Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 11 October 1917, Page 14

Current Topics

How the Germans Attacked the Nunzio Certain journals, usually- well-informed as to fairy tales, reported that the Spanish ship Reina Victoria Eugenia, conveying Monsignor Lauri, titular Archbishop of Ephesus, to Peru, was hit by German submarines, notwithstanding that she was flying the Papal flag. The facts were that entering the Straits of Gibraltar in a storm, she collided with an Italian steamer which sank on the following' day. The Reina Eugenia was badly damaged, and had to put in at Cadiz for repairs before proceeding on her way. Treatment of the Dominions Compared with that of Ireland England has lent to her self-governing colonies the following sums up to the dates specified:—Canada, March 31, 1916, £194,011,439; Australia (Commonwealth), June 30, 1915, £22,586,725 (war loan to date, £14,842,105); States of Australia, June 30, 1915, £342,925,669; New Zealand, March 31, 1916, £109,637,397; South Africa, March 31, 1916, £150,823,734. Naturally a member of one of the Dominions deriving such aid from England should be a whole-hearted Imperialist. And just as naturally an Irishman, seeing practically nothing advanced to his country for public works, its currency drained by a banking system in favor of England, and, in violation of a solemn treaty, an annual robbery of several millions perpetrated, cannot be at the same time a good Irishman and an ardent Imperialist. With reason did Byron say that the union was that of a wolf with a lamb. However it sterns certain that never before were the Irish people so wide awake to their national interests as now. For that we have to thank Maxwell and his Prussian methods, which opened the eyes of a slumbering race. The German Centre Party What Mathias Erzberger said in his famous July speech is largely a matter of conjecture' still, but as one writer put* it, "he took the lid off the seething political kettle" in Germany. A Copenhagen dispatch says that he attacked the Admiralty and Pan-Germans as the great obstacle to peace, advocated peace without annexations or indemnities, and urged a parliamentary Government. According to the New-Yorker Stoats Zeitung his speech committed a majority of his party not only to immediate reform of the Prussian ballot laws but also to reforms affecting the whole Empire, and "flatly came out for a peace by common consent of such nations as have not completely lost their senses." The minority Socialists have long been in opposition to the Government, and the consequences of the breaking away of the Centrists and the majority Socialists may be gathered from the following figures, which show the distribution of seats in the present Reichstag: "The Socialists have 110 votes. Centrists 91, Conservatives 41, National Liberals 44, Radicals 45, Poles 18, Free Conservatives 12, Anti-Semites 3, Economic Union 9, other parties and independents 24. The Socialists and Centrists when united have thus 201 votes, or a bare majority in the Reichstag." (New York Times.) From the American press it seems that Erzberger is strongly supported in South Germany and in Austria. One thing seems fairly certain now: the party in favor of peace without annexations and indemnities is growing more powerful. In.every, country the people who are suffering from the war are anxious for peace. What is by no means clear is that those who are making money out of it want peace at all. My Country 'Tis of Thee ! -5-. ;f. Nobody, doubts that .our,,New Zealand ladies are inspired by splendid patriotism. They were we believe the first civilised women to get the. franchise, and we witness the beneficent result thereof in the wisdom of )i the way of New Zealand majorities,, in those expres-

