Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 33, 18 August 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

The Earthquake As we were preparing to go ■ to press with our last issue, the l Tablet ' buildings got a mil* shivering fit and groaned and creaked as though with inward pains. We knew it was a ' quake ' and later on heard that H had given pretty nearly all New Zealand a, pasoing palsy, inflicted on Wellington a vigorous shaking, and shivered the timbers and masonry of many a building there. Wellington has had experience of rude snakes in 1848, 1855, 1868, and 1875, and scores ol minor tremblings. Such long-term visitations, however, do not ]econcilc people to the sudden onset of ' quakes ' that, set to work without preliminary warning and up and tear and shake things to pieces. Custom has hardened people more to earthquakes on certain other portions of the earth's surface. A recent book on the Philippines, for instance, states that the inhabitants pay very little attention to the constant recurring ' shakes ' unless they are accompanied by a moderate degree of mortality. In Japan and in' Quito (Ecuador) people are even _aore phlegmatic. Of the twenty to fifty earthquakes that, according to Professor Milne, crack and corrugate the earth's .surface e\ cry day, at least one occurs in Mikadoland.

Those that occur in New Zealand's far-extending volcanic areas give us not infrequent reminders that the earth's crust is not t>he mass of cast-iron rigidity that the English footballers fancied the Australian portion of it was when they happened to ' come a cropper ' upon its ' surface. The density and elasticity of the earth's materials vary widely. The world's shaky area is, happily, comparathely small. But the whole ball has a * creepy ' skin ;- it is a bundle of ' nerves ' ; and shivering fits — technically known as earth-tremors— are constantly running through some portion or other of it, like the premonitory symptom of influenza. Some of these are so undemonstrative that only such delicate instruments as seismometers can find and make a note of them. Others are ' regular ' earthquakes, of varying intensity of shock. But in one way or another \Jiey keep the earth-skin in a pretty constant state of motio n •—swelling it here like • a pußed fetlock ; shrinking it there ; crumpling and rolling and fracturing it yonder — as at Cheviot, in 1901, when the mighty blow of a steam-explosion or rock-fracture far down beneath the surface smote the crust with a vertical ajnd hori7ontal

shock and sent the soil moving like the billows of the Tasman Sea. The house-breaking and chimney-wrecking that the earthquakes produced in Wellington last week were, however, mere anarchist bomb-throwing compared with the revelry of devastation that it indulged in half, a century ago— in 1855. That was our record ' shake ' —so far as history can tell. Professor Thomas, o£ Auckland, told a representative of the Christchurch 1 Press ' the other day how it ripped a great fissure ninety, miles long in the earth and shouldered the land on one side of the rent till it stood nine feet above its former level. * The valley of the Ilutt,' said the Professor, ' was raised from four to five feet, but in the South Island the Wairau Valley subsided five feet, and the tide came up for some miles beyond where it ordinarily reached, and matters remain ' unchanged there to this day. The strange part of this disturbance is that, while the elevation of the east face of the Rimutaki Ranges increased, the Wairarapa Plains were unaffected by this groat earth nvovement, and yet the shocks .were felt in Cook Strait, and by persons on vessels 180 miles out to sea '

It is strange that the men who know everything and a good deal besides are unable to tell us precisely what causes earthquakes. Doctors proverbially differ. So do earth'qual-e experts. 'But people are not likely to go sleepless o\er the question of causation when so potent an agent of destruction has made a visitation ajid left without curtailing the population of our tight little islands. Mulhall and the historians tell how over 1 00,000 human lives weie »cut suddenly short in the historic earthquake that destroyed 51 cities* and towns and 300 villages in Sicily in 1(>93. Among its other exploits, it wiped Catania and its 18,000 inhabitants oft the face of the earth. As many as 40,000 were slain at Cairo in 1754 and the same number in the Neapolitan 'territory in 1783. Here are other figures t that look like a roll of the dead in so many big wars : Pekin (1731), 95,000; Lisbon (1755), 35,000; Guatemala (1773), 33,000; Quito (1797), 41,000; Menidoza, South America (1861), 12,000; Manila (1863), about 10,000. When the Kra'katoa eruption jolted the earth i n 1883 it caused a loss of 36,500 lives and sent a wall of water on a tour round Ihe earth. These are a few sample figures taken at random from two works 'before us. The Bengal tigei is said to be ' right enough w'en yer com f»s to know Mm.' And in all the circumstances detailed above, it is a comfort to learn, on so p.ood authority as that of Herschel, that earthquakes present, to those acquainted with their action, some compenda-

