Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 6 April 1916, Page 21

Current Topics

The Wearin’ o’ the Green ( •; , : Times have changed greatly since the bad old days , when they were • , /. ' ‘llangin’ men and women c . • , For the wearin’ o’ the green.’ v . - , Now, the Queen herself .decorates the . Irish soldiers; with tire shamrock, and the King has declared that the Irish troops have shown that Ireland’s national emblem ‘ stands for • loyalty, courage, and endurance in adversity.’ His Majesty was pleased to enter into particulars. ‘The. King,’ said a .London cable, describing the celebration of the ‘ 17th i of , Ireland’— the Bulletin humorously terms —‘ inspected the Irish Guards, and paid a tribute : to their achievements in the first ■ campaign, I,whereby the high traditions of the brigade had been fully maintained. His Majesty recalled the heroism of the Mons . retreat and the critical days at Ypres, when, as the Earl of Cavan wrote, “the survivors showed the enemy the Irish Guards must be reckoned with, however hard hit.’.’ After twenty-eight days’ incessant fighting against heavy odds, the Ist Battalion came out less than a company strong, with a complement of four officers. It was a glorious tribute to the loyalty and endurance of the Irish. “You have shown that the shamrock stands for loyalty, courage, and endurance in adversity,” said the King, in conclusion. ‘ May it carry you to victory.” ’ There are sceptics and pessimists who still believe that Ireland will be jockeyed out of Home Rule. If the attempt is made, the obstructionists— the face of the highly significant utterances and actions of Royalty and of highly-placed individuals such as Kitchener and General French have some difficult hurdles to negotiate. We will, at any rate, for some little" time to come, be saved from the silly parrot-cry about ‘ the disloyal Irish.’ The House Rents Question The New South Wales Labor Government have recently launched a daring attempt to establish an equitable means of adjusting the house rent charges in the city of Sydney on a basis that shall be reasonable and fair to all parties. They have passed a Fair Rents Act and set up a Fair Rents Court, charged with the duty of hearing and settling claims for the reduction of house rent within the metropolitan area. The court, which is presided over by a magistrate, was' formally opened on March 13, and.has been in regular session since. ; The principles by which the court is to be guided are sufficiently clear and simple. It has first to. find the cash value of a' property, and .then it is ( directed by the Act to allow' the landlord to charge rent equal - to the rate for-an overdraft at the Commonwealth Bank, which is, to an approved customer, at present : 6 per cent. The court has also discretionary power under the Act to grant a further 2| per cent., but so far the magistrate has shown himself reluctant ; to make this allowance, and has declared that he will do so only in cases where th-e circumstances are really ' special. • The court’s view in regard to this allowance and its general method of computing the * fair rent ’. in cases submitted to it were thus set forth by the magistrate- in a recent judgment: ‘Until substantial . reasons were adduced to the contrary the court would continue to regard the 2J per cent, • as a differential i rate- to be applied only where special circumstances demanded it. • The magistrate went on to say that his duty was to apply the principles laid down by the VActfland consider them in accordance with the evidence ' brought before him. I :r . At present he' was" adopting a definite , formula to arrive j at a fair rent. First he , took the unimproved land .value,; to which was added, the cost of erecting/ a similar dwelling to the one, at present on the; land, and deducting . an amount fo'r depreciation over the : period it had been in ; use. ' To ; get the approximate value of the property as a letting

