Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 4 July 1912, Page 21

Current Topics

Going to the Devil Our readers are familiar with the name of the Rev. ,Jacob Primmer, the irrepressible Scottish bigot, "whose No-Popery antics are a source of merriment to all outside his own communion and even to .many within. the Presbyterian fold. Lately Jacob has broken out in a fresh place. ‘ Now, however,’ says a late issue of the English Rresbgterian, ‘ the Rev. Jacob has turned his lance . against our Presbyterian Church in England, and has uttered awful words betokening our doom. It is this way. The Convener of the Committee on the State of Religion and Public Morals, the Rev. J G. Gould, of Eastbourne, duly drafted and dispatched to all our. churches a leaflet on behalf of ,the late Week of Prayer and Self-Denial, in which he referred to the silent appeal of Good Friday, while careful to say that the day of the Lord’s cruifixion “4s no more binding upon the Christian to remenfter now than at other times.’’ But some Carlisle friend did not like certain of the expressions, and forwarded a copy to the Rev. Jacob Primmer, who immediately sent back this quite characteristic reply:— Dear Mr. Church of England is awfully Popish ; the observance of superstitious season and exaltation, not of Christ, but a material cross. All our Churches are under an infatuation,- and are hastening to the Pope and the Devil as fast as they can.—Yours faithfully, Jacob Primmer.’’ ’ * When we read the absurdities of the typical NoPopery —and we have one or two in New Zealand we are irresistibly reminded of an incident said to have taken place in Mile End road. A pork butcher’s cart ran into a tramcar. When the two vehicles got clear of each other the car-driver, looking up, exclaimed; Say Mr. Dripping and Lard, why don’t you go and get your, ’ead examined by “Orsley” V ‘Well,’ retorts Dripping and Lard, ‘and what do you suppose ’d be Victor’s die-hog-nosis V Why, ’Orsley w’d examine yer ’ead and ’ed say “ You didn’t ought' to come to me with your ’ead, because our Empire has got institootions for cases like yours.” So with the No-Popery cranks. Their proper place is not the pulpit. Our Empire has got institootions ’ for cases like theirs. Socialism Amongst the Children The Hon.- Bird S. Color, of New York, whose stirring articles ■ on - educational questions are arousing wide interest in. America, recently declared, on excellent authority, that seven-tenths of the teachers in American secondary schools were- Socialists, and that an organised and determined attempt, was being made to capture the schools for Socialism. Evidences come to hand from other, quarters, - also, of the way in which children are not only being imbued with the" principles and ideals of Socialism, but - are even being utilised to carry on the propaganda. - For example: From a report of what is denominated ‘ A Labor Rally,’ contained in the Maryborough Chronicle, of June 6, we find that Socialistic tableaux and - songs; by the children constituted easily the most conspicuous feature of the proceedings. Says the.report; ‘ The .next item on the programme was a very; pretty tableau presented by a number of children. • . • The third and last row, boys and girls alternately . i* . represented the workers of the world. Held up above the heads of the group was the typical red -banner or flag of Socialism. . . . The tableau was met with - an- outburst of applause/ * ... And again f ‘To give variety to the function some thirty odd children, dressed in becoming white, took possession of the three tiers of raised. seats, on which the • tableau had previously been displayed, and -sang with much feeling and good volume the stirring strains of a 5 Socialistic song, “The - Red Flag.’ ' Each of the children a little red bow. During the .sin<rin* of the chorus a little girl, standing on a form in front of