ting advantages. ' Earthquakes,' says he, ' dreadful a s they, are as local and temporary visitations, are, m fact, unavoidable— l had almost said necessary— incidents in a vast system of action to which we owe the very ground we *>tand upon— the very land we inhabit, withcJuti which neither man, beast, nor bird would have a place for their existence, and the world would be a habitation for nothing but fishes.' Which may be a comfort— if only a cold comfort— to those who look upon their rent and battered walls and broken crockery in Wellington.

A Great Boycott of Catholics 'He who ser,ves queens,' says Darkush in Disraeli's < Tancreti,' ' may expect backsheesh.' The ascendency party in Ireland went somewhat farther— tfoey demanded backsheesh (gifts). Their loyalty was, in express terms, conditional, and the price they pul upon it was distinctly high— namely, a complete ami perpetual monopoly of all places of honor, power, and emolument under the Crown. ' And, 7 said they, in the course of a historical pronouncement made in 1792, ' that no doubt may remain of what we understand by the words "Protestant ascendency," we have further resolved that we consider the Protestant ascendency to consist in : A Protestant King of Ireland ; a Protestant Parliament ; a Protestant Hierarchy ; Protestant electors amd Government ; the benches of justice, the army and the revenue, through all their branches and details, Protestant.' It is— outside of Ireland— a common superstition that this monopoly of place and pelf was broken by the passing of the Emancipation Act, and that Catholics in the Green Isle now enjoy equal rights with their Protestant feUow-coiintryrnen in the matter of State appointments. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But the full extent, the searching character, of the State boycott of Irish Catholics has never belore been brought out in such a startling way as was done by Dr. Hogan at the recent meetings of the Maynooth Union. We will publish the article in its entirety as soon as the demands upon our space permit. It ■will come with the shock of a great surprise to many of our non-Catholic and Colonial-born readers to discover the flagrant extent to which that institution of evil repute— Dublin Caws' le— 'has (to use the words of Edmund Burke) succeeded to this day in enabling ' one set of people in Ireland to consider themselves as the sole citizens of the Commonwealth, and to keep dominion over the rest by reducing them to servitude, and, thus fortified in their power, to divide the public estate, which is the result of a general contribution, as a military booty solely amongst .themselves ' A Tale from Far Bolivia The following letter was sent for publication to the 1 Outlook ' (Dunedin), which is described as 'the offk'ial organ of the Presbyterian wid Methodist Churches of New Zealand.' The letter sufficiently explains itself :— ' Sir,— ln your issue of August 6 (p. 13) there appeal's a selected article from the pen of Mr. C. T. W. Wifcon,, " (of Bolivia" The writer makes two statements to which I ask space for a reply. ' 1. He declares that " tfoere is not a single school for Indians throughout Bolivia " Official returns for many years bacjk— those before me go back to the early nineties— tell quite a different tale. Here, for instance, is a quotation in point from " The Statesman's Year Book " for 1904 (pp. 485-6), which gives the figures for 1901 :, " The primary schools include 70 schools for the rural Indian population, taught by the parish priests, besidea 160 schools at mission stations receiving subventions from Tarija, La Pa 7, and Potosi, and 10,000 "bolivianos from the Government." In other words, the Bolivian Government, from whose official statistics tJhe.se figures are taken, declares that there are 230 schools for Injdians " throughout Bolivia," while Mr. Wilson— a recent arrival in the country — says, in the course of a.n article soliciting funds for missionary work, that there

is not a single one. It is scarcely necessary to say which of these two incompatible statements is the more worthy of credence.

