Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 21 June 1917, Page 17

Current Topics

The Millionaire Government In the English 'Review Mr. Austin Harrison makes some striking remarks concerning the prodigal waste going on under what has been nick-named 5 Lloyd George’s “millionaire government.” He contrasts the orgy of British expenditure with the economy and efficiency of Paris: “For every building used by the French Ministry we have three or four, and for every Frenchman employed in any department we have twenty-seven.” He tells us of the suites, not of rooms but of hotels, as the disposal of these millionaire Ministers and their innumerable staffs of whom one thing can be safely said at any rate —they burn a lot of coal One of the Boys “ I recently had,” writes Mr. Wells, “ an interview with an important colonial statesman, who was being advertised like a soap as the coming saviour of England. I was curious to meet him. I wanted to talk to him about all sorts of things that would have been profoundly interesting. For instance, his impressions of the Anglican Bishops. But I met a hoarding. I met a thing like a mask, utterly surrounded by touts, that was trying, as we say in London, ‘to come it ’ over me. I said certain things to him about the difference in complexity between political life in Great Britain and in the colonies that he was totally incapable of understanding. But one could as soon have talked with one of the statesmen at Madame Tussaud’s.” »And yet our press will tell us that our two prodigies did not wear out their welcome in England ! What a volume of hot air will be turned on one of these days when thev return with their blushing honors thick upon them ! They will have to talk at high pressure indeed to convince the public that they earned the amount they are said to have cost the Dominion. One paper said recently that they carried more weight towards the end of their stay in the Old Country. We believe it—in a more literal sense than was meant. Socialism and Trusts The accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, and the consequent poverty of the many, may be regarded as the radical cause of social discontent. No man, no matter how unfavorably he may regard Socialism of all kinds, can deny that its advocates have very real grounds for agitation. As to the methods of Socialists there may be differences of opinion ; as to the crying needs for social reform there can be none. Combines or trusts organised by plutocrats are always a menace to the poorer classes, and in the hands of unprincipled men a curse almost as terrible as a war. When the trust is formed with regard to essential things the evil is aggravated, and may become matter requiring the intervention of the Government. In a country like New Zealand, thinly populated and extended over a very large area, the means of transport are essential to the welfare of the community. Consequently a trust which threatens to monopolise the shipping of the Dominion demands the closest attention of the representatives of the people. Many who regard the ideals of Socialists as unattainable, must admit that amongst them there are schemes which no good Government can afford to despise. Many people think the ideals of Socialists can bo dismissed as too Utopian to become more than dreams, but no thinking man can deny that there are realities as well as dreams in the plans for the more equitable distribution of goods. One such is the view that the means of transport, as well as the postal service, should be nationalised and run, not for the benefit of profiteers who will unscrupulously fleece the public, but for the welfare of the •community at large. Here we have already a national railway system, very efficient on the whole, and it

