Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 27 April 1916, Page 17

Current Topics

True Greatness

»-•••'.. -‘.I could never work for money,’ said Pasteur to ■ Lady -Priestley, but ; I would always work for science. ’ Yet, according to Huxley, Pasteur’s work for the prevention of anthrax, silkworm disease, and chicken, cholera added annually to the wealth of France a sum equivalent to the entire indemnity paid, by France to Germany, after the war of 1870. ; If Pasteur had chosen to keep his discoveries to himself,’ says Nature, ; he could have been one of the most wealthy men in the world, but he gave them to the human race, and was content to end his career as a professor of chemistry in receipt of a modest salary from the Government of his country.’ Compare this with the attitude of the swarm of bloated and podgy-fingered army contractors—in all lands-and of the huckstering inventors and experts who are receiving tens of. thousands of pounds in commissions and. abnormal war profits, and you get some measure of the real greatness of this mighty master mind of science and humble and devoted son of the Church. ■ , : ir

The Nobility and the War

The House of Lords has been for years a standing joke amongst the British democracy, and the belted earls and ‘ gentlemen of England ’ have received many a. hard knock from Mr. Lloyd George and other fiery and keen-tongued Radicals. Nevertheless, in simple fairness it must be acknowledged ■ that the nobility of England have come through the ordeal of the war with flyi. n ■ colors. : The workers everywhere have done magnificently, and the noble families of England have done not less magnificently. The extent of their sacrifices is partially indicated by the (fact that a roll of honor of more than 800 names of those who have been killed or have died of wounds fills twelve pages of the new peerage volume, and an analysis of the list shows that it contains;

1 Member of the Royal Family, ■ 6 -peers,- ~ y 16 baronets.

6 knights, 7 M.P.’s,

1.64 Coiripanions, • ' 95 sons of peers, 82 sons of baronets, 84 sons of knights.

1* . The cruel way,’ says Pall Mall, ‘in which fate has hit some families is shown by the list. Changes in the succession to more than 100 titles have been caused by the deaths in the war. In quite a number of instances the peerageHs threatened with extinction owing to the death of all possible heirs. ‘Half a dozen baronets are v also left without heirs, and several titles are in doubt owing to the heirs being reported “missing.”’

Sir lan Hamilton’s Position

Some time ago a . returned Church of -England chaplain, lecturing in Dunedin, made some strong statements and comments regarding; the position taken ; by. Sir lan Hamilton in the Suvla Bay adventure, and par ticularly on - the,. fact.; that ■ throughout the , operations the general in command remained at a conspicuously safe distance from the firing line. s,; There was a sinister suggestion in the statements made, and the matter was warmly taken up.by returned troopers, who indignantly repudiated -the’ implied reflection on the general's courage. In the official despatch describing the attack on Sari Bahr.ahdthe Suvla failure-which though it has. been in r the 1 hands of the War Office for" months is only r noW being made public Sir lan I Hamilton > explains matters.. He had, he tells us, to settle what part he would., personally take in the adventure ; and he thus sets forth- the reasons which led to, his final decision It- Attacks in the "south :: were only • rto- form a

subsidiary part of one great concerted attack. Anz#c was to deliver the knock-down . blowHelles and/ Suvla were I complementary : : operations. ; Were X-to ‘ commit myself ■ at ‘ the outset to • any one of : these three theatres, I must lose my sense of proportion. ' Worse, there being no lateral communication between them, as soon as I landed at one I was cut off from present touch with both of the others. *At Imbros I was forty-five minutes from Helles, forty minutes from Anzac, and fifty minutes from Suvla. Imbros was the centre* of the cable system, and thence I could follow each phase of the triple attack and be ready with iny two divisions of reserve to throw in reinforcements where they seemed most to be required. Therefore I decided to follow the opening, from General Headquarters.’

President Wilson’s Ultimatum

President Wilson has written so many Notes and sent so many ‘virtual ultimatums’ —-sill of which were, by reason of the indecisive personality' behind' them, of about as much weight and Value, as so many copy-book , exercises that the ’world is likely to be rather chary about taking his latest deliverance too seriously. The President’s speeches have for some time past, however, shown such a marked stiffening of tone —due either to' the circumstance that he has lately taken unto himself a wife, or to the fact that a Presidential election is: looming ahead, or to both— that we are justified in believing that at last Mr. Wilson really means what he says. If so, the terms of the latest Presidential communication to Germany are matter for gratification to those who have maintained that from the first the moral influence of America should have been thrown boldly and ■ definitely into the scale against such horrors as 1 the Lusitania outrage and the flagrant breaches of international law and of the dictates of humanity which have been such a painful feature of Germany’s conduct of the war. 11. The cables ( tell us. that Mr-. Wilson has - declared in effect that if the German submarine policy of torpedoing at sight is continued, America will break off, diplomatic relations with Germany.' In doing so, Mr. Wilson has at last taken the stand which those who desire to see the sanctity of treaties and the moral ideals embodied in the toilfully built-up principles of international law something more than a dead letter among the nations have so. long urged, upon him.