proposition allowance was made by the Act for a : specified 5 rate of \ interest—the current Commonwealth Bank ratewhich all could compute. Then the landlord’s outgoings were taken into account,: and allowance made for them. ' If there were any special circumstances applicable to any particular- case, part or the whole, of the ■>2£ per cent, mentioned in the Act would be allowed.' to give the landlord a reasonable return for his capital represented in the property.’ It may be added that the Act -expressly - contemplates that the court shall be used only for the purpose of reducing and not for the purpose of increasing rents, and its operations are at present limited to Sydney. 'Power is given under the Act, however, to extend the court’s jurisdiction to other areas when such extension is deemed necessary. , v .. * Needless to say, the court and its operations have met with-plenty of opposition and abuse. The Act has been denounced as folly, in . that it is an attempt to interfere with the sacrosanct principle of supply and demand ; and as impolitic, in that it will discourage people from putting their money into legitimate building investments. A very serious decline in building, particularly of the residential type; the serious less of employment of building mechanics, masons, bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, plumbers, etc., as well as builders’ laborers ; a serious shortage of homes for the people in the near future ; a serious decline in. the sale of land ; a blow to many working men who are accumulating small property holdings besides their homes, by wage savings, and upon which they have obtained advances ; the diminution of employment in all the great building supply branch of commercethese are but a few of the' woes that are predicted for the community by the strenuous opponents of the new measure. The denunciations are being received with composure alike by the court and the Government, and there is every indication that the scheme will not be abandoned nor even seriously modified, until it has been given a fair trial. ' It may be admitted that attempts to fix prices by legislation, without regard to conditions of supply and demand, are open to objection as being arbitrary and unscientific, and for ourselves we have long been of opinion that the best way 'to deal with problems such as that under review is by direct State intervention in the particular business concerned. In New Zealand, for example, when farmers were paying too high a price for their money the Government did not attempt to bring relief by fixing the maximum rate of interest which could be charged. • Instead, they introduced the Advances to Settlers Act, and the State took up, so far, the role of money-lender, with the result -that the rate of interest was necessarily lowered all round. The Act was vehemently denounced at the time by a section of the press, one influential daily going so far as to say that ‘ it should be received with a howl of derision throughout the country’; yet it is now recognised, by common consent, as one of the most useful and beneficent Acts ;on our Statute-Book. Similarly, where the * rent problem is > acute, if the State were to step in and buy or build suitable dwelling houses far as might ,be necessary and feasible—supply would be brought into equation with the demand, and rent charges would automatically fall. In spite, of the theoretic and ;; doctrinaire' objections to which it is open, the New: South Wales scheme is at least worth a trial ; and the result of the experiment will be watched with interest not only in the Commonwealth but beyond it. There are plenty of reasonable and fair-minded landlords in New Zealand, but — are others. -- And the public ought to be protected from rapacity, in whatever quarter it may show itself Has the War Done Good ? >•-<--> r- , We ask the question, of course, from the religious point of view. ' The consequences of a world conflict like the present; are infinitely complex, and; it is certain that hideous , though the - struggle} is,: it has not been without its ’ compensations. : But taking it by ;.and large,, and -on (ay rough and. " ready 'estimate, is* it to be