there is every reason why the Government should also „ secure a national shipping service for the people of New Zealand. The present prices of shares in the market are an indication to everyone that the people are paying too dearly for the insufficient and very poor service which they are compelled to accept. When shares sell at three or four times their value a suspicion arises that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark. J. J. North Reappears A valiant hero named Major Gresson adduced as an argument against the exemption of the Marist Brothers a resolution passed by a section of the Baptist Church. Bishop Brodie, mildly enough considering the impertinence of introducing such a resolution at such a time, protested against anything savoring of sectarianism being, introduced, and the Magistrate declared that the court was not going to take any notice of such irrelevant matter as the gallant Gresson tried to force on their notice. Always on the alert for an excuse to pose before the public, J. J. North sat down and wrote an apostolic epistle to the press of Christchurch. Anyone who has ever read anything by him will be able to forecast what he would say under such circumstances. Given a Catholic bishop protesting against bigots’ interference, and an impartial magistrate supporting him, as preliminary data, a very superficial acquaintance with the polemics of J.J. would enable a school-boy to arrive at the result. J.J. protests that equal treatment should be meted out to the Brothers and to the State-school teachers in this matter, and of course we all know how he would push this equality of treatment to its logical conclusion. Imagine a snapshot taken of J.J. if he heard some fine day that the Brothers were paid by the State ! He refers to the Tablet , by the way, as Bishop Brodie’s. paper. Even he might be expected to know that Bishop Brodie has nothing to do with the Tablet, and to blame him for its consistent exposure of the British campaign in Ireland, or its notices of the antiCatholic activities of certain Orange parsons, were as logical as the efforts of J.J’s brother evangelist of peace, Mr. Elliott, to fasten the guilt of a war begotten of Protestant principles on the Pope. J .J. says that he knows of nobody desirous of oppressing Catholics. Of course much depends on the point of view. Personally we consider that a man who so to speak makes himself an accessory after the fact in Cromwell’s massacres of Catholics has some claims to be looked on as a humorist when he makes a statement like that. Another Old Friend We cannot help thinking that the ministers assisting at the recent Presbyterian Presbytery resented the premature symptoms of the “ annual brainstorm ” displayed by Mr. Dickson whose no-Popery tendencies are by no means shared by his fellow-workers of the Presbyterian Church. Holy Days were the text of his discourse; and though he evidently aimed at some of his brethren he had a shy at the Catholics also. The report of his resolution, as given by the North Otago Times, appears too ambiguous to be taken as correct; but it is quite clear that he attacks us with the directness of a bull saluting a red rag. He says that Christmas Day and Good Friday are empty observances because Christ died on a Thursday! What that has to do with Christmas is too much for us to attempt to guess. It reminds us of an old riddle which ran : “Why is Charing Cross?” to which the answer was, “Because Henrietta Street.” Incidentally Mr. Dickson compares us to dancing Dervishes and tapued Maoris, and rages concerning vestments and holy water. We wonder what are his opinions on the robes of judges and the uniforms of admirals, which are not half as symbolical as the vestments worn by priests at Mass. But of course he has not been trained by his extended course of antiCatholic studies to attempt to ‘take a common-sense view of any subject. What a plight some of these

people would find themselves in if there were no Catholics left for them to attack ! We can even conceive that in such a case Mr. Dickson might find something useful to do. How hard it must bo for men of such universal culture as Messrs. North and Dickson to find that the majority of their own co-religionists think Christian. charity and good living far more important than exhibitions of Twelfth of July madness. Of course nobody would dream of doing anything so futile as hinting to these gentlemen that minding their own business were a more profitable occupation than developing their hallucinations. A Member of Parliament on Catholicism Mr. Isitt may be an admirable politician for all we know. But when he assumes the role of a critic of the Catholic Church he identifies himself with the class who rush in where angels fear to tread. Some time ago, in the course of an address, he referred to our Church as follows; “That Church was handicapped as no other Church was handicapped in that, in an age of enlightenment, it tried to force down the throats of people a hard and impossible creed.’’ A very little reading of standard historians would give Mr. Isitt some new lights as to which Church did the forcing down people’s throats. Hut while we may excuse his ignorance of history there is no defending his gross insult to his Catholic constituents in telling tlmm that they are practising an impossible religion. If words mean anything Mr. Isitt considers Catholics a crowd of superstitions fools or insincere hypocrites. The world has yet to learn by what authority this politician seta himself in judgment on scholars like Thomas More and Newman, on men of critical acumen like Brunetiere and Bourget, on scientists like Pasteur and Bernhard, on Brownson, on Manning, on Wiseman, and a host of others whose shoes he will never be worthy to loose. It is true that our religion, like every Christian faith, contains many sayings that are hard indeed to the spirit of this world, which seems to be the only spirit that matters for most politicians in the Dominion ; but every sincere believer, no matter of what denomination, knows better than Mr. Isitt apparently does that there is a higher power than the Parliament of New Zealand to aid them in working out in their lives those principles upon which the regeneration of humanity depends. We want no new evidence concerning the complete want of Christian inspiration in the policy of the present Government, who would have no hesitation whatever in putting the things of Caesar before the things of God if we were weak enough to permit it, but we advise Mr. Isitt in future to endeavor to find as matter for his discourses some easy subject suited to his intelligence. The deposit of Christian teaching is a subject for the study of a life-time, though its acceptance is made easy by the gift of faith. For persons like Mr. Isitt a little learning is a dangerous thing; and clearly, the less the more dangerous. Maori and Kelt The waua of their chief, Te Wheti, is still on the Taranaki Maoris, who speak among themselves of the day when a greater power will come to drive out the people who dispossessed them of their lands. One of them complained to a friend of ours who is an old and respected resident on the rich plains that slope from Mount Egmont to the sea. He consoled the Maori by telling him how much better off he was than the people of another island who were plundered under the English flag. The Maoris had at least their reserves set apart and safeguarded by the laws, but for the other islanders there were years and years when the only laws affecting them were framed for their extermination. And when he went on to tell of the famine, and of the corn that would keep the children alive carted away under the protection of armed soldiers, and of the cargoes, of maize from America wilfully destroyed, apd of the land-laws that wrung the last farthing from a starving people to support profligate wretches in luxury and sin, and of the Protestant