• the songsters, waved to : and fro the red flag with - Socialism written largely .across it. The song'met r with a great reception.' Still,the audience had not had enough, and before the programme ended we read that ily special request the children again sang the Red i 1 lag i hymn, the audience taking up the refrain with gusto, and at the conclusion sent forth a volley of vociferous cheers.' This at what was merely described as i A Labor Rally, All the speakers on the occasion—including two members of Parliament a strong Socialistic note; and the whole proceedings leave no room for doubt that the Queensland Labor Party, at ; least, is out for pure and undiluted Socialism. The I.W.W. and the Flag : , We have not had long to wait for confirmation of ;■ the view— expressed in our last week's issue—that the proposed action of the N.Z. Federation of Labor in the direction of identifying itself with the Industrial Woikers of the World organisation amounted to ‘ formally and expressly committing the federation to methods ot violence and force,' nor for confirmation, also, of our further statement that the recognised methods of the 1 W W. embraced a policy of constant irritation, perpetual strikes, and sabotage. (Under this latter term is included the destruction of machinery, putting ; emery dust into bearings, etc.) The confirmation conies in the shape of some utterances made by a Mr King a representative of .the 1.W.W., in an address delivered to the Waihi miners last week. According to the Press Association’s report, the speaker condemned the contract system as being solely in the interests of capitalists, and exhorted the men to insist on day wages. He explained the I.W.W.’s tactics of striking on the job, and gave illustrations showing how drilling machines could be put out of commission in a very short space of time. ‘ The Rcefton miners,’ he said, should not have left the mines. If they had adopted the i.W.W , s tactics all the poppers in New Zealand could have been put out of business in three or four days. Get on day wages as quickly as you can. The less you work the longer you will live. Don’t study the boss, but take as many 15 minutes as you can. If the worst comes to the worst you can go to the beach and live on pipis and fish. Let the capitalist go to blazes and look after yourselves. Hit him in such a way that he cannot hit back.' * A further interesting sidelight on I.W.W. principles and methods, and particularly on their ideas in regard to patriotism, is furnished by an item which appears in our American exchanges just to hand In our New Zealand dailies of May 6 there appeared a New York cable telling us how that ‘ during a May Day meeting in Union square the Socialists tore down the American Flag and hoisted the Red Flag instead, the crowd howled ‘Tear that dirty rag down I’ The police ineffectually tried to interfere, but were’powerless. Regarding this incident our American contemporary, the Sacred Heart Review, in its latest issue to hand, says: ‘The meeting was held under the auspices of the Socialists of New York, but it is only fair to say that the Socialists disclaim all responsibility for the outrage, and place the blame upon the Industrial Workers of the World many of whom were present at the meeting. It was those, the Socialists declare, who cried Tear down that dirty rag and then putting their cries into effect, dragged down the banner of the country. There has been no disclaimer or repudiation from the I. W.W.; and, while it is quite possible that the official Socialists were not wholly free from responsiWovW A e n m L PeCtly Clear that the Industrial Workers of the World were the chief offenders. Italy and the Suffrage: Will Catholics Vote .. T , - An exceedingly interesting situation has arisen in Italy through the„ introduction by the : Government of a , Suffrage Bill, which passed what corresponds to our Second Reading m the-Italian Chamber of Deputies - on May 10. most of our. readers , are aware, Pius . * long ago laid down for«the Catholics of Italy the principle, ne, clefti.yic 'Jetton neither elected 7 nor

electors’); in other words, the complete abstention of Catholics from political life, as a protest against the invasion of Rome by the Piedmontese. This position of ‘ Non Expedit ’was maintained by Leo XIII., and • renewed by the present Holy Father, who, however, in his encyclical letter ‘ 11 fermo proposito ’ addressed to the bishops of Italy in June, 1905, conceded that grave reasons of the sovereign. good of society might call for an exception, which would be made when the bishops, seeing such need for the salvation of souls and the protection of the property of the churches in their respective dioceses, should ask a dispensation from the general rule. The concession, so far as it has been taken advantage of at all, has been used rather for the purpose of keeping out Anti-clerical candidates than for securing the return of Catholic members; and in a Chamber of 508 members there are less than a score of Catholic Deputies. For all practical purposes it may be said that the principle laid down for Catholics that they should neither vote nor offer themselves as candidates has been universally observed. * ’ The Suffrage Bill introduced by the Liberal Premier (Signor Giolitti), however, has created an entirely new situation. It not only raises the number of Parliamentary voters from about three millions and a-half to eight millions and a-half, but it abolishes the proviso as to a knowledge of reading and writing, which was formerly attached to the franchise, and puts the power of legislation almost completely into the hands of the proletariat. It is in the country districts of Italy that the increase of voters will be most marked ; and as the influence of the Church is undoubtedly greater in such districts than in the cities, the effect of the enlarged franchise will certainly be a large increase in the Catholic vote. The Bill is, however, at least as favorable to the extreme Socialists, who are numerous, active, and well organised. The question is whether, in view of the evils which threaten from the Socialist quarter, the provisions of the Non Expedit will be modified or withdrawn, and Catholics generally be allowed to vote. On this point, of course, no opinion of value can be formed at this distance; and we can only present the views of authorities nearer home. The Rome correspondent of the London Tablet will go no further than to suggest that there may. be an increase in the number of Catholic Deputies, while declaring that there is no reason to believe that a ‘ Catholic Party,’ properly so called, will be either encouraged or recognised. A well-informed Rome correspondent of America affirms that 1 the Catholic organisations are deliberating over a wider and more systematic use of the ballot, while still refraining from candidacy for membership in Parliament ’; and opines that the ethical position of Catholic voters within the limits of the former pontifical states would seem to be to make use for their own protection, under the dt facto government, of the civil rights allowed them, while awaiting the juridical settlement of the independency of the Holy See.’ Finally, no less an authority than Dom Oswald Hunter Blair, 0.5.8., declares that ‘ it is anticipated in well-informed quarters that, without the formal annulment of the “Non Expedit ,” it may, as a matter of fact cease to be generally enforced, and that the franchise will be exercised as a matter of course, except under special circumstances, by Catholics as by others.’ The development of the present situation will certainly be awaited with no little interest. Mr. Jellicoe’s Jeremiad : In our criticism of Socialism, as in our attitude on any other question, it is the duty of the Catholic journalist to be scrupulously fair, and to take every care possible, in any specific condemnation of the system, to make sure that we are on absolutely solid ground. In this connection we have to issue a word of warning to some of our American contemporaries who are taking in all seriousness Mr. E. G. Jellicoe’s recently published jeremiad against New Zealand * Socialism,’ and who are being gravely misled in consequence., Thus our esteemed Canadian contemporary the North West Review, in its issue of April 20, prints lengthy extracts from Mr. Jellicoe’s outburst under the headings ‘ A Severe

