Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 29 August 1912, Page 21

Current Topics

Our Catholic Laity As we remarked last week, instances are continually coming under our notice of the fine Catholic spirit which, in ever-increasing measure, is being developed amongst our New Zealand laity, and of the splendid example, which they are showing in many places by their intelligent grasp of Catholic principles and by their sturdy and unswerving loyalty to the teachings of their holy Faith. The latest case in point is furnished by the members of the Catholic. Club at Karangahake 6o —who, according to the testimony of our travelling correspondent, are, from every point of view, as fine a body of men as New Zealand could produce. They have shown, and are showing, their high intelligence and sterling character, not by loud talk, but by quietly doing the things that count. For some months past the whole of s the northern gold fields districts have been passing through a particularly difficult and trying time. In addition to the critical situation created by the Waihi strike, there has been active propaganda work by the N.Z. Federation of Labor, and a development on the part of that organisation in the direction of affiliation with the Industrial Workers of the World, a representative of the I.W.W. having been engaged in lecturing throughout the goldfields on the methods and principles of the American body. For the Catholic workers to have identified themselves with the exponents of this violent form of extreme Socialism would have been a betrayal of Christian principles and of common morality; on the other hand, to have made a single false step, in the direction of the opposite extreme would have been to lay themselves under the imputation of being reactionaries, and of being, also, disloyal to their class. To steer an even keel under such circumstances —to maintain and vindicate sound trade union principles and at the same time to keep clear of all complicity with methods of violence and disorderrequired not only courage and loyalty to principle, but required, also, level headedness, tact, and a large measure of quiet, practical common sense. This very rare combination of qualities the Catholic men of Karangahake have displayed to the fullest degree ; and they have come out of the long and trying ordeal with flying colors. Small wonder that their beloved priest, Dean Hackett, is genuinely proud of them. Their sterling worth is universally recognised in the community ; and it is admittedly due to their steadying influence that in the recent election of trade union officials in the district the representatives of violence were utterly worsted. Our representative assures us that in speaking to the Catholics of Karangahake one realises at once that he is talking to men of exceptional intelligence; and that in defending and vindicating their faith, as they are doing, under conditions calculated to try both their principles and their patience, they are doing a work of which the Church at large has good reason to be proud; We have no difficulty in accepting our correspondent’s statement and we very heartily congratulate Dean Hackett and the district on having a body of such sturdy representatives of manly and virile Catholicism.

A Married Person’s Problem When the Saddncees of old tried to puzzle and entrap our Lord by propounding to Him the case of the woman who had had seven husbands, they submitted a purely fancy and imaginary instance, no doubt, but one which—in spite of its had underlying it, at least' for the natural man or woman, something of a -real problem and difficulty. ‘There were with us seven brethren/ said these subtle disputants, and the first having married a wife, died ; and not having issue, left his wife to his brother. In like manner the second, and the third, and so on to the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. At the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven shall she be?’ Seven husbands for one wife is not a common allowance, even in these progressive days; but

second and third marriages are a frequent occurrence, and are celebrated, of course, without the faintest stigma being cast upon them. The problem which occurs to the modern mind in such cases takes a somewhat different form from that suggested by the question .of the Sadducees, and may be thus set forth: A couple marry, and live . very happily for a number of years, both frequently declaring that they could not by any possibility have loved anybody else but their present partner. After a time one of them dies—let us say, for illustration’s sake, the husband, though all remarks we may make apply equally. to both parties. For a while the widow is inconsolable; but time is a great healer, and she is very lonely, and the children would be the better of some one to control them, and so, for one reason or another, she takes a second husband, and, if he should die, perhaps also a third. If all four parties should have the happiness to get to Heaven,! will the wife’s affection for her last husband subtract from or interfere with her. love for her first; or, to express the matter in the mildest possible way, will there be any feeling of awkwardness or embarrassment between any or all of the parties ? The idea is not often expressed or talked about ; but some such thought must, we believe, at least occasionally have passed through the minds of people in the circumstances named. *

