Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 6 July 1911, Page 1250

Notes

"V -™rr«-r The Cadet Question v At the meeting of the Otago Diocesan Synod of the Church of England last week, the following resolution was adopted: 'That this Synod appreciate the action of the Defence authorities in permitting the various religious bodies to nominate officers and enrol Senior Cadets "into companies attached to such bodies.’ The Delegates at Grey mouth , Messrs. Donovan and Redmond evidently had a royal time at Greymouth; and the handsome response to the financial appeal is a fair index of the enthusiasm displayed, hi the course of one of the finest articles on the subject of Home Rule -which we have yet seen in any New Zealand paper, the Grey. River Argus of Juno 26 remarks- —‘ For the credit of Greymouth—and more for its good common sense than for its generosityit was very pleasing to see the whole-hearted way in which the people of the town thronged the Opera House on Friday evening. A stranger might well have imagined that Greymouth is a peculiarly

Irish town, so cordial and generous was the reception accorded to Messrs. Donovan and Redmond. We are glad to believe that the demonstration was due far more to the principle that,the delegates are advocating than to the fact that they are Irishmen. There was a time a few years back hen the Irish element of this district was far greater than it is now, and when the enthusiasm of the reception would have caused no great surprise. But as that condition no longer obtains, it is only fair to attribute the cordiality of the reception extended to those Irish gentlemen more to the justice of the cause they advocate and the liberal instincts of the people of Greymouth than to any other reason. Hence its political value. . . . Could there be a more convincing argument in favor of Home Rule for Ireland than the wonderfully generous enthusiasm evoked by those Irish delegates in whatever part of the great Empire they make their appeal to the British spirit of fair play? No greater object lesson could he brought before the impaired vision of the class so consistently opposed to Home Rule for Ireland as the unanimous way in which the young nations overseas have pronounced themselves in favor of Home Rule ever since the days of Isaac Butt and Parnell. The refusal of so common and natural a. right has long been one of those features of British home administration that has been altogether unintelligible to intelligent colonials.’ Livingstone and the Boers A letter written by David Livingstone in 1851 has just been published in the Church Magazine of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Altenburg Gardens, Clapman Common, ft contains an interesting glimpse of the Boers in the faraway days of 1851,. in which year the letter was written: ‘ A number of men of Dutch extraction, called Boers or Boors, prove great plagues to the natives of the region beyond this, and they arc hindrances, to the progress of the Gospel, as they possess guns and horses, and look upon the natives as so many baboons which may be shot without guilt; their deeds are horrible. A French missionary lately attempted to go to the natives who - are living in subjection to these Boers, hut they compelled Kim to return whence he came; they forbid us to speak unto the Gentiles that they may be saved. . And yet these Boers are very religious in their own way. Each one has his Bible, and many of them conceive they are the peculiar favorites of heaven; indeed, not a few of them imagine that they are in the same position as the children of Israel when led by Moses. They- left the colony because the British Government would not allow them to keep slaves. . They hate the English most devoutly. The Scotch have rather more favor in their eyes, but they would as soon meet the devil as a missionary. They frequently murder the native chief* tains, steal cattle, and children; their deeds often prevent the natives from thinking on better things, for when the native mind is preoccupied by rumors of attacks they cannot attend to our instructions. The worst feature in the case of these Boers is their belief that they are Christians. This belief is fostered by their ministers, who, to the disgrace of our country, are generally Scotchmen.’