Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 7, 14 February 1907, Page 22

Notes

Scapegoats

The Carthaginians of old strangled their, unsuccessful generals, 'The Romans (more- prudent in their day) commended their beaten leaders so. long as they did their best and ' did not despair o! the Republic.' Modern beaten nations usually cast "about for a scapegoat. Admiral Byng was shot at Portsmouth for having, without any fault of his own, failed in an expedition to relieve Malta. He was merely offered as a victim to popular clamor. Count de Lally — a valiant Hiberno-French commander— was ' executed - for having' failed to defeat the British forces at Pondioherry, although (as was afterwards proved) he, had done everything that was possible in the circumstances to achieve success. Prance also immolated Marshal Bazaine, mote in response to popular fury than on purely military grounds. And- now ■ Russia has taken a hand in • the game. Ex-Admiral Nebogatoff and his captains— at first sentenced to death — are now to be interned in a, fortress for ten. years. Various other sentences have also been passed in connection with the battle of Tsushima. First-class military or naval • disasters usually have

this ending. Some strange kink in national feelingmakes people more ready, as. a rule, to accuse their, defenders of cowardice and treason, on the lightest grounds, than «* to "admit honorable defeat by a foreign foe, however skilful, numerous, valiant, and well prepared.

A Millionaire's GiftsThe cablemanhas just been ho the trouble of send-

ing to this outer ' rim of - the earth', an account of the recent benefactions of an American multi-millionaire who piled high his bursting money-bags- by "creating or joining in great trusts and picking the poc&ets of-the poor. Well, there is such a thing as stealng a hog and giving the feet for alms. For the rest, your ostentatious Croesus still -remains, after all his gifts, -. a multi-millionaire, retaining of his trust-made shekels

' a fine sum ' (as Lord Ersfcine once^ said of / a dead British nabob) *to Jsegin "the other world with/ In pre-Reformation days there , prevailed' the old and more Christian idea- that property .was held; in stewardship. The new social principles then- adopted v had as- their underlying idea the notion that property is held 1 in absolute ownership. Modern pauperism was the result — the sharp distinction , which made the 'classes' more •haughty, prosperous, and unfeeling - than ever before in Christian history, and t*in the^words of an old writer) turned the ' masses ' into ' mere stark beggars.' There are perhaps some of our readers who can .remember the storm of indignation that was raised among landed proprietors in Ireland when (on May 22, 1838) Chief Secretary Thomas Drummond wrote to the magistrates of Tipperary that ' property has its duties " as well as its rights.' The Irish landed magnates, of 1838. merely represented a feeling that was too prevalent in their time. The trust and • the multi-mHl-lionaire of our day represent a fresh "outcome of the abandonment of the old-<time Catholic feeling in regard to property and its duties. ' •

In Germany

The long and bitter persecution Known as the Kulturkampf had one. result that neither Falk nor" Bismarck ever anticipated. "It created the Centre or Catholic Party that is now the best-knit, the most numerous section in the German Imperial Parliament. Last ,week's cable- -messages go to show that they have been returned with added strength at the recent elecsions—los iri 1907 as against 100 in 1903, ,103, in IS9B, and 96 in M 893. At last week's elections the Centre Party stood for the following principles : ' (1) The right" of the Imperial Parliament, to assert its independence of the military authorities ; (2) the necessity of contending against Caesarism and absolutism ; (3) -the duty of carefully watching the colonial. policy, so that the nation may not be landed- in bankruptcy by extravagant and unremunerative colonial ' expenditure.'

During the electoral campaign in the Fatherland, a Hohenlohe story was, for. political purposes, sent on the rounds against the Catholic Party, and was even echoed in the New Zealand .press. 1% was an alleged assertion of<-~the late Prince Hohenlohe that in 1893" he had advised that a present of ball- a million francs (£20,000) should be offered .to the Pope (Leo XIII* ), but not actually paid -until the .military proposals of the Government had been „ passed by, tine Imperial Parliament — of. course with the,, aid of the Centre or Catholic Party. The - idea was, of course, that their votes were to be secured, for that purpose by the influence of the Pope. ..Here -is how the 'Catholic Times "* of December 28 deals with the story : ' A considerable number of the German papers, unmindful of Parliamentary history, have taken it for granted that the Centre was thus 1 acted on ; "but fortunately there are records which prove the contrary and *dis-

pose of the insinuation. Twice m 1893 the members of the Qentre voted against' the Government's proposals, refusing to accept' them even in - a modified' form. As. a matter of factj. then, the little plan to gain support for Count Caprivi's military scheme imV carried. Neither Leo XIII. nor the Centre .leaders in ,1893 were men who would - compromise tiheir independ- N ence, and from the profound respect which the German Emperor always displayed towards -the Pontiff it is (Clear that foe knew him to be guided in± his public policy as well as in his private life, by the highest and purest, motives.' . - . ~ - - . " - ~