That Nibelungen 'Milliard'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 36, 7 September 1905, Page 1

That Nibelungen 'Milliard'

Some three years ago we switched the electric arc upon the legend of the ' milliard ol francs ' (about £40,000,000) which (as M, W&kdeck-Rousseau declared at Touixaise) would, fall -into the fob of the workers of France on the suppression of the religious Orders in that lodge-ridden and ill-starred country. The bait held out by the French Premier was substantially the same as Henry; VIII. aind the Scottish Reformers dangled before the puibMc eye to attract • rice-converts ' to their new-fan«glted faiths over three centuries ago. But in the oase of M. Waldeck-Rousseau, the promise was a piecrust one. It was made to he broken. For (-as a French correspondent writes) •it was founded upon

figures which did not truly represent the property of the religious. But the deception did its work/ Tbe religious associations were suppressed, their property seized, and everything, down to the pots and pans and pokers anXi tongs, was sold and confiscated. And now those who clamored for the ' milliard ' want to finger the coins. They are singing a doleful variant ol • The Highland LaiddUe '— «' Oh '! where, and oh * where is the convent milliard gone ? ' This is the burden of an article in the June number of the ' Revue Maconni'qjue. 1 ' We are still,' says this Masonic organ, ' far from tbe famous milliard which the liquidation of the property of the monks was to give to workmen's pensions. The Treasury ha^i already advanced a million and a half (about £60,000) for the processes which have Jbeen entered into, and there to no assunam.ce Uhat it will b« able to recoup itself for what it has paid, to say nothing ol what will still be necessary for the same purpose.'

And so eadeth the story of the French monastic millions !' It is the modern version of the mytWaai hoard otf 'g(>ldi and precious stones thtat is sung tt« the nineteenth canto of the great barbaric drama of the North, /the Ni'hjelun^en Lied. Moore sang of such another milliard when he damned the Wicklow gold-mines with this saroastict stanza :— ' Has love to that spoil, so tender, Been like the Lagenian mine, Where sparkles of golden splendor I All over the surface shine ? < But if in pursuit we go deeper, * , : Allured by the gleam that shone, Ah ! false as the "dream of tftie sleeper, Like lave, tthe bright ore is gone.' The ' spankles of golden splendor ' that shone all over the surf-ace of the Wicklow mine were the showy • btat valueless minerals such as catch the untrained and expectant eye of the newly-imported miner in Australia and New Zealand. They are known by the homely and descriptive title of * new-chum gold.' For this cheap and doubly fraudulent bribe, numbers of gullible French workers acquiesced in the regime oi persecution, plunder, and proscription inaugurated by M. Waldeck-Rous-soau and conducted with such cynical heartlesshess by M. Oomibes. The gulled workers have had their reward. And we cannot honestly say that we ' weep with them tear for tear. 1