sions of popular opinion which are always dictated by right reason and never by r any chance by hysterical catch-cries or sentiment. Not in New Zealand. Nobody would be believed, if going to Patagonia, he were to report that when New Zealand ladies met in patriotic conclave the discussions were limited to the latest fashion in hats. Nor do we suppose that we will be believed when we state that the patriotic ladies of Dunedin have now come to think that they are serving their country by taking up a collection for Dr. Barnardo's Homes. It is incredible; but it is also a fact. Patriotism and a collection for the "Crows' Nest" have become synonymous. We understand that a Catholic lady suggested that if the collection were made, a proportion of it should go to Father Bans' Homes. And, again, nobody would believe us if we told them that that reasonable suggestion was accepted. This time the unbelievers would be right. A collection for the Crows' Nest was quite all right—but Father Bans! oh, dear me, don't mention him. It is a queer world. For the information of Catholic ladies who might in their innocence be induced to help on Dr. Barnardo's Homes, we will explain what such co-operation would mean. * Dr. Barnardo laid down the law very clearly that his Homes were Protestant Homes: "Your child, if admitted, will be brought up in the Protestant faith, and will not be allowed to attend a Roman Catholic chapel or to be visited by a Roman Catholic priest." He said that he did not want Catholic children, but poor women with hunger in their eyes would come and beg him to take the children. Even granting that this was perfectly correct, it often happened that such parents afterwards found work, and were able to live. Then they wanted back the children—wanted them all the more because in their woe they had trafficked with their conscience and put them in a Protestant home. They were then shown an agreement, which they had been driven to sign by hunger, to the effect that they would not get the children back until they were 21 years of age, "except with the willing consent of the managers." And if the managers did consentas well they might became necessary to pay at the rate of six shillings a week for the whole time the children had been maintained in the home. The English law recognised no such agreement. But Dr. Barnardo had a fixed principle never to give up a child on the ground of religion. In these circumstances the ordinary working man was powerless. If the case was taken —well, Dr. Barnardo had an income of £200,000 a year, and could risk a law-suit, and often did. Dr. Barnardo's Homes were a source of great anxiety to Cardinal Vaughan for many years, and if after long struggles a compromise was arranged between the Catholics and the Doctor, the latter absolutely declined at all times to give.up a child once received into the actual Homes. His utmost concession was a promise to send back Catholic children who came to the receiving wards, and even this was guarded by several clauses of limitation. • :i ' ■"■"■'■'' t*i?vi * - ■; tel Homes like Dr. Barnardo's are known in Ireland as "Crows' Nests"; and in Ireland the parent who would, even under stress of direst want, send a child to such Homes was an object of horror to the neighbors. . The spirit that enabled starving" mothers''to kiss the Cross and die rather than deny their faith: for food in the famine days was sufficient to counteract the proselytising propensities of Irish "Soupers." '. In England it was not so, and there were many cases in which weak parents—God alone knows with what extenuating circumstances . their hungry children to Protestant homes. : That' Dr. : Barnardo's mission was the occasion of much danger to the faith of! poor Catholics is ' Certain. ' That the character of his homes was. rampantly Protestant' is ' also certain. And it is for these institutions that the Catholic ladies who are active members of the Patriotic League 'have been asked to collect. -That such an undertaking is in any way patriotic we, cannot see that it is entirely vm-Catholic

we see very plainly.. The failure of the proposal to devote some of the money to help. Father Bans, is enough for us. It might in the view of the organisers of the far-fetched project be patriotic to help a "Crows' Nest": to help a Catholic institution of the same sort would be something too dreadful to think of. Education Every day we receive further proof that the sane opinion of the Dominion is growing in favor of religious education for the young. At present the advocates of the Free, Secular, and Compulsory System of which Mr. Hanan is so proud are largely typified as to principles and education by _ the unspeakable Elliott: the gutter of the Churches and those who frankly deny God altogether are the mainstay of the discredited "System." At the Hawke's Bay Synod last month, Mr. C. A. De Latour proposed—" That the Synod having considered the address of the Bishop is of opinion that the members of the Church should forthwith provide for the religious education of their children." Speaking to the resolution, the mover said that 40 years ago he was a member of the House of Representatives when the Act providing for secular schools was passed. That it was passed was due to stress of conditions which no longer prevailed. Then the religious bodies were not able to satisfy the educational needs of the colony and some public scheme was urged. It was never expected that the secular system would remain in force for so many years, and he was sorry that it had ever been necessary to introduce it. "Experience had conclusively proved that the Roman Catholic Church was absolutely right in 1877 in saying that education which did not include religion was no education at all." Mr. G. C. Williams, seconding the motion, said the unanimous support of the Synod was behind it: he did not think there was an opponent in the whole Synod. It is consoling to witness these signs that the people of the Dominion are become awake to the meaning of secular schools. As the months go on the number of those who like the itinerant Elliott stand frankly and unashamed for the system which promotes immorality and unbelief is diminishing. Of the degraded "System" it may well.be said "that it is known by its fruits—and also by its supporters. American Help ... America has helped the Allies from the very beginning of the war, even when finding it necessary to protest against breaches of international law such as the food blockade and the interference with American mails. ■ And as far as money and munitions go America has been of incalculable assistance to the Entente belligerents. Now that the United States have also come in to the war, a fact of respectable antiquity at present, there is much talk of what America is going to do on the.field of Mars. The fleet of wooden ships has been almost forgotten, and the .birds still nest in the trees of which the ships were to be constructed. Has all the boasting about that wonderful fleet ended in gas —in "hot air," "Uncle Sam would put it? There has been much said and written about the huge flock of aeroplanes which was to be sent over to blow the Germans across the Rhine. Will there be as many difficulties to prevent their building as there were in the, way of the wooden ships? And one of these days we are to have a million American soldiers fighting in Europe, helping and relieving the war-worn veterans ofthe Allies. When ?. Where are the ships? Must we wait for the wooden ' fleet 'first—-not only to transport the men, but to ferry over their guns, munitions, and food? The problem of getting a million men into France is no simple one* in these days of distress. Nor do we see how it is at all feasible until the ships are first in evidence. „';,y jfeis a big proposition, but America ie also a big country, capable of doing big things. But we should like to see her starting, to do them. 'Rightly wrongly, there is a, quiet belief among many people that America will do little more than she has been dofng, and that her moral support will be stronger than her; physical aid in the field. President Wilson

