PRE-ELECTION POLICY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 23, 2 October 1896, Page 17

PRE-ELECTION POLICY.

RE all Catholic adults on the electoral roll ? We have drawn attention to this important matter many times of late, and now, for perhaps the last time before the closing of the rolls, insist on tne necessity of e\ery Catholic young man and }oung woman seeing to it at once that then 1 names are upon the registered list of \oters. We ha\e good reason to fear that many of the fair sex are apathetic. They are opposed to female franchise, ha\e no sympathy with the political new woman, and though most desirous of obtaining justice on the school question, neglect or put off till too late the easy work of registration. This should really be done for them by their brothers or parents or husbands. Before last election registration committees in the large centres secured good Catholic representation. The system does not seem to have been extenshely revived on this occasion. Every Catholic man, ho\\e\er, should act as if he was a member of such a committee, and secure the placing on the electoral roll of all elegible persons in his immediate neighbourhood, who uould be staunch on the education question. Though Catholics are numerically weak, they are often a determining factor at election time. When perfect solidarity characterises their action they are always a power to be reckoned with. Just now wooers of electors are at work in m.iiiy districts. Promises are asked and pledges iriven. Our readers know from past experience that the only wise election policy is "silence — "watch narrowly the attitude of the various candidates — strike together when the moment for action arrives." "On principle I do not tell anyone for whom 1 shall \ote. T intend to vote for the best man " — is a good answer to every candidate who seeks a vote. It is by no means necessary or ad\isable to proclaim from the housetops for whom the Catholic vote will be given. On the contrary it is better as a rule to wait and finally determine how a \oteis to be cast when there is no doubt about the reliability of the ad\ oeate of Catholic claims. It has happened more than once (hat candidates ga\e expression in one part of a large electorate to \iews diametrically opposed to assertions made in a distant portion of the country. The

only safe course for Catholic electors is to be guided by the impartial advice of their natural leaders on the school question. They have deeply at 'heart the best interests of the children and are surely more desirous of advancing even the material interests of the young than those whose only aim in many cases is a seat in Parliament and the coveted honorarium.

At St. Joseph's Cathedral on last Sunday Mr. Nottingham, a violinist who has lately come irem Sydney and %\ho settles in Dunedin. played a violin se>lo as an offertorium. Mr. Nottingham produces a good tone and plays with much expression,

The annual reunion of the Waitaki Gaelic Society was held on Friday last anel among the visitors present on the occasion was the Very Rev. Father Mackay. of Oamaru. The Very Rev. Father, in thanking the Society for the kind invitation extended to him. saiel he was always pleased to stanel shoulder to shouleler with his '■ brither Scot«." He coulel speak confidently on behalf of the visitors as to their having thoroughly enjoyed themselves. He had been carried back a long way — he would not care to say how long or they would fay he was getting too old — by the familiar strains to which he had listened. He hoped the Society would have many happy reunions before it."

The annual re-union of the former pupils of the Dominican nuns is unavoidably postponed.

Thk Nelson Colonist thus concludes a review of the report presented by the Ranking Committee of the Legislative Council .—. — '■ The most satisfactory point in the report is the complete vindication of Mr. J. G. Ward of any improper, or selfish motive in connection with his part in the whole business. The report contains, however, the following sentence . ' Your Committee is of opinion that Mr. Ward ought, when he became aware that his financial position was seriously involved, to have acquainted his colleagues in the Government, and that he ought to have tendered his resignation of the office of Colonial Treasurer." A similar opinion was expresseel in these columns at the time the disclosure came, anel it is to be regretted that that course was not adopted, but it is satisfactory in the public interests to find that the Committee declare that Mr. Warel did not in his official position seek to aelvantage his private position, but that he rather placeel himself at a disael vantage while seeking to serve the Colony.

Owixo to the present deli ate state of health of M.t Thomas Rracken. it will be practically impossible for him to do anything substantial for himself in the future, and in \ie\v of this a number of the friends and admirers of the poet 1111 t together on Thursday evening last to consider the best means of rendeiing assistance to him and his family. Mr T. S. Graham occupied the chair and among tho->e present were Messrs J. R. Callan. .1. J. Connor and 11. Gourley. Apologies were read from a large number ot prominent citizens, all of whom expressed heaity sympathy with the object of the meeting. After some discussion Mr. Mclndoe moved. Mr. Callan seconded, and it was earned unanimously — " That a national fund be raised by subscriptions throughout New Zealand tor the benefit of Mr Riacken and his lamilv. details regard inn the forming and application of the' miiic to be left 111 the hands e>f a committee consisting of those now present, with power to add to their number. Messrs Graham and Reid were appointed joint treasurer and secretaries.

Thk Vi ntr of Paris ascribes the conversion of Jules Simon, a shore time before his death, to the influence of his little granddaughter, fresh from the catechism class attended by her in the Madeleine in preparation toi her first Communion. Madame Simon formerly a fanatical freethinker, had preceded her husband in her reconciliation w ith the Church, and had been tor some 3 ears a Catholic, while the mother ot the child, though a Jewess, had never interfered with her daughter's religion* tiaining. To the latter the aged Statesman spontaneously confided his desire to see a priest on his death-bed, and she was the intermediaiy in bringing him a confessor. He received all the sacraments in tin 1 full possession ot his faculties and with e\ cry appearance of penitence and fervour.

