Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 29 June 1911, Page 1189

Current Topics

Home Rule and 4 Rome ' Rule We wonder if this will satisfy the rather unreasoning and unreasonable people who profess to be nervous about; the fate of Protestants in Ireland if Home Rule be granted. Speaking at Edinburgh on May 5, Mr. John Redmond added the following to the numerous undertakings he has already given: 'He would,' he said, to-morrow renounce Ireland as his country and turn his back upon her shores for ever if he thought that any Catholic Irishman desired or intended that the fabric of Irish liberty should be built upon the oppression of any man for his religion. But he was dealing with men in that controversy who were not prepared to take his word. He did not ask them to take his word. That was a matter so grave that no sense of insult and no sense of offended dignity would allow him to take a course which would put any bar in the way of the freedom of his country, and if they did not believe him and did not trust him, then,' lie said, ' let them put into the Irish Constitution such precautions as they wished to prevent the possibility of religious intolerance and persecution.' In the Republic In spite of the profuse promises of the Masonic 'liberators of humanity,' general political affairs in Portugal are going steadily from bad to worse. The policy of savage persecution of the Church is, of course, being pushed on with unabated vigor; and the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government has just declared that the new Law of Separation about to be issued by him will be so effectual that at the end of three generations there would no longer be a single Catholic in Portugal.' "But apart from religious matters, it is becoming increasingly evident that the authority of the republic is scarcely anywhere respected; and the country is, in addition, heading straight towards financial disaster. 'The national debt,' says a special correspondent of the Catholic. Times, 'is going up by leaps and bounds, while, as Machado dos Santos, who made the revolution, declares in a famous article, which sent people rushing to the banks to buy gold with their paper money, the various palaces cost a great deal more than when the royal family inhabited them, and in spite of the pompously announced economies made chiefly by imposing new stamp duties, the issue of paper money has enormously increased.' *■ Meanwhile, it is satisfactory to note thatnotwithstanding the sinister prophecy of the Minister of Justice the persecutors have unwittingly done the Church a real service. The persecution has had the usual effect of bringing lax and spineless Catholics to their bearings; and already a 'stiffening up' process is in visible operation in every direction. ' For the rest,' writes the special correspondent already quoted, ' the result of the anti-Catholic laws has not been exactly what their authors aimed at. Never have there been so many confessions and Easter Communions. Men who rather prided themselves on their "liberal" sentiments are going to their duties. In. the last week before the date fixed for the Civil register of births and marriages to become obligatory, the bells rang all day for baptisms, the catechumens in many cases being young people, while the streets were gay with wedding parties. The republic, therefore, cannot be said to be a complete failure. It has, beside sending people to their duties, got rid of a number of hoary political sinners of the old regime, while at the same time entirely destroying the ideal created during many years of successful propaganda of its own merits. In fact, while the harm it has done is not irremediable, it has cleaned, swept, and garnished the ancient fabric of the State in readiness for what time and the efforts at last united may very possibly bring about.' The Laymen's League' Most of our readers are familiar, more or less, with the Auckland organisation known as 'The Laymen's League,' formed, a couple of years ago, to do battle against ' the Romeward 'movement.' It called itself officially by the somewhat processional title of ' The Laymen's League r f the Church of the Province of New Zealand ' ; and it started out with quite a portentous programme. Its objects were thus set forthwith a somewhat hysterical profusion of capitals in a Manifesto issued at the inauguration of the League: '(A) The Association of Lay Churchmen within the Diocese of Auckland for the purpose of Defending the Rights of the Laity against the encroachments of Ecclesiasticism in matters appertaining to Church Government and Church Ritual. (B) To Educate, by means of Literature, Lectures, and open Discussion, the Church people of the Diocese regarding the Dangerous Character of the Rome-

ward Movement within?; the Church. - (C) To devise and make known among-Churchmen an Effective Mode for restraining and dealing with the evils referred to in "A" and "B." ; ■ , . i-. ;:...; , : , - : *:. ' '. ' ; ■--"'■ ,■ "...'" -:|i' '"'"'•■'" r * |- Commenting on : the r formation of the League, and speaking with special'reference to the general Romeward movement, the N.Z. Tablet, exactly two years ago to-day, remarked: 'Humanly speaking, a movement which has existed for so long, and which has acquired so great and increasing a momentum, and which is grounded upon a real need of so many pious souls, is not in the least likely to be appreciably delayed or restricted, much less brought to a standstill even locally, by the opposition, however wellmeant, of the Laymen's League.' The Tablet prophecy has already been practically verified. The Romeward tendency in New Zealand has not