Bibles offered to starving women and infants with food and soup, the Maori began to think that there was really something to be grateful for. But it taxed his intelligence when he was told that after all their sufferings the same people were ready to forgive all the wrongs of the past if even now they got simple justice. It is not surprising that the Maori was astonished. It is to all men a mystery that England can find no better statesmen to safeguard her destinies than the men ' who by persevering in the old policy towards Ireland are doing all in their power to help the enemies of the Empire at present. In plain language they are sacrificing the interests of Great Britain to humor a little group of insincere, self-seeking traders and politicians who make capital out of the ignorance and bigotry of periodical lunatics. It is becoming more obvious every day to the democracy of Great Britain that what the country really needs is a Government representative of the people. The British public is proverbially patient, but when aroused to action it means business. No man will have cause to envy the parasites who have provoked it when it proceeds to deal with them. The Mark of the Beast Last week a body of representative men met in Dunedin to consider what steps might bo taken to prevent (he exhibition of objectionable picture-films. Some time ago the Catholic Federation took up the question and a censor was appointed. If there is one thing that may be said with certainty with regard to the censor it is that he is not doing his duty. There is abundant testimony that pictures are shown which are a direct temptation to the young people of the Dominion; and some have been denounced as positively indecent. We all know that temptations are only too abundant without setting up in our midst a direct incentive to impurity, which some contend is done by (he picture theatres. Surely there are subjects enough to select from without going to the doubtful sources from which in many cases inspiration is drawn. Nobody denies that the pictures can have a great educational value, but when it is certain that they have a direct tendency to pervert the youth of the country it is time that a censorship were established in reality as well as in name. A good deal of time , and money are wasted in New Zealand on campaigns which the majority do not approve, and which are often no more than fads. fere, however, is a subject which calls for the co-operation of all who have purity of life and a healthy social spirit at heart. In some of the objectionable pictures there is no pretence at either art or literature at all : and even if there were we say that we can do without art and science and literature which bear on them the mark of the unclean beast. The Air Raid on London More than anything which has occurred since the war began the air-raid reported last week brings home to us the horrors of this awful carnage. Even so far from the scene as we are we shudder as we imagine the scenes of terror in those London schools when in the light of noonday the bombs burst among the little children and their teachers. The women who perished on the Lusitania were warned that they were going at their own peril, and much of the blame is due to the Americans for allowing the ship to carry passengers under the actual circumstances. But here it was a different matter altogether, and without warning of the danger death descended from the skies on the innocents. We have read much about the sufferings inflicted on the Poles during the Russian campaign, our blood boiled three years ago when we read of the Scottish Borderers shooting women and children in the Dublin streets, but we doubt if anything in the annals of this cruel war ' can rival the horror of the awful occurrence in last week. To people who believe implicitly in the press it must be a mystery how the airships were able to do the work of destruction in broad daylight. We have been assured that we have for some time past had the

superiority of the air secured beyond doubt, and that the defences of London in particular were reliable. In the light of what has happened it certainly does not look as if we ax-e being told the whole truth. The saddest thing about the whole war is the fact that it is precisely the innocent who are suffering everywhere—in Germany as well as in England, in Austria as well as in France. The men who die or come home maimed and broken, no matter what their nationality, a are not the men who began the war, nor are they the ■ men who will benefit by it. The poor in every country will suffer and pay, either in blood or gold ; and in every country there are people who are reaping a rich harvest out of the very sufferings of the poor. Many people foresee that when the struggle is over there will be a Socialist movement of gigantic proportions all over the world with a view to put it for ever out of the power of capitalists to exploit the workers. In any case it seems certain that if we had governments actuated by a true democratic spirit neither this war not any war like it could happen. Terrible as it all is it will not have been in vain if it for ever destroys the strongholds of despotism and tyranny in evex-y country in the world, and gives in their stead governments which will rule for the people and by the people.