Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 22, 2 June 1904, Page 18

Notes

Pig- tail Imperialism

The Anglo-Normans of the Pale became ' more Irish than the Irish themselves.' And Mr. Seddon is more Imperialist than the Imperialists themselves. In the interests of Imperialism he sacrifices revenue to the extent of two pence a pound on tea grown under the British flag. Ceylon receives the chiei benefit 01 Mi. Seddons generous impulse. But it had hardly t/aken effect when Mr. Chamberlain— the 'Grand Panjandrum of Imperialism— coolly claps an extra duty of two pence a pound on all Empire-grown tea imported into Great Britain and Ireland. The tea-planters and the Governor of Ceylon protest that the additional duty will have • a seriously depressing effect on that important industry in its exports to England in competition with cheaper Chinese teas.' Of course it will. But the protest of the British tea-planters of Ceylon will be as barren of result as the protest of the starving British miners of the Rand After the mostly foreign magnates of the Rand, the next greatest beneficiaries by the South African war must be the wholly foreign heathen Chinee Kismet ! It is as the decree of fate. Every dogeven a yellow one— must have his day. And on the coat-of-arms ot the Chamberlain peerage that is (o come, will he blazoned— ' or ' upon an a/nre ground— a pig-tail rampant.

French Iconoclasm

Proud'hon's mottm ran : ' Property is robbery ' The motto ot Premier Combes and his Freemason and Radical and Socialist following is ' Religion is a crime ' A new phase of their war against religion in France was reached when on Good Friday— of all .lay of the year— crucifixes and religious emblems oi e\ery kind were, by Combes's orders, removed from every court-house in the country. ' The order,' says a Press despatch ' is causing agitation in Paris and throughout the provinces At Havre the workmen declined to take down the sacred images, and at Lyons the refusal oi the workmen to do the same thing compelled the authorities to call upon officials of the Bureau of "uIMB lie Architecture for aid. In order to prevent demon^ strations on the removal of crucifixes, etc , from the Palace of Justice and other tribunals in Paris the work is being done behind closed doors ' Here is a Protestant eye-wii ness's statement of what took place in Lyons ' Crosses which revolutionists of the Eighteenth Century had respected, were torn down . . A search was instituted for the remnants of all these symbols of our salvation Fragments of them were picked up from the sewers and irom the waters of the Rhone. One twisted image oi Christ our Lord, that had been wrenched irom the cross, was fished out of the mire by the Pont-des-Flaneurs Several thousand persons, gathered to remove this image of the Sav,our whom French Radicals and Socialists repudiate. These benighted Catholics carried the distorted image, in impromptu procession, past the house of the Mayor. . . So boisterous did they become, in their wild, unreasoning protest against the reign of " free thought," that gendarmes and police felt compelled to restrain -them, particularly when some of the crowd tried to force an entrance into the Mayor's house Several " free-think-ers," v>ho had taken part in the outrage of the night beiore, were rather roughly handled The Mayor decided to wash his hands of it, after the fashion of Pilate, and had posters placed in conspicuous localities, expressing his disapprobation of the act of the iconoclasts.

Bible-in-schoois : Press Opinions

The great body of the secular press of New Zealand spoke in terms of high commendation of the recent manifesto of the Catholic Bishops on the radical changes which the Bible-in-schools League propose in

the Education Act. So far as we have been able to see, there is among them an equally general consensus of condemnation of the counter blast issued by the League. The ' Otago Daily Times ' says .— ' Looked at lrom the purely polemical standpoint, the reply now put forward on behalt of the Bible-m schools Conference to the recent nVanilesto oi the Roman Catholic Hierarchy on the sublet, of lplig-imis instruction in schools lacks the virility of the clear statement of their position put forward by the Bishops . . . It rather evades the point 01 the obiection lodged by the Bishops, and endorsed by every person opposed to religious teaching in schools— tilie objection, namely, that the inevitable effect, whether direct or indirect, of the inclusion ol leiigious instruction in the public school course would be the imposition of religious tests upon teachers abd children alike aoid the introduction of religio/us issues in the election of education boards and school committees.' The Dunedin ' Evening Star ' does not wish • to assume a wantonly controversial attitude in regard to the matter,' but it clubs the Bible-in-schools Comerence to the following lively tune :—: — ' Dr. Gibb and his friends arc continuously shifting their ground. The political arena is supposed to be the happy hunting-ground of the opportunist . but ne\ ci were there such born opportunists, such irreeognisable changelings, as these malcontent educationists ' They are here to-day, and there to-morrow : You never Knowwhere to lind them. Let anyone compare their manifestoes of eighteen months ago with the tiehveranee issued from Wellington on Tuesday ! This peipertual inconsistency, this perplexing and astounding topsyturvyness, would be amusing' if it were not connected with a matter so serious and so sacred a-s religious education,' We have frequently referred to the acrobatic agility with which the leaders of the Bible-m-schools campaign turn handsprings from one position to another We have before us sundry newspaper reports which show that the Rev. Dr (iibb (chairman of the Conference) turned four different and complete somersaults from one proposal to another in an incredibly shoit space of time. * The ' Timaru Post ' hits hard at the proposals of the League. It says :—: — ' The representatives of the Conference are practically asking the Government to make a grant lor the teaenmg of religion . Christians evciywhere will unanimously agree with all the Committee says with regard to the greatness of the literature of the Bible and its value as a ptimer of moral instruction These arguments, however, have no bearing on the proposal to give the State authority in religious matters That duty (of ichgious instruction to youth) they (the Bible-m-schools clergy) have neglected in the past, and they are now endeavoring to transfer it to the shoulders of the State school teachers, who ha\e already more work than they can get through in the time at their disposal.' The ' N Z Times ' (Wellington) dissects every parl of the Bible-in-schools manifesto and exposes its fallacies in an able manner In regard to the referendum it says :—: — 'We have all along maintained that this is not a question that ought to be decided by popular vote We hold that the Legislature would do a wrong thing to refer such a question to the vote of the people, because it is a question involving the rights of membeis to freedom of conscience.' The article on the subiect in the Wellington ' Evening Post ' is marked by great ability and a fine grasp of the subject. It describes the pronouncement of tihe Catholic Bishops as a ' powerful manifesto ' and 'in every respect a model of controversial dialectics ' Then it adds :—: — 'We cannot say as much for the rejoinder of the Exeoutive of the Bible-in-schools Conference, which we published yesterday. It is by no means the work of a tyro or an ignoramus, but it lacks the weight, the

logical force, and the literary finish of its rival, and it would only be necessary to print the two side by side in order to show that the rejoinder needs no other form 01 rebuttal.' The ' Post ' pokes some fine sarcasm at the League leaders' ' threadbare platitudes' about majority rule, and exposes their fallacy as applied to the question at issue It then sets belore the Conference the following argumentum ad hommem ' :— 'It is htrange that representatives of the very Churches which are taking the leading part in the (passive resistance) movement at Home should be striving to inflict upon the Roman Catholics of this country a similar grievance, which would inevitably be met either by similar tactics or by the concession of a State grant to the private schools of the aggrieved minority.' The sting of the blow lies in the fact that some, at least, of the signatories of the Bible-in-schools manilcsto were active participants in the votes of sympathy to the ' passive registers ' that were passed in various parts of New Zealand The Nelson ' Colonist' and the ' Dannevirke Press ' are among the other newspapers to hand that oppose the attempt being made by a clatnoioii', section oi the community to capture the public schools of the Colony lor sectarian purposes.