The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1908. A CHRISTCHURCH CONTROVERSY

New Zealand Tablet, 10 December 1908, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1908. A CHRISTCHURCH CONTROVERSY

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N common with many Canterbury readers we • have pwused with much regret a controversy that was brought to a close last week in the columns of the Lyttelton Times. Sundry masked correspondents hosed with vitriolic abuse the able and temperate pronouncement or the Bishop of Christchurch on the Nolicense question, which appeared in the local secular press, and which was subsequently reprinted m our columns. As our readers are aware/ the Bishop s pronouncement was elicited by the unworthy electioneering manoeuvre of some individuals who, in the faco or the objections of the local ecclesiastical authority persisted in the distribution of political appeals in the Nolicense interest at the Christchurch Catholic Cathedral on the Sunday preceding the elections. It is unnecessary to state that political matter, no matter of what hue, would have been equally debarred at such a time and in such a place. The correspondence in question has been marked on the part of the Bishop's critics, by a deplorable bitteness and by a spirit of hectoring and bullying, and of all intolerance. Some of the correspondents were, for the purposes of the controversy, 'Roman Catholics.' On reading their communications and those of the other masked assailants of the Bishop of Christchurch, one fully realises the truth of Cardinal Manning's saying, 'that few persona can resist the tempta-tion of saying anonymously what they would not dream of saying with open face.' One sympathises, furtheimore, with the wholesome contempt whirh filled the soul of the Earl of Beaconsfield when he referred to anonymous writers as ' varlets Tvho pelt honest folk with mud as they walk along, and then hide behind a dustbin ' In a controversy on such a subject, marked -with such bitterness on the side of the dustbin folk, it was inevitabla that we should hear again that mouldy old 'fallacy of figures,' which has again and again been exposed in our columns. We refer to the oft-dynamited tale of the exceptional drunkenness and general criminality and all-round chuckleheadedness of Catholics. Our readers will recall the piece of fiction that 'in this connection was published to the world in a No-license organ by a soi-disant ' Rpman Catholic ' in 1903. A variant of this fairy tale of "figures formed the staple of some abusive correspondence in tho lyttelton Times. Briefly, the public were told -this time again by anonymous and alleged 'Bomah Catholics' that our co-religionists are the most drunken and besotted generation in New Zealand, and the ' proof ' of this wide and wild assertion is just this: that a greater proportion of

persons imprisoned for intemperance sign themselves Catholics than are warranted by the proportion of Catholics to our total population. The < proof > is.a bit of preposterous tolly. We have dealt with it from time to time. Here we will content- ourselves with the following summary remarks in point: — - — ~

The Bishop's critics assume that a proper and correct record is kept of the religious beliefs of all the ' drunks ' in the country. This is undue assumption with a vengeance, (a) In the first place, the roll of Dominion drunkards is far from complete. <&) In the second place, all convicted , topers are not required to make a statement of their religious beliefs, but only those that are sent to prison. And (c) it is, we believe, the experience of every priest who has been engaged in prison work in these countries— as we were for a time in^three separate places— that many non-Catholic criminals have the habit of giving themselves Irish 'aliases' and falsely designating themselves as Catholic. As for the Test, a very large percentage of them can lay claim to the name of Catholic solely by -the fact of their Baptism. They live defiant to the laws of the Church; they assume a sham Catholicism when they And themselves within prison walls, only to shed it at the moment that they sniff again the air of freedom; and, so far as their . lives go, their proper designation is not Catholics, but practical pagans. Is it not .high time for sane people to abandon the controversial trick of making the Catholic Church, and her alone, responsible for the sins and follies of those who never acknowledged her authority, or who, having once acknowledged it, decline her guidance, reject her ministrations, and snap defiant fingers at her laws ? , One might pardon such crude fallacies in immature youths and callow fledgelings that air at times their omniscient lack of knowledge in the correspondence columns of the daily press ; but one is entitled to better things than the adoption or confirmation o*f such offences against right reason and Christian charity from men who have reached the age of sober thinking and responsible expression.

But our prison statistics furnish no reliable evidence even as to the number of 'drunks' or other offenders for which the Dominion, or any given religious denomination in it, is responsible. (1) Over -the published tables of ' law and crime ' it is expressly stated that ' each offence is reckoned as a distinct person.' Thus, if John O'Doe Is ' run in ' seven times in one year for over-indulgence m drink, he counts in the statistics as seven separate misdemeanants. (2) Again: great numbers of drunkards and others convicted in our magistrates' courts do not figure in our prison reports because their means allow them to pay fines in cases where the poorer offender has to go into durance vile. - Thus, in 1901, out of 20,624 summanly convicted, no fewer than 10,088 were merely fined, and 1926 were ordered to prison as an alternative to paying a fine or finding security for good behavior. Tlie systematic impoverishment of Irish Catholics by the operation of the penal code and the agrarian laws is responsible for tlio fact that they furnish an undue proportion to the poorer and poorest part of the population in these countries. And this circumstance would naturally account for a greater frequency of appearance, on their part, on the pages of our prison records. Mulliall, MacDonnell, and statisticians generally acknowledge that petty larceny, drunkenness,- -and certain allied offences are the outcome of poverty. And the overstrung temperament ' and relative neediness of a great mass of our Catholic poor greatly tend to bring their offenders prominently into the public eye. -_They drink, for instance, in the open, under the eye of the police, and, in their case, .an arrest may be associated with three of four separate charges. People of more phlegmatic temperament or fuller purse get drunk, but their offence is unknown to the police records. Probably not two per cent, of -our country's total cases of" drunkenness figure before our courts. Our statistics of ' law and crime ' contain no evidence that drunkenness or other offences arising from poverty are proportionately more - numerous among New Zealand Catholics than among persons of the same clans that are acfhereits of other religious denominations. And' we are convinced that in the graver offences thai constitute ' criminals ' — in murder, suicide, rape, indeqent assault, burglary, swindling, infanticide, "pre-natal murder,

juvenile depravity, flagrant conjugal infidelity, and in other grave infractions of the moral laws of which God takes note where the policeman and the statistician often fail—- the Catholics of New Zealand would gladly take their chances as against those of all other sections of the community.