' 2. Mr. Wilson also states that " he has, amongst other things, a translation of a letter published by a bishop in a Spanish paper," which furnishes " startling evidence " of the laxity of living which (he says) prevails among the clergy of " the couupl and coirupting Church of Rome " in Bolivia. And you publish some extracts from the alleged " translation " as samples of what he holds in reserve.

Bul (a), unfortunately for Mr. WiUson, he hae g/ven ". startling evidence '■> of his unreliability, in .at least one matter of which he ought to have direct cognis.Wice On what grounds can he claim credence in another which is supposed to have taken place at a distance oi 10,00(1 miles from him ? (b) Writing of Boji\ia, he asserts that " a bishop " wrote to " a Spanish paper " accusing his clergy of all manner of crimes and misdemeanors. But even " a bishop " has a local habitation and a name ; " a Spanish paper " has a title and an address ; and a particular issue of it has a date of publication. Why were all these tacts withheld ? Why this studied reticence about a document which— assuming it to have been published, as allegedhad become public property ? If Mr. Wilson wants to aid, and not to baffle, investigation he will state which of the four Bolivian bishops published the alleged letter, and in what " Spanish paper," and at whit date. How can he in conscience advance as " evidence "—whether " startling " or otherwise— against the moi al character of any man or of any body of men an alleged translation of an alleged document on which— as appeals by the context of the article published by you— he has apparently never set his eye ? (c) Again: will he kindly explain how a Spanish-speaking bishop, writing a letter in Spanish to "a Spanish paper," contrives to use a particular expression which i.s altogether unknown in the Spanish tongue, and which, as employed in English-speaking countries, could only be translated into Spanish by a very roundabout circumlocution ' I write with a knowledge of Spanish as it ■ s spoken and written both in Spain and South Vmerica Since 1897 .so extensive a use has been made in missionary letters— no doubt in good faith— of a bogus papal " encyclical "to South American bishops, and of a bogus letter attributed to the Bishops of Brazil, that Catholics are naturally somewhat critical about alleged episcopal documents coming from the same quarter of the ear.th. In the present instance I Hunk you will hardly set me down as hypercritical.

' Mr. Wilson— who, to judge by his remarks, seems to ha\o been a former resident of Dunedin-— is described as a missionary to the Quichua Indians in Bolivia. These descendants of the Inca tribes represent about 50 per cent, of the pure Indian population of Bolivia, and with their kinsfolk, the Aymara people, have been for centuries civilised and Christianised. ,They are described in " Chambers' Encyclopaedia" (cd. 1891) as " devout Catholics." This is what I should expect frcn the testimony of Protestant and Catholic writers bei'oie me as to the ?eal and self-sacrifice of the clergy who labor among the Indians in these countries. Mr. Wilson should explain how the Quichuas blossomed into " devout Catholics " with a horde of demons 1 as their spfritual guides. However much he may dislike the Catiholic clergy and people of Bolivia, he shoiuld at least give the Spaniards and the Portuguese the credit of being the only colonising nations that have systematically civilised and Christianised the aboriginal races with which they came in contact, and saved them from destruction.

1 I ask you, as a matter of justice, to publish this communication, or at least a fair and sufficient uuramary of its contents. I ask you, furthermore, to do

\ " ' ' ' ' me the courtesy of fumrhing mo with the address of Mr. Wilson, " of Bohwa," it known lo you, and oi the missionary magazine from avlih.li hj.s aitulc w a.s tahen by you I Imc iauhtics foi investigation both m Bolivia and m Spain, and am desnous o [ getting to the 'bottom of this stoiy of "a bishop" and ~" ik a SjnaUs'n paper," as I ha\e got to the bottom of wine othtei: stories from Soulli \ hum no -^ih;^ r>w- , i ■" 1 I'-fiHw,,- " \ z Tablet "

' flur^exlin, August 15.'