said that the .balance has; been on the side -good or r on the side of evil So far as: the evidence ’ is yet • available it will be difficult, we think, to give a favor- • able answer to the question. Long ago London papers complained that the first. outburst of : religious fervor in England had already fizzled out— sudden rush to the churches had , proved little better than a flask in the an France has generally \ been pointed to as the shining example .of the purifying effect of the war, and there can be no doubt that a -remarkable—and, it may be added, much-needed awakening has taken place, in the eldest daughter of the Church.’ Should the revival last, and its effects continue, the whole future of the Church in France will be favorably affected. But even in the case of France, it appears that things are not quite so rosy as they have been painted. The French Cardinal Billot, speaking at the French seminary in Rome on the. occasion of the visit of Rene Bazin, used these grave words: ‘ To guard ourselves from all exaggerated enthusiasm it is sufficient to give ear to the cries of anguish that reach us from the chaplains at the front and above all from those attached to ambulances and hospitals, placed in the presence of reality, in the presence of those sacerdotal souls that are enervated and deformed in a place and in a profession that does not belong to them, of those poor seminarists, above all, abandoned to themselves; separated from their Superiors and directors, deprived of the spiritual aids of which now more than ever they have need, so-as to be maintained in the spirit of their vocation. It is sufficient to have received the. confidences of our worthy bishops tortured (the word is not too strong) by the anguish that the prospect of the future occasions them, of the future of the. Church of France, three-fourths of whose clergy (according, to the figures of the Minister of War) is at this moment under military service of our bishops who seek, with little success (above all if the present condition should happen to be prolonged )for suitable remedies, I shall not say to arrest,, but even to diminish, the appalling evils.’ And a special correspondent of the New York Freeman’s Journal reports; ‘We hear much of the chastened tone of life at Paris. A Catholic officer' returned wounded from the front , has told me that the ill-famed Paris of which we have read has been transferred to behind the firing line,- and that life on the boulevards and in the Latin quarter would be a decent and restrained existence compared to what he was obliged to witness there while seeking to avoid it.’ The chaplains are working wonders in the Allied lines, but evidently some sections at least—there is ample scope for all their activity. . * _ But it is in the case of Germany that moral deterioration, consequent'upon the war, is most noticeable and widespreadso at least we must conclude from the utterances of her own press and pastors. We have already quoted in . these columns the outspoken utterance of a well-known German Catholic s review, the Historisch Politische Blatter. ; Speaking of the increasing lack of religion, this review remarked ‘One proof of this, among a thousand others, is to be seen in the articles which appeared on the anniversary of the declaration of war. Not a writer of them has thought of adding a religious word for the multitude of readers. . ... Always and in all it is an. insolent paean of the human spirit and of brute force. A song' of hate against nations and for their extermination. Not a word about God’s action in the affairs of men, His justice and vengeance, His love and grace.’ Other , papers , are even more emphatic ■ in . their protest against the increase in crime and immorality which has been so marked since the outbreak and development of the war. / The people are living a life , of such repulsive immorality and indecency,’ : says the Berlin Kreuzzei'tung , ‘ so shameless in its open ostentation and depravity, that;soldiers returning home turn their heads away in horror and ask themselves why they should ; sacrifice 1 their lives for such a r people. ■■ Did these heroes • know more of the secret of what -is: really - . going on, they would' see that, dark as the picture is on,.

■■ the surface, it is far blacker , underneath. The Deutphe. Tagezeitung .deplores--the;/ abandoned ; immoralxty ok the general public. -‘ The divorce courts re busy, : and nearly all the cases involve wives of , solcUers. It ■is of quite common occurrence for a • young - soldier rto return from, the = battle line to find his wife carrying on. a liaison with another man.’ . The theatres are to blame, says the paper, plays, are produced so nauseating in their depravity and lasciviousness that they may well fill our soldiers, .purified in the fire of war, with disgust at this decay of the national morals. ihe German people must not, tolerate such degenera-+W’j-'-r ’ m^ t eradicate these plague spots that disfigure the radiant features of Germania.’ The German clergy have also felt it their duty to call attention to the immoral tendency prevalent in the EmP J r ®- At the recent meeting of the General Synod of Berlin, the Rev. Dr. Weber, of Bonn, declared that conditions in the Rhine, province were unspeakable, that the criminal and immoral contamination of the youth ; of both sexes was appalling. Other clergymen told similar tales of their own districts, and it was .generaHy decided that the state of affairs was so bad that ,it was a case for special legislation. The great war, said one pastor, which it, was expected, would raise the moral tone of the nation, had, to the horror °» a ,. true Germans, the exactly opposite effect.’ All of which brings us back to the trite but painful fact that war is hell— only in its operations but also in , its consequences. : : Rationalism and the Purpose of Life : ’ Christianity may have its difficulties, but they are : nothing to the difficulties which confront the followers of scientific Rationalism ’ when thev are called upon squarely to face the facts of —and of death. So : long as he is left to purely destructive work picking holes and flaws .in the Christian propaganda—the Rationalist is fairly happy but when he is asked to set forth a definite positive creed which shall furnish i an. adequate answer to the deeper questions of the human heart, the bankruptcy of the system becomes quickly aparent, ’To the questions, Whence have we -• come? Whither do we go What is„thie meaning and purpose of human existence?—questions which every thoughtful mind, sooner or later, must ask itselfRationalism is either dumb or returns at best a message of despair. Let us illustrate by recent utterances of two of its most illustrious. exponents. Not very long a g°. -Pi..- Fridtjof Nansen delivered an address on : ‘ Science and the Purpose of Life ’ before the Social and ■ Political Education League, London and as it has been published by the Rationalist Press Association it may be taken as fairly representing the Rationalist standpoint. This is how Dr. Nansen treats the subject: ‘We cannot go -into detail here ; but what has been said might be sufficient to show how the circulation of the universe. is continually going on from eternity and into eternity. This is the lesson which modern science teaches us with regard to existence. The life of a solar system lasts only for a second compared with eternity f and will again be dissolved, into new systems. . Mankind, with its history of struggles, attainments, and aspirations, its joys and its sorrows, will be wiped out like a dream of the past. This may seem a sad and hopeless view of things, and the one dangerous and despairing question that will probably force itself upon the young man when' he begins to see it is the question of purpose And this is the best that Dr. Nansen can give in answer to the ‘dangerous and . despairing question’: The explanation is evidently that : purpose is an idea which entirely belongs to the organic world. It is a leading principle in the struggle for existence arid in the law of the survival of the fittest. Every organ has a purpose; and when a zoologist discovers a new organ in an animal, his first desire is to find out what the purpose of that organ may-be. But this is not a principle that can be applied to " energy, and life ) itself is a form of energy. To .ask, therefore; ‘’‘what is the purpose of ' life?” or “what is the purpose of the organic world ?” is a question of very

