, while the Spaniards manage la every distriot to obtain an overwhelming majority. The Press is gagged* Public speakers are at tbe mercy of every police officer who may any moment at discretion stop the orator. The corruption of the administration is notorious. In 1887 General Marin actually laid siege to the Custom House, and dislodged the <. facers at the point of tbe bayonet, One fact alone shows the loose state of public affairs. It is not uncommon for officers to keep on the list the names of pen. sioners loog deceased. Tbe Queen Begent is oredited with saying that " it would appear that the granting of a pension secures immor* tatity." We have already spoken of the exorbitant taxation. Two thousand per cent in some caaet has been charged . Sugar, one way or another, costs over 100 par cent of its value before it reaches tbe Spanish consumer. No wonder that recourse is bad to arms. Cuba does not want separation. Her people fight for simple justice and the politic*! rights to which all men are entitled.

M. A. O'Btbns has contributed a very ineresting valtjh OF article to the Cathdic World on " How the Oeltio Celtic study, revival arose." We know that many Irishmen at Home as well as in these colonies say " Cm bono t" — " of what use is it T "—when there is question of tbe study of Irish Gaelic. Happily the value of the study from a men commercial standpoint is not everywhere tbe determining factor as to whether or not the attempt to ft ster the old tongue shall be made. Irish Gselio enthutiatts have before tbeir minds something more than gratification of a cultured taste. They know the effeot on patriotism and religion of a revival which will msan the translation and circulation of the almost innumerable MBS. in libraries in Ireland and on tbe Continent. The| discovery by J. Kaspar Zeuse in t a e{ libraries of 81 Gaul and Milan of Latin liSS. with interlinear Gaelic glosses which had been written by Irish monks and brought from Iceland from the sixth to the ninth osntary gave impetus to the labours of the great philologist which resulted in tbe compilation of his famous Grammatioa Celtics. Ztnss found that the Gaelic of these MSB. was four hundred years older than the Leabbar na h-Uidhre and the Book of Leinster. It contained all tbe inflexional endings, and established the Aryan character of tbe Gaelic language. Z juss was followed by Grimm, author of tbe celebrated " Law of language! " and many other savant*. Jacob Grimm proved that the medical formu'ts of Harcellns, the physician to Theodotius the Great, contained Gaulish plant names and remedies written in the Gaelic language. The monopoly of learning and high civilisation is thus taken from Bom* and Greece and the fact proved that the people of North Western Europe and Transalpine Gaul apoke tbe Oeltio language. Zimmer, Windesche, Jubainville are names worthy of note in connection with the Celtic revival on the Continent. The workers in Ireland from K. lating and McCurtin down to Dr Douglas Hyde and Father O'Grow ney are known by r>amu to our readers who taka iaterest in this subject. The value of Irish Gaelic from a philological point of view is very great. The writer in the Catholio World tsys : — " Celtio is a generic term embracing the Irith, Sootoh, Manx, the Welsh, tbe Cornish, and the Armorio languages. Of these subdivisions the three first-mentioned are derived from the Low-Aryan tongue, and an called the Gaelic. The three last-mentioned are derived from tbe High-Aryan, and are sometimes called the British languages. Their relationship to each other, and to the old Aryan from whioh they both sprung, might be illustrated by a comparison of the Romanes languages with the Latin language. The Irish, Scotch, and Manx are one and the same language, with this difference, that the Sootoh and

Manx bare suffered more phonetic decay than the Irish, and have lost almost all of the case-endings. All three btar the same relationship to the old Aryan as Italian does to Latin, though of course not to the same degree ; whilst the British group bears the same relation to tbe old mother-tongue a» French does to Latio. Owing to tbe isolated position of Ireland and the high degree of civilisation *n<\ learning to which the early Irish had attained, the Irish is the most perfect of the Celtic languages, Many inscriptions on bronze and stone discovered on the Continent bear a nearer relatiunsh'p to lii«h than to any of tbe other sister Celtic tongues, and this relationship becomes closer the oldtr the inscriptions are, thns suggesting a probability that originally there was only one Celtic language spoken by the Oeltio race, and that the Irish-Gaelic.

The writer of the article on the Celtic revival, THE habitat already quoted, gives an interesting paragraph on O# Celtic the habitat of Celtic speech. He says that Gaelic was SPEECH. the language originally of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul. All modern scholars are now unanimous on this point ; in fact the nomenclature of all the countries in northwestern Europe bear unmistakable proof of tbe race that originally inhabited them. We have, for instance, Bom^ derived from MuadhAbhan, the Bed Biver. We have the Alps from the Gaelic Alp, still used in tbe modern language and meaning a peak or mountain. We have the Garonne from Qarbh Abhan, the Bongh Biver. If we puss over into England we have all the names of towns containing the affix or prefix Avon, so many remnants of the original Dames gtven them by their Celtic founders.