In the, meantime the President has been catching it hot ’ from some of the pro-German papers of his country for the speeches leading, up to- his present position to which we have already made reference. Here is how one excited journal now paints the, man whose election to the presidential chair was hailed with a chorus of almost world-wide approval : ‘ We have had a, number of great ; Presidents ; we have had a few small ones. The accidents of .politics have even placed in the Presidential chair one or two men absolutely unfit: But never until now have we had a ’President who deliberately sacrificed the interests, of the country to a foreign , power ; never before ' has a ri ‘ President deliberately stirred up race-hatred within ■ the' country ; never before has a President set on© element of the population - against another; never ;before-has a President stimulated and nourished passions prejudicial to the interests of the country as a whole, -passions which once excited will take a long time to allay. ; ' We .have had statesmen as Presidents, we hay© had mere politicians as. Presidents; butt, the' meanest . of the latter never fell to this level. r v;' This depth of baseness was reserved for the scholar' in politics.” .i After ; ; referring to some of the changes of political opinion, which, have marked Mr. Wilson’s career, the paper proceeds: ' Mr. Wilson shed his old opinions as readily as a snake sheds his skin. The simple-minded Democratic radicals throughout the country accepted the conversion as real, and gave Mr. Wilson the nomination and the Presidency. . Having attained his ambitiop for the moment, he returned like a dog to his vomit. ~ . . Tlfe outbreak of the war revealed his ;, character ; still ’ further. With the cant of humanity ’and justice - ever on his

\ >• * r ■' \ r ~ r - -v»r- ■■>*» •** , *VJSi lips, he has allowed the most grossly unneutral actions leading to the prolongation of the war and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of harmless people ; prating of America first, - he : has permitted "American commerce to be 'driven ; from -the seas and ; American domestic trade to be crippled; speaking for democracy, he" has made himseff an (autocrat : ; - preaching; peace, he does all in his power to stir : up ! strife at home. Such is the man we have made President. Instead of an American and a Democrat, we : have an agent of ■ Wall Street and of England. ; To 1 secure ' - his re-election, he ‘is ready - to carry the ‘country do the verge of war with a friendly power, or even to go beyond. ■ It is time that Congress put the brakes on, and it is for the people to make Congress act. Let each voter write his Representative at once.’ There 'is no reason to suppose that voters will display any eagerness to respond to this appeal; or that these fulminations will do the President any serious harm, but they are interesting as a. piquant 'psychological study. And we are looking forward with eager curiosity to the vitriolic discharge with-which these 'vehement and hot-head papers will hose the President for his latest and real ultimatum, »

The Poison Dinner

Further particulars regarding the , Chicago poison case confirm the comment which we made a week or two ago to the effect that the recent anarchistic developments in that city have a somewhat sinister significance for American Catholics. It appears that Crones, who ■ has been arrested for the poisoning, is an antireligious maniac, and that the programme planned by him and his confederates included special attacks on churches and religious gatherings'. As we mentioned, letters have been seized giving details of the scheme, and in these the buildings that were to be wrecked are mentioned, and the. nature of the bombs' to be used is described. One kind of bomb is called fit for a crowd coming out of a church’; of a second kind it is said : ‘ It will send priests and such people high in the air.’* We learn from America that all suspected of complicity in the wider plot are Italians, except Crones, who is an Alsatian. According to the chemists the soup served at the Chicago dinner contained 4.81 grains. of arsenic to the pint, and a trace of copper. A

. The American papers are printing letters alleged to have been written by the culprit, and in one of these Crones gives a brief account of his preliminary preparations: ‘As I love Sience I hathe, Religion and as I have seen the menue for that Diner 12 days before I tought that it was a sanitary thing to make a good clean up. *• And I started right away to work. I worked till late in the night every day and I prepared the poisons but the most hat a bitter teste. Later I agreed for Arsenic and. Barium Chloride.’ In a. further communication the writer gives his reason for the crime : ‘ Why I dit it! While .at Europe millions of ■Christians are Sclauchtering each other in t the most bloddk massacare, and in these free country thousands of-men and women are tramping the streets ; without food and shelter at the wery same time the Church •holds - .diners . and pays, .15 6 for each cover "which;:/: starts with / Beluga' Caviar and Champaagne, i > the . same : i mony ; which. ' was , begard from pour working men and women the same mony were the blood, of pour workers has run for. Those conditions are -an scandal. : That is- the failure of - Christianity an insult towards honesty and a Challenge to Humanity. • Let the Church answer those my' charges-toward the World and I schall stand - for the charges made - against me.’ These are i s the . morbid ravings of * a diseased mind, but the-malady is a dangerous one, (and- one against which society • must vigorously protect itself. : * _ V ~' '

• Plants - growing / near ther sea have thicker , r leaves than those growing * inland.. Apparently the sea • salt is > the cause of this phenomenon, ;as ; plants cultivated in i artificially salted, soil yield thicker leaves.