much the same kind as if one were to ask “what is the purpose of ; the rotation of ; the earth - I believe it is of great importance that 1 the young people; when they are : old enough- to understand it, should learn to see this,;' and how to draw the line, in order that they may not fall victims to the temptation to despair and pessimism, They should learn to understand that when they ask for the purpose of life, or even the purpose of the universe,- they ask a question to which science gives no answer .’ The italics are ours, '•:

- . Our second quotation is from the latest . utterance of . that great "apostle of Rationalism, Ernst Haeckel, who, though well over 80 years of age, has just issued one more book on the fundamental themes which at the present moment occupy all minds-—namply, life, death, and religion. The burden of Haeckel’s swan song is, as ever, enmity to religion, and particularly to the Christian religion. The war, he says, ‘ has got rid of religion for ever by reducing to an absurdity its doctrine, of divine providence. In view of the deaths of such vast masses of people on the battlefield, in the trenches, by aircraft, warships, submarines, in hospi- . tals and prison camps, all of them the victims of blind chance, others spared by the same blind chance, the foolishness of believing that the fate of individuals as of the f whole race is in the hands of an omnipotent Being of benevolent purposes has surely become apparent even to the. most ordinary intelligence. As for Christianity in particular, it is put more completely out of court than almost any other form of faith. The war has made an end of the principle of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, and demonstrated the utter futility of pacifism. They are seen to be nothing more than a mockery, and we had best have done with them forthwith.’ And this is Haeckel’s exposition of the meaning and purpose of life, and the best substitute which he has to offer for the consolations which he so ruthlessly sweeps away: 'We must have ‘ brave devotion to the Unavoidable,’ ‘ the knowledge and recognition of the eternity and indestructibility of the Cosmos and of the courses of Nature in which the individual unceasingly appears and disappears in order to make way for new forms and new modes of unending Substance.’ ‘ What an inexhaustible treasurehouse of most noble enjoyment,’ runs the concluding sentence of his book, ‘do these countless wonders of an eternal process offer to the thinking man of Kultur !’

This, then, is the Rationalist answer to the riddle of the Universe. All the suffering of life, the endless struggle towards higher aims, are meaningless and futile; for man is as the beasts- that perish, appearing and then disappearing for' ever ‘ in order to make way for new forms and new modes of unending substance.’ Compare this with the Christian hope and , assurance. ‘I . know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’ ‘lt is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness,it is raised in power it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.’ ‘ I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the . faith: as to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge will'render to me in that day.’ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither -shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead, them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away . all tears from their eyes.’ r? Rationalism may be .an easy system to live by, but it must be a miserable and comfortless creed to die by. ; ,