The Rev. Father Hull, S.J., of the Bombay Examiner, who has a genius for unravelling tangled questions of the sort, cuts the knot in the following simple and lucid fashion, in an answer given by him to a Hindu inquirer on the subject. ‘As regards the life after the grave, Christ our Lord once had a case proposed to him. A man marries seven wives in succession. Which of them will count as his wife after the resurrection? The case is a fancy one, of course, but the answer was clear. “After the . resuv -ectii'n there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage, for they are as the angels in heaven.’’ This means that marriage is essentially a provision for the earthly life; and its object is achieved and ceases at' death. In a future life the principal and all-absorbing love of the soul will be the love of God the infinite good; and all creatures will be loved in him, and only in him, and in the same ratio in which God Himself loves each one. It will be purely spiritual state without sex or passion. The love of creatures will, as far as we can imagine, lose its idiosyncracies of sentiment and emotion. That there will be some special relation of love between hose who have been specially related in this life we can easily assume; but all such love will be freed from its exclusiveness and other earthly limitations, so that the love of a first wife -and of a second wife will not spoil each other.’ That is clear and conclusive; and is comforting to all parties.

The Labor Party, and Secular Education The following cable, which appeared in Friday’s papers, is one of the most important and significant items that has come to us over the wires for many a month past: ‘London, August 21.—The Miners’ Federation has given notice of resolution that at the forthcoming Trade Union Congress at Newport they will move to eliminate secular education from the future programme of the party. The movers are convinced that secularism is seriously endangering trade unionism in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Scotland.’ The decision of this numerically strong and in every way influential organisation is manifestly an outcome of the agitation which _ has been - carried on by the Catholic Trade Unionists of Great Britain with steady determination for several, years past. Year by year a resolution in favor of secular education has been passed by the Trades Union Conferences in the face of reiterated and strenuous protests from the Catholic members. Latterly the Catholic trade unionists have agitated chiefly in the direction of appealing from the official Labor leaders to their masters—i.e., to the members of the unions• by means of a ballot of all the affiliated societies on the question of retaining or dropping the secular education plank from the Labor programme. Some two and a

half years ago at the Newport Conference of that period a specially vigorous effort was made to effect this object, the stand taken by the Catholic delegates being thus defined: ‘They were out for Trade-unionism, and they were out for labor, but when they joined those movements they were not asked to comply with a religious test; they were not asked if they believed in secular education. They objected to the introduction of that question because it was alien to trade-unionism and alien to labor, and because it had been introduced by undemocratic methods.’ This attempt was unsuccessful ; but after the Conference a crowded meeting of Catholics and Catholic Trade-unionists was held at Newport, at which it was resolved that the Catholic delegates should carry the question from Conference to Congress and from Congress to Conference, and never rest until the reference to secular education was deleted. The decision of the powerful Miners’ Federationas conveyed in the cable quotedis a tribute to the effectiveness of the Catholic delegates’ efforts, and a striking illustration of the success which generally attends those who never * let up ’ in a good cause, but through good fortune and ill keep ever steadily ‘pegging away.’ The indications are that, if not at the forth-coming congress, at all events in the very near future, the Catholic agitation will be successful. The extent of the advance which has been already madeas indicated by the conversion of the Miners’ Federation to He anti-secular —may be gathered from the fact that the English Trades Union Congress of two years aco, held at Newport, by 725,000 votes to 666,000, negatived a Catholic delegate’s proposal to take a ballot of all affiliated societies on the retention or deletion of the secular education policy in the trade unionists’ programme; and the secular education resolution was carried by 827,000 to 81,000 votes. In spite of those figures, and notwithstanding that the Catholic Trades Unionists had failed in their immediate object, it was even then made manifest that they had at least succeeded in impressing members of the Labor Party with the fact that the wisdom of committing the Party to the secular policy had now become one of serious question. Mi. Bruce Glasier, who wrote the descriptive article in the Labor Leader on the Newport Conference to which we are referring, said : f It is significant that no discussion in the Conference aroused so much intense feeling as that on the subject of secular education. Whatever side one takes upon the question, one hardly sees its immediate relation to the great burning questions of poverty and capitalist exploitation. . Yet not even the question of Socialism has ever threatened to. create cleavage in the Conference as this has done ’ Such an admission showed that the representations of the Catholic Trade Unionists had had their effect on the Labor Pa%; and it is now quite evident that our co-religionists amongst the English workers will pursue their efforts, and not cease protesting until the resolution in favor of secular education is withdrawn. We are not uninterested spectators of the struggle, because in the programme of nearly every Labor Party south of the line a similar inept proposal, finds a place. What We Save the State f v We ave been asked for some particulars regarding the monetary aspect of Catholic education, and in par* mst r^rf ?ldl u g n tllG followin g points— it has cost Catholics all these years, what it has cost to erect schools, what amount has the existence of the Catholic system saved to the Government, what proportion of taxes have Catholics to pay towards the upkeep of education under the Government system. The main „ fhe°V/ S Sf ,'TV 1“ «>an “n“e tlie question is continually b up, , d it is, perhaps, desirable that we should gather together the available information in a concise and compact form, so, as to serve as a sort of fir a st^tlmre n iV O oV to all inquiries. . Taking the last query hist, there is, of course, no special tax ear-marked for education the cost of which is paid out of the public unds and out of income from endowments. Catholics

