Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 52, 24 December 1903, Page 1

Current Topics

The Coningham Slump Trials and tribulations are dogging) the footsteps of the precious menagerie that were associyarted with the attempt to blast the reputation and pick the pockets of Dean O'Haram. Coningham is chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies in Hokitika gaol for a series of shameless swindles. One of the tatterdemalion witnesses wh ; om he called in support of his case has been pilloried as a coarso, vulgar, and abusive 'drunk ' in a Sydney police court. And now the parasitic no-Popery organ edited by his friend and ' chaplain ' has been mulcted in substantial damages and costs by two Catholic ladiies, the Misses Golding, who are leaders in the Woman Franchise movement and take a prominent place in social a^ja educational work. The ocg'an of Yellow Agony sectarianism tumcd its poison-squirt on the two sisters Among other things it insinuated that ' the hand of Rome directed them to the perusal of obscene literature and the falsification of the minutes of meetings. The head and front of their offending seems to have been their profession of the Catholic faith. There was no other apparent reason for the cowardly attack made upon them. Bigots, like misers, have nerves— in their breeches pockets. And substantial damages and costs that will protnably run into £1000 may teach the reverend firebrand who edits the Sydney ' Watchman ' that journalism has its responsibilities arul that the defamation of respectable ladies is— to put it on the 'lowest ground— distinctly bad policy. We are just now busy speculating what will be the noxt development in the Coningham slump.

A Cable Fiction The cable-demon— as we have many a time and oft shown— has by loing practice developed a great capacity for building up an inverted pyramid of fiction on a pinpoint of fact. In all matters affecting the Catholic Qhurch, the calxje-rigger i s f ar more conspicuous for his fertility of imagination than for his grasp of facts. Some time ago, for instance, he announced that Cardinal Moran had arranged that the new — and as yet undetermined—capital of the Australian Commonwealth should be made an episcopal see. We pointed out at the time that such a proceeding would be altogether opposed to the practice of the Holy See, which does not set

up bishoprics in vacuo nor in the No-ma'ji's-land of Oudemoth or Kennaqtihair. A formal contradiction to this recent bit of cable-fiction has been made by Cardinal Moraai. ' Until the capital is fixed,' said he, 'no person can say whether a diocese will be established in it or not. The only statement I made on the subject was that I hoped the future capital might be suitable for a new diocese, as it would be, a great adv^jitafep to have a bishop residing in the capital. Naturally, that will be contingent an Where the capital is.'

The Apple of Discord During a debate in the British House of Commons on one of the ipajrty riots Uhat are the sca|i*ial of lodgeridden Belfast, an Irish member exclaimed : ' Well may we call the orange the apple of discord in Ireland.' Which saying, by the way, was not so much of a • bull ' as it looks. But— to change the figure of speech— it would seem as if a new spirit of democracy is gradually so|ak,ing into the texture of Ulster Oratogeism ; that the dream of the '48 poets bfds fair to he realised ; and that, in the not too distant future, Ireland may witness a repetition of the happy scene of '98 when, ' in merry Wexford town,' a stalwart Nationalist and an Orange brother clasped hands, and c By joyous crowds attended, The worthy pair were seen, And their flags that day were blefnded Of Orange and of Green.' Mr. T W. Russell, a noted Irish Protestant M.P., speaks as follows of the new leaven that is setting to work in the mass of Ulster Orarrgeism : ' I never,' said he, « belonged to the Orange Society, and I know nothing of its inner working. But its public history is open to everybody. And the thing borne in upon one's mind in connection with it is that this powerful and organised body of men has been patronised and used by the landlords for the maintenance of landlordism. Whatever may have been its primary objects— this is the "base use to which they have been put, .But the Ulster land movement has settled this as well as other things. In Antrim there were Orange districts Which voted solMly with the Nationalists for Land Reform. In Fermanagh —the home of the Imperial Grand Master— the same thing took place. But the real revolt has taken place in Belfast. There is no need to enter into particulars. What it all meajis is that the scales have fallen from the oyes of some of the people— that the democratic in-

stincts of the Belfast artisan have revolted against the autocratic tutelage to which he had been so long subject. For, strange as it may appear, the Belfast artisan is not a Tory. He is a Radical with a monomania about the Pope which colors his whole life and bedevils his every action. At present they are as men escaping from a dark room into the sunlight. They are dazed and hardly know where they are. But with capable leadois and with a little more intercourse with their fellowcountrymen, and with the artisans of Eingjland, they will soe thingp as they really are.'

Should the true democratic spirit ever seize Orangeism, either in Ireland or in Australasia or elsewhere, it will substitute fellow-feeling for the sectarian hate which is at present its ruling principle ; it will replace the present sworn policy of persecution with due respect for the rights of Catholics. When that day comes, the whole rationale of Orangteism will be upset, and noPopery campaigns like that of Dill-Macky and his associates will be succeeded by a peace that could bfe felt.