even been scotched, much less killed,' as witness the teaching given at most of the missions held recently in the Dominion by English Anglican missioners; andthe 'Laymen's League' is now no more. We learn from the June number of the N.Z. Churchman that at the annual meeting held on May 26 a resolution ' that the operations of the League, and the issue of its paper (the Churchman) be suspended,' was, after some discussion, agreed upon without dissent. The professed object of this procedure is to give the new Bishop a free hand; and the Leaguers intend, to rely for the future 'upon God's over-ruling power ' and—as the Report somewhat dubiously adds—upon ' the sound sense with which the Bishop "appears" to be endowed.' We have no reason and no desire to write in any unfriendly spirit towards the late League. The Church of England was, is, and was always meant to be Protestant; and in banding themselves together to maintain its Protestant character the members of the League were, in our humble judgment, acting as at least consistent members of their church. Their zeal, however, has not always been ' according to knowledge ' ; and occasionally there has been manifested a tendency towards the employment—in reference to Catholic doctrines and to the Catholic Church—of a violence of language as unnecessary as it was offensive. It was suggested at the annual meeting that the ' machinery of the League] should be revived if occasion should arise/ A dead league is not easily resuscitated; but if the organisation should by any chance be renewed we trust that its operations in the future will at least be marked by a little more of the maviter in modn if we are not to be permitted any diminution of the fortite'r in re. 1 The Dream of Gerontius ' The visit of the Sheffield Choir—which is meeting with such phenomenal success in Australia—will have, at least one feature of special interest to Catholics,, in that it is placing in the forefront of its programme Sir Edward Elgar's setting of Newman's famous poem, The Bream of Gerontius. By many of the best qualified judges, this brief work is regarded as being Newman's literarv masterpiece. The late Richard Holt Hutton—editor of the Spectator, and probably the greatest literary critic of his dayconsidered Newman's handling of the subject of death and of life in the intermediate state as superior even to Dante's treatment of the same great theme. The Bream of Gerontius he described as ' one of the most unique and original poems of the past century, as well as that one of all of them which is, in every sense, the least in sympathy with the temper of the century.' The late Mr. Gladstone was an enthusiastic admirer of the poem ; and the hymn of the 'Choir of Angclicals,' commencing with the linesPraise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise; In all His words most wonderful; Most sure in all His ways! was one of the great stateman's favorite hymns. Even the late General Gordon—far removed as he was from the doctrinal standpoint of the author of the poem—found solace in its touching lines. As was the case with much of Newman, s ; best poetical work, the publication of The Bream of Gerontius was brought about in- quite a: casual, almost accidental. manner. The verses were written in 1865 twenty years after Newman's conversion, and immediately after the death of a dear friend. Newman read the poem carefully, but not considering it of any special merit, laid it aside. Some time afterwards the editor of the well-known London Catholic magazine, the Month, wrote to Father .Newman, asking -for a contribution. Newman examined his papers, but finding nothing which he considered sufficiently learned he answered that he had some verses, which, if the editor eared to have them, were at his disposal. The editor did care, and they were published at once. 1 ■.:_■ ■•-. ■■',.■■■"' ' V; i r r * \ VI " "1 ■ '■'- 'y The poem is an imaginative picture of the experiences which a just soul may be supposed. to go through during

•;and immediately after death.,. It is divided into seven sections, the general; contents; of . which o have been .thus summarised:..'.. In the first of these Gerontius lies upon his death-bed in the last moment, of his mortal agony the second his liberated soul experiences for the first time the actual separation from the body in the third he converses with his attendant angel-guardian upon the strangeness of his present existence and approaching meeting with the Almighty Judge; the fourth describes the meeting in the middle region between Heaven and Earth of the bands jof demons venting their fury against. God and their contempt for man; in the fifth the soul enters amidst the choirs of the angelicals who chant God's praises in the vestibules of Heaven; in the sixth the soul'appears before the throne of God for judgment; the seventh and final part pictures the consignment of the soul to" the Angels of Purgatory who , shall ; guard it until the angel guardian shall return to reclaim it for the courts of light.' As a sample of the vivid and impressive writing with which the poem abounds we quote—from the opening lines—this, powerful description of . the approach of, death: Jesu, Maria am near to death, :< - And thou art calling me; I know it now — Not by the token of this faltering breath, This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow, (Jesu, have mercy ! Mary, pray for me—'Tis this new feeling, never felt before, ... „ : (Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!) That I am going, that I am ho more. 