are, approximately, one-seventh of tire population (excluding Maoris) ; and they may be regarded, therefore, as contributing, roughly, one-seventh of the taxation necessary for State education purposes. To put the matter another way: The total amount expended on education out of the public funds (omitting income derived from endowments) for the year ending March 31, 1910, was £998,000 {Official Year Book, 1911, p. 104); and the contribution per head (including Maoris) to the State Education bill was 19s 5d ( Year Book, 1911, p. 105). The Catholic population (according to the census) was 140,523 ; and their 'contribution to the cost of the Government education systemin whose benefits they I do not participatewas, therefore, £136,424 8s 3d, or, in round numbers, £136,400.

* ✓ In regard to the cost incurred by Catholics in erecting their schools, full totals for the different dioceses right back over the past thirty-five years have not, so far as we know, been published; and it would be a matter of enormous labor now to compile them. Some idea, however, of the sacrifice involved in the mere matter of the erection of Catholic schools—apart from the steady drain and strain in regard to their maintenance—may be gathered from the following facts, mentioned in an important address early last year by his Grace Archbishop Redwood. ‘ln the archdiocese of Wellington alone during the last ten years the Catholics have spent the sum of £25,000 in the erection of primary school buildings, without counting the cost of the land upon which these buildings stand. . . In regard to secondary education during the same period of ten years the Catholic body in the archdiocese has spent in the purchase alone of land and the erection of secondary school buildings thereon no less a sum than £48,000.’ That is, there has been a total expenditure on Catholic school buildings within the last ten years in the archdiocese of Wellington alone of £73,000. A similar telling illustration of the unstinted way in which Catholics have sacrificed themselves in the erection of educational buildings was furnished by his Lordship Bishop Grimes, in an address at Timaru last year, in which he mentioned the significant fact that the amount spent on Catholic school buildings in Timaru alone since the inauguration of the secular system reached the remarkable total of £77,200. The items were as follow: the Brothers’ residence, £1200; school, £1500; girls’ school, £3000; property, £1500; the Sacred Heart Convent (high school), £70,000; total £77,200. * . The amount which Catholics are saving to the State — apart from the erection and maintenance of buildings — by their own excellent educational system admits of definite and indisputable statement. It was set forth, clearly and carefully, by the Very Rev. Dr. Kennedy' S.M., Rector of St. Patrick’s College, in his evidence before the Education Commission. * The Catholics of New Zealand,’ he said, ‘by paying for the education of 12,600 of their children in addition to contributing by taxation to the State system of education, are saving the State £62,000 a year. This estimate is based on the official figures published in the Year Book for 1911, and in the report of the Education Department for 1910. The number of scholars (exclusive of Maoris) attending Catholic schools is given as 12,611 (Tear Book, p. 141), and the cost of primary education per individual pupil is stated to be £4 19s 3d (Report of Education Department, p. 61, Table N3).’ In regard to secondary education the saving is also very considerable. Recording to a statement made by his Lordship Bishop Grimes, in a public address delivered last year, the Catholic secondary schools of the Dominion have an attendance of over 4000. The total cost per annum for each pupil in the State secondary institutions amounts to £l3 4s 3d {Official Tear Book, 1911 p. 134). Therefore the annual saving to the’ State effected by the Catholic secondary schools is well over £53,000. The total annual saving under both heads primary and secondary combined-amounts at present to over £115,000. As to the total amount saved to the State by the Catholic schoolsapart from the cost of

buildings—during the last 35 years, the matter has been carefully gone into by his Grace the Archbishop, by his Lordship Bishop Grimes, and by the Very Rev. Dr. Kennedy. Archbishop Redwood places it at £1,100,000; Bishop Grimes, at £1,250,000; and all three are agreed that it is over £1,000,000.. , These figures speak for themselves; and the body which has made this enormous sacrifice in the education of the future citizens of the State is surely entitled to some sort of recognition.