INTERCOLONIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 33, 14 August 1902, Page 7

INTERCOLONIAL.

The Executive Committee of the Irish League in Sydney have cabled £700 to the Irish Party.

The finances of South Australia are not in a vpry sound condition. For the year ended June 30 the deficit was £220,000, to which has to be added the debit balance of £170,000 fiom the previous year.

The H.A.C.B. Society in Western Australia has built a fine ball in Murray street, Perth. It was formally opened on June 26. The Society has received numerous congratulations ou their enterprise in putting up such a fine building.

His Grace Archbishop Kelly performed the ceremony of opening ft new school-hall attached to the Franciscan Church, Waverley, a few Sundays ago. The new hall, which is a very handsome structure built in the Elizabethan style of architecture, has seating accommodation for 800 persons. The total cost ie about £2000, towards which sum £600 were received at the laying of the foundation stone in January last.

Archbishop O'Reily, in his annual financial report on the arch" diocese of Adelaide, says that in 1895 the gross amount for which the Catholics of the diocese were responsible was £56,968. If he could have closed the charitable institutions and stopped the purchase of new buildings and new Bites, they would now have a reserve fund of £80,000. The debt of the diocese was now reduced to £16,104. Up to March of the present year the subscriptions received amounted to £19,312.

There was a great Home Rule demonstration in the Town Hall, Adelaide, the other day, when the meeting expressed its sympathy with the Irish people in their struggle for self-government, and oondemned coercion. The Mayor of Adelaide presided, and a letter breathing a strong national spirit was read from his Grace the Archbishop of Adelaide. Another vigorous letter was read from Mr Kingston. The most representative citizens of South Australia, men of every denomination, and English, Scotch, and Irish, were on on the platform, and the hall was packed. The Hon. L. O'Loghlin M.P., P. M'Mahon Glynn, M.H.R., the Hon. J. G. R-ice, M.L.C., the Hon. J. V. O'Loghlin, Senator M'Gregor, the Rev. A. C. Sutherland, M.A., Mr W. J. Denny, M.P., the Hon. A. A. Kirkpatrick, M.L.C., and Mr Soherck, M.P., delivered eloquent speeches. Over £100 was subscribed in the hall.

Nothing could be more timely by way of demonstrating Archbishop Kelly's contention as to the excellent work done in the Catholic schools at tbe cost of the Catholic taxpayer (says the Sydney Freeman* Journal), than the reeultß of the University Junior Public Examinations which were published the other day. Last year, of 1060 candidates, 697 (or 65.8 per cent.) passed. This year of 1109 candidates 724 (or 653 per cent ) were successful. Of this number 143 passed from Catholic schools, that isone-fi ith of the whole. When it is borne in mind, however, that the corrected aggregate of pupilsenrolled in thePublicscbools alone in 1900 was o^ticaea as great as the enrolment in Catholic schools in this State — the numbers being respectively 238,382 and 43,369 — it is something to boast of that the Catholic school passes at tbe public tests on purely secular standards should constitute almost one-fifth of the passes including Public and all other schools.

The news of the death of the Very Rev. Father MOambridge of Kempsey (says the Freeman's Journal), was received in Sydney, aa elsewhere, with manifestations of deepest grief. For some time prior to his decease it was known that Father MCambtidge was suffering from pneumonia, but news arrived in the city that he was at length out of danger. Consequently, when his death was announced, people who knew him, and they were many, were prone to look upon it as a mere groundless rumor. The full truth of the Bad event, however, came subsequently, and theie was intense grief amongst those who had in any degree enjoyed his acquaintance. So recently ac May 14 last the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle had created Father M'Cambridge his Vicar-General, an appointment which was received in the diocese with acclamation of approval, Born in the north of Ireland 50 years ago, he received his education on the Continent. The first years of his ministry were spent in his native diocese, where he labored zealously for a number of years. Being told of the great want of priests in Australia, he at once volunteered for that distant mission, and arrived in this State in 1882. From that date up to November, 1897, he filled many important positions in the Archdiocese of Sydney, under the administration of Archbishop of Sydney, under Archbishop Vaughan and his Eminence Cardinal Moran. He was a general favorite, both with the priests and people. In 1897 he severed his connection with Sydney, and threw in his lot with the diocese of Lismore, of which he was so recently made Vicar-General. In Smithtown his efforts were appreciated, and he succeeded in wiping out completely the heavy debt on the parish. In January, 1900, on the death of the Rev. Father Buggy, and on the eve of Dr. Doyle's departure for Rome, he was appointed in charge of the parish at Kempsey, which is a thickly populated one, including the greater part of Macleay River. During Father M'Cambridge's two years in the parish the large debt of £2500 has been reduced to one-third of that amount.