'Tis this strange, innermost abandonment, (Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,) This emptying out of each constituent ... And natural force, by which I come to be. Pray for me, 0 my friends; a visitant Is knocking his dire summons at my door, The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt, Has never, never come to me.before; 'Tis death,—o loving friends, your prayers ! —'tis he ! . '■■•-As though my very being had given way, As though I was no more a substance now, And could fall back on nought to be my stay, (Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole Refuge, Thou,) And turn no whither, but must needs decay And drop from out the universal frame Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss, That _ utter nothingness, of which I came: This is it that has come to pass in me; 0 horror! this it is, my dearest, this; So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to . pray. ■■■... .... Again, take this dramatic description of the fading awav of the senses as death approaches: • I. can no more; for now it comes'again, That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain, That masterful negation and collapse Of all that makes me man; as though I bent Over the dizzy brink of some sheer infinite descentthrou h S h down ~ down for ever I was falling The solid framework of created things, • And needs must sink and sink 'lnto the vast abyss. And, crueller still, A fierce and restless fright begins to fill ' : The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,. . borne bodily form of ill . . ..■...'■ Floats om the wind, with many a loathsome curse tint UWed ahVand laughs ' and fln P s it« hideous • ■ ■"■wings, ■'•• •-■ And makes me wild with horror and dismay. O Jesu, help! Pray for me, Mary, pray. J \ - m agony''. J ! SU! SUGh ™ Cam ° t 0 Thee in Thine own .; , The poem affords ample scope for every varietv of musical expression; and its rendering by this exception skilled choir should prove a rare treat. Both "the sake of the intrinsic merits of the poem, and for the create? enjoyment m following tho performance, intending patrol should procure copies of the words, which may be obtained at any Catholic bookseller's for a few pence. oDtained The Financial Relations Committee /W; S r m V llOl time ag ? WG : quoted from the Liverpool ft Times-* strongly Nationalist paper-a statement to the effect that the personnel of the new Financial Relations Committee set up to clear the ground ; on the fin ant a Bide of the Irish question had given general S o the friends of Home Rule. ;In one fense the statemen is correct. enough. There is no actual personal objeS to anyone member of the Commission. ■;.. But a very K™ -and very natural-objection exists in Ireland to the

overwhelming preponderance of sympatic and of , voting power which has been assigned to the ' predominant partner' in. the composition of the Commission. The Childers Commission of 1894 consisted of fifteen members—of whom seven were Irishmen. The recently appointed Committee consists of five Englishmen, one Irishman, and a seventh member (Lord Pirie) who was born in Canada of Irish parents, but who lives mostly in England. Moreover the Royal Commission of 1894 was a public commission the Committee now appointed is to be, it seems, a private committee covering the same ground. The following comments, from representative Irish papers, give a tolerably clear indication of the state of feeling in Ireland on the subject. ■:.!■■ v.;:', \ ,-,■:* The Kilkenny People says: 'lt is not too much to say that the Financial Committee or Commission, call it what you will, that has been appointed to determine the fiscal responsibilities of Great Britain and Ireland has caused serious misgiving in Ireland. And no wonder. How can any respect for or confidence in its findings be anticipated when, with the single exception of the Bishop of Ross, who can hardly be regarded as a financial expert, there is no man on the Committee whose sympathies, when the interests of Ireland and of the predominant partner" are in conflict, lean'to the weaker side. It is essential that Ireland should have at least one strong, able, experienced, and clear-headed man on the Committee. One name at Once suggests itself—that of Mr. Thomas Sexton. If the Government were really anxious to have Ireland's case fully and fairly presented, they would, without a shadow of doubt, have added Mr. Sexton to the Financial Committee. That they have not done so almost inevitably suggests a desire on their part to secure a verdict for England. We have had no definite information— vague hints— to the views of the Irish leader on the character of the Committee, on its fitness to make an impartial report, and, above all, on the omission from that body of Mr! Sexton, whose superb handling of the delicate and vastly important questions that presented themselves in connection with the Financial Relations Commission is a lasting monument to his genius. We think the country should know whether Mr. Redmond and the Irish Party are satisfied with the Committee as at present constituted.' ■ : ' * ' ......