FitANe is Gr.ouci: Winnows, an ex-Franciscan monk, has been lecturing in the south of England and ' exposing Romanism."' The East Kent (iiizittr , in the account it gives of one of these lectures, says that the lecturer, in the story of his life. omitted at least one important event, and quotes from its issue of May .">th. ISSS. the record of his sentence, while minister of a chapel in South Hackney, to a long term ot nnprisoument for conspiracy and felony. '1 ruth

says that this sentence '■ for one of the mejst abominable crimes known to the law." was not his first, and it speaks in strong terms of the bigotry ot those who are not ashamed to give their countenance anel support to a lecturer of Widdows's character and antecedents. "What sort of religionists must they be,"' it asks, "who accept the ministrations of a man of this stamp .' "

Con>ideuix(j the attempt (says a recent is^ue of the Thames Star) which is being made in many \ laces — notably in the mining elistricts of the Up-Country — to rob the working man of his day of rest, a sermon on the Sabbath preached by the Rev. Father O'Reilly last Sunday touches on many points of secular interest. The Rev. Father took for his text St. Luke. XIV.. quoting these verses : •• And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying lls it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?' But they held their peace. Rut He. taking him. healed him and sent him away." The Rev. Father O'Reilly said that Our Blessed Lord was God as well as man. As God he hael with the other two persons of the Adorable Trinity, the Father anel the Holy Ghost, given the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai to Moses, one ot which said : " Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath clay."' The preacher pointed out that before no other commandment of the ten was the word '' remember 1 usedw hen God gave them to Moses. This was done to impress upon the J ews and all mankind the imperative necessity of keeping holy the Sabbath day. But Our Blessed Saviour, as God, knew the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and he knew that what was required to fulfil this commandment was to worship God on this day, to rest and to abstain from unnecessary s ervile works. He therefore proposeel the case ot an as* or an ox falling into a pit, and asked which of them would not immediately remove him. As the law of charity constrains us to cure the sick on the Sabbath, so likewise in order to avoid cruelty to animals it would be necessary to remove a poor beast from such a position lest it might die. The moral of this would appear to be that all gooel works of absolute necessity are lawful on the Sabbath ; while all labour for gain and servile or mercenary work are in conflct with the tenets of the Church. The flagrant attempt to deprive the worker of his day of rest is therefore contrary both to the letter and the spirit of the Christian religion. After a reference to the reason why the early Catholic Church changed the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first day (the day of Christ s resurrection), the preacher spoke of the continental observances of Sunday and the secularising influence of the French revolution in the 1 8th century. He impressed on gooel Catholics the absolute necessity of keeping holy the Lord's clay by attending holy Mass on each Sunday. The holy sacrifice ot the Mass was both a sacrifice and a sacrament. They should spend some portion ot each Sunday in prayer and spiritual reading. They should make the Lord's clay a clay of rest. They should keep it holy, but innocent aimise'ine'iits such as a walk on that day we're' not condemned. Rut they should abstain on this <h\} (as on e\er\ other) from all sinful amusements, and, above all, from wicked profanation af the' l,oid"s day. Thus, they woulel kee-j) the commandment e>t God.

The Renedictine Piioryoi St. Augustine's Rauisgate, England, has been raised b\ the Pope to the dignity ot an abbey, and the Prior, the Right Rev Thomas Rergh. lias been made Abbot, with the title ot Abbot ot St. Augustine"-. Canterbury. This is the first English abbe,\ ot (JUack) Reiiudictines founded since the Reformation, the abbey of Ruckt.ist beam a French foundation.

Tim: Hon. E. Rlake. M.P.. speaking at Edinburgh o n Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, quoted, according to the S. 11. Review, the following instance of disproportionate representation — Taking the Counties of Donegal. Waterford. Tipperary. Kerry and Sligo, he affirmed. among other things, that whilst the aggregate j)opulation of these was in the proportion of C.lin.ooo Catholics to 73,000 Protestants, the aggregate grand juries ot the five counties were composed ot 111 Protestant and only two Catholic*.

Tin. following !■> from an Oamaru evehange — A Gael from the back country came into town recently nursing a huge jaw in which a tooth had gone v roujr. and moaning with his countryman Burns —

"■ My curse upon th\ \enomed stang Tliut racks my tortuml gums alain;.' He repaiied promptly to a local dentist and was &hown into the waiting room. Presently the dentist, who is small in stature, entered. To him tne bniwiij Celt- "Are yem the body that pu's teeth.'" " Ye--," re])lie<l the professional man. " Ah, weel," was the emphatic response of the visitor after a careful mental summing of the surgeon's physical capacity, "ye winna pu' mine's," and he marched forth once niuie into a cold and unsympathetic world.