Arraignment of Socialist Doctrine,’ ‘ Some Results Which Have Been Obtained Where the Teaching Is Put Into Practice/ ‘A Former Follower of The Cult Emphasises His Great Disappointment and Returns to His Former Convictions/ and so on, the impression being conveyed that legislative Socialism reigns in New . Zealand, and that its reign has been disastrous. Both of these notions are entirely erroneous. What the future \ holds in store for us, of course, we do not know; but we have not now, nor have we ever had, Socialism in operation in New Zealand. The official Socialist Party in the Dominion is numerically weak, and — the presentpolitically insignificant. We have never had a Socialist Party in our House of Representatives. It is true that the Labor Party—which is distinct from the official Socialist Party— becoming more and more permeated with Socialistic ideas, and is introducing into its objective, more or less definitely, the ideal of economic Socialism; but in a House of 74 members we have only four such Labor representatives, and prior to the last election we had only one. Nor can it be said that Socialism—in any accurate sense of the term— embodied in our legislation. Our Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation Acts are not Socialism, but rather operate as a preventive to Socialism, in that they tend to give steadiness and stability to industrial and economic conditions. So fully is this now realised that the militant Socialist Party in New Zealand have officially declared that they are out against our arbitration system. Our Shops and Shop Assistants Act, which provides for early closing of shops and for a weekly half-holiday for shop employees is not Socialism, but a purely Christian attempt to give workers a reasonable amount of leisure for rest, recreation, and self-improvement; and it has operated so beneficially that neither employers nor employed would now listen to any suggestion for its repeal. Our State ownership of railways is not Socialism, having been adopted long ago not on any Socialistic theory but on the broad principle that public utilities which by their very nature partake of the character of monopolies are, on the whole, better managed by the State than by an individual or a company, and that it is better that natural monopolies of the sort should be placed in the hands of the people than in the hands of trusts and combines. Our Advances to Settlers system, which has been such a boon to the small farmer in providing him with cheap money and in lowering the rate of interest, is certainly not Socialism, since it presupposes and is based upon the settler’s rights of ownership in the landthe very theory which Socialism is out to destroy. And so we might go on, through the whole list of our humanitarian legislation. Our Factory Acts, our Old Age Pensions, our Workmen’s Compensation for Accidents Acts, our Land for Settlement Acts, giving the would-be settler such reasonable facilities for obtaining land, on either leasehold or free- - hold tenure,'as human legislation is capable —all of these might have been taken, as to their essence, and some of them almost in their very terms, from Leo XIII., great Encyclical on Labor. As we have said, Socialism is making considerable headway in the ' ranks of the Labor Party and of the trade unions, and if it should become the dominant factor in our politics there is trouble ahead of New Zealand as of other countries but in the meantime, and so far, New Zealand stands not for Socialism, properly so called, but merely for an advanced democracy. New Zealand legislation does, indeed, tell against Socialism, but on different grounds from those imagined by our esteemed contemporary. It tells against Socialism because it furnishes a" remarkable object-lesson of the extent to which valuable and important social reforms can be effected without in the least acknowledging or adopting the collectivist principle.. As to Mr. Jellicoe, he is known here as a'man of un-' doubted ability, but also as hot-headed, impulsive, excitable, and partisan. Not even the most Conservative of our newspapers took his weird utterance seriously.