Thb value of Irish Gaelic to the philologist and RICHNESS OF scholar may be gathered from an extract called IRISH GAELIC from the address of Professor Boerig to the New York Gaelic Society in 1884. Professor Boerig is one of the ablest living linguists. He Bays " The Celtic is extremely rich in woids which have come down to as with all their primitive freshness, in their unadulterated original form, and that from the remote ages of dim pre-bi* oric tim^s, when it still presented in Asia something identical with th > putni ive Aryan speech an t Sanscrit. Moreover the luxu.ia'it growth m t rictineus of the Irish la guage, that brightest flower of the Celtic branch, becomes apparent by the fact that should all the existing glossaries, old aod new, be added together, we should have at least thirty thousand words— besides those printed in dictionaries— a richness of vocabulary to which perhaps not a single living language can bear even a remote example. . . , None of the other Celtic tribes or nations have given us so important and ancient a literature as the Irish, and the Celtic antiquities and writings are to all appearance much more abun taint in Ireland than elsewhere, But the literary productions in Iruh are not only very numerous— they extend also to a wonderful variety of subjects an.l departments of mental conception aod activity, such as poetry, history, laws, giammar, etc , and it is a well-known fact that msioy legends of French and German poets in the Middle Ages derive their origin from Irish and other Celtic songs. "

On 21st Jane, 1896, the Holy P.ther will celebrate ANOTHER PAPAL the seventy-fifth .mniversay of hi 3 first communion. JUBILKK The 21st June is th« F<ast of St Aloysius Got zaga, CELBBBATION. the patron of Catholic youth. Cardinal Ferrari of Milan has promoted a committee for the purpose of worthily celebrating the event. The suggestion is mads that there should be a general parish communion on the Feast, that all the communions should be offered to the Holy Father, that albums containing the names of all who have approached the altar should, with an offering of Peter's Psnce, be prestnted to Leo XIII,

A CONTEMPOBABY, says the London Tablet, tells the ODDS AND following story :— What has been rather appropriends. ately described as an improved version of the " Judgment of Solomon " was lately supplied by a jus' ice of tbe peace at a place called Pervencberes, in on« of the Western Departments. To is magistrate was called npen to decide between a knife-grinder and a rag-picker, who both laid claim to a splendid dog of Danish breed. It is ne> dless to say that the disputants were unable to produce documentary evidence as to tbeir titles to the ownership of the animal, nor could they furnish aoy satisfactory account of bow they came by it. The justice ordered the dog to be handed to a court usher, and told tte claimants to stand near the door and whittle. At a sign from the magistrate tne usher let go the dog, who, glad to be rel ased, con'emptuonsly bounded past both and was soon in the street and out of sight. " That's c inclusive," observed tbe magistrate, gleefully rubbiog his hands at the success of his stratagem * ' the dog was stolen and belongs to neither of you." Tbe claimants left the court crestfallen, not to say uneasy at tbe piospect of a charge of theft being brought against them.

The Marquis di Budini, the Italian Premier, who suooeededi . Crispi, is described as a tall man with broad shoulders, not yet 60*, wearing a bushy yellow benrd and an eye-glass^ He Is the leader of the Bight in the Italian Parliament, and is a Sioilian nobleman.

Khalifa Abdullah el Taashi, the ruler of the Soudan, is nearly sixty years of age. He is said to be a tall, stout man, with grey hair, a large beard aod slight moustsche, and a face pitted by small-pox; Unlike tbe Mahdi, who was a scholar— as scholars are counted in tbe Sjudan — tne Kbalifa is a man of exceptional ignorance, who neither roads nor writes. He is intensely vain, " sly as a fox," and hai summary methods of dealing with any who oppose him. His palace at Oniduiman is crowded with slaves, eunuch*, and young boys who wait upon him, and his wives number some hundreds. The present ruler of the Soudan is sometimes spoken of as tbe Mabdi. But Mohammed Ahmed, the Mahdi, died in June, 1885, a victim of bis dissolute mode of lite. — Contemporary.

Multum in parvo. — Bom, welcomed, caressed, cried, fed, grew, amused, reared, studied, examined, graduated, in love, loved, engaged, married, quarrelled, reconciled, suffered, deserted, taksn ill, died, mourned, buried, and forgotten.

It was a ready re'ort that the Irishman made to a bigot who told who told him that Washington once gave the order, " Pat none but American* on guard to-night I " « Tes, but Washington said more than that. He added : ' Let the Irish sleep, for I shall need them for fighting to-morrow."

Madame Sarah Bernhardt, the famous actress, ns«s neither wine nor any intoxicating liquor, and never did use them ; and she largely attributes to her abstinence the remarkable preservation of her mental powers and her physical strength, which are nnimpared. Madame Bernhardt drinks but little tea or coffee, confining her beverages to milk and water. She is liberal with her baths and takes abundant exercise. This accomplished actress, though a grandmother, still holds her place on the stage with undiminished brilliancy.

Every Catholic woman (says an eminent author) should find time to participate in social endeavours of parochial organisations. One of the weaknesses of the Catholic body is the absence of this social spirit. On the other hand it is the vital principle of Protestant cohesion.

" I am persuaded," says John Buskin, " that the worship of the Madonna has been one of the noblest and most vital graces of Catholicism, and has never been otherwise than productive of true holiness of life and purity of character. There has probably not been an innocent cottage home throughout the length and breadth of Europe in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humbleet duties and comfort to the soreit trials of the lives of women."