•-.. The Sligo Champion makes the following pertinent comparison: 'One would imagine that "the financial relations between Ireland and the. other component parts of the United Kingdom" had been already determined by a Royal Commission On the threshold of Home Rule, as we are given to believe we stand, it is very extraordinarv if the whole question is to be re-opened, and what else are we to gather from the. statement, above quoted, of the scope of the inquiry at present proposed ? If the report of the Roval Commission on the financial relations is not to be revised or at all events, called into question, what is the meaning of the above statement of the objects of the present Committee? The Royal Commission of 1894 was a public commission. The Committee now appointed is to be, it seems a private committee covering the same ground. That any committee, whatever its constitution, should be empowered ill private conclave to set aside the findings of the Royal Commission is calculated to cause much anxiety in Ireland and such anxiety is not allayed by the consideration of the constitution of this Committee ... So that this Com" mitteo whose findings, we may expect, will be the basis for Homo Ruler Finance, consists of five Englishmen, one Irishman and Lord Pirrie, who may probably regard matters from the Irish point of view. Accepting Lord Pirrie as an Irishman we have five expert English financiers pitted against two Irishmen on a Committee to investigate a question of the gravest concern to Ireland. And tho-Com-mittee so constituted is to sit in private on, amongst other things, a question already decided by a Royal Commission composed of eight Englishmen and seven Irishmen. Replying to Mr Ginnell in the House of Commons the other day, Mr. Birrell declared that tho Government would not witliSlV 1 I™?* 10n flm , an y° n e seeking knowledge on the subject of the financial relations. But this is not the «?*n v r. 1 question is. to be re-opened it should be in the full light of day, and the verdict of the committee should bo based on evidence properly tested and subject to public J' 16 SC ? 6 ° f , " y financial ■»<iuiry,-8t should be to ascertain how much money the Government is spending on Ireland. We know the annual Irish Estimates, but whether or not the money voted is actually spent we have no means of finding out. Public bodies throughSwi S lTl d hast / n 1 to express their disatisfaction wit the constitution of this .committee, and agitate for a full and Open > inquiry into Irish expenditure by a body ?HshSncSL' ntereStS WiH bG adGqUately -presented £ U I. And the Kerry Evening Star contains this strong and outspoken .criticism: It would be futile to deny that a great deal of dissatisfaction exists in Ireland regarding th«

composition of some of the Committees appointed to consider matters affecting this country. ■ The Committee appointed to consider the financial; relations between Ireland and the component parts of the United Kingdom contains only one representative who can be said to represent popular feeling in this country—namely, the : Most Rev. Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Ross. Now, Dr. Kelly is a very able public man who undoubtedly- has a grasp of economic and financial matters; but it must be remembered that he is hopelessly outnumbered in the Committee, and that he has pitted against him some of the very ablest financial experts of England and Scotland. It is admitted on all hands that the coming Home Rule Bill must be built mainly on a financial basis; and, in view of-this fact, it is not alone regrettable, but almost tragic, that Ireland will be so heavily handicapped in the course of the coming actuarial inquiry which the Government is making preparatory to the introduction of Home Rule. There is no earthly reason why Ireland' should not have a fair representation "on this Finance Committee. ' It should ease the situation for the Home Rule Government to have Irish opinion adequately represented, so- that it may get at the real facts of the Irish financial position.' The juggling of figures by English and Scotch experts cannot possibly help to create that state of feeling which is so necessary for a full and fair consideration of Home Rule finance. Practically all parties .in Ireland are agreed on the importance of finance as far as this country is concerned. When the Report of the last Financial Relations Commission was published, declaring that Ireland was over-taxed to the tune- of nearly three millions per annum, it caused no small surprise and indignation among all classes; and Unionists were as loud in their demands as Nationalists for redress. Why not, then, give all classes in this country a fair representation on the present Committee of Inquiry Mr. Thomas Sexton is one of the ablest, if not the ablest financier we have in Ireland. He rendered yeoman service on the Financial Relations Commission. Why is. he omitted from the membership of the present Committee? All parties, we take the liberty of saying, would be delighted to see him included in the list of the members. Then, Mr. Arthur W. r Samuels has devoted a great deal of his time and has shown considerable ability in discussing the financial relations between these countries. Why could not he be included in the Committee? Various other names suggest themselves. The Most Rev. Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, has, practically speaking, made the financial question his own. Then we have men like Mr. William M. Murphy, who has been so highly successful in all his own big financial undertakings, and who at all times has shown a wonderful grasp of public questions. Mr. J. J. Clancy, M.P., is also a strong authority on finance; but we need not go on giving names. The broad fact has to be faced and we make no apology for the iteration that the Committee is not at all as representative as it should be from the Irish point of view; and the country is strongly of opinion that two or three more representatives of Irish feeling should be added to it.' * In view of these criticisms, and of the very marked contrast between the Royal Commission of 1894 and the re--cently-appointed Committee, no further explanation is : necessary of Mr. John Redmond's action in publicly dissociating himself beforehand from the findings of the'latter