went into the war to hasten peace. It is possible that he will see its attainment before an .American army of large proportions lands in Europe at all. The big army cannot get there before • next spring, and we doubt if it can be there then. In the meantime, we permit ourselves to hope that when the spring comes in Europe some six months hence there will be no necessity at all for the American Army. The Failure of the Irish Party Whatever one thinks of the situation one is compelled to recognise that the Irish Party has failed to represent the Irish people in these days. The election of the Sinn Fein leader in Willie Redmond's .old constituency proclaimed the debacle, and the Kilkenny election confirmed it. We must go a long way back to find how the Party first lost the confidence of the country. For at least a decade Archbishop Walsh has withdrawn all external approval of their policy, and he put his finger on the radical cause of their loss of power when he said they had become the tail of the Liberals. . The people were taught to expect that their representatives should be at all times independent, and it was accepted as a fundamental canon in Irish politics that England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity, experience of the saddest and most desperate kind having shewn that it was absolutely useless to expect anything from British justice. Whatever England gave Ireland was wrung from her by stern necessity and self-interest: all the lessons of our history went to prove that. Therefore at the beginning of the war many who had supported the Party through all the stormy years of the Home Rule campaign now felt grave misgivings when they witnessed John Redmond's pathetic trustfulness in the promises of English Ministers. Disapproving of his policy many still supported him, willing, perhaps, to believe that he might be right and that he had sure grounds for his action. A great number, however, could see no ray of hope in the Party's policy, and- if they were silent they gave up hope. But here was the great mistake: in the words of Mr. Redmond's enemies, "the great betrayal." The condition of the Party was rendered still more precarious by the events of Easter Week, and by their general attitude in connection with the Rising. And the Rising itself gave to Sinn Fein the appeal which had hitherto been wanting in it for the whole nation. The atrocities of Maxwell, the murders of Colthurst, the criminal bungling of the Government, the clear proofs that there was one law for Irishmen and another for Orange rebels, sent every man and woman who loved Ireland to the standard of Sinn Fein now. Another event occurred to further discredit the Party:"; Archbishop Walsh wrote a letter to the press in which he protested against the bargaining for the partition of Ireland ; it was an indictment of the Party, and they failed to justify themselves. At present if there were a general election there is no doubt that the Party would come back in very small numbers; equally certain is it that the Sinn Feiners would sweep the country. The situation therefore is' that Sinn Fein is the policy, of the Irish people at the present time. We are too many leagues away from Ireland to be able to follow closely the trend of events, but this much seems certain the Sinn Feiners are as a body splendid patriots of whom any country might be proud; they are kith and kin to the brave men who regenerated the soul of Ireland last year they are not fools, 4 nor impetuous boys. Among them are men of remarkable scholarly attainments , who have won: the esteem and love of their countrymen', men inspired by ' a" white fire of patriotism, by a love for Ireland only less admirable and wonderful than their love for religion. In the story f of what country will' you read %. such 1 edifying pages 'as those that tell of the deaths • qf thel boys whom Maxwell put to death? ': It is also certain - ; that at the head of the movement there are now two men of broad views 'and of n genuine patriotism: there are some differences of opinion as to whether John- Mac Neill or De Yalera .should be.Jbhe .leader—differences, we are assured by those who know, which will never come to a

serious split. And one who has implicit * faith' in Mac Neill writes to us-that .De - Valera is a wonder among wonders,, and in ■no way likely ,to countenance dissension among the rank and file of the party. Again we are assured by keen observers that it is most probable that in time those who may now differ will come to form a party inspired by one ideal and one only: The honor of God and the Glory of Ireland. We must admit that Mr. Redmond did great service for the cause of Ireland ever since he was elected for New Ross 36 years ago. But we know nowas some of us believed for a long time—that he made a mistake which could not be undone perhaps for generations : he held the winning cards and threw down his hand. In doing this he acted as a gentleman filled with a beautiful belief in English honor and justice would have acted. He ignored all the stern lessons of Irish history, and all the warnings of Biggar, and Butt, and Parnell. His confidence was a beautiful thing. But the salvation of Ireland was no matter to leave to uncertainties. Then, if ever, the maxim should have been Sains reipublicae suprem-a lex esto. Under a new standard, under new leaders, the old fight is being fought again. Ireland has never lost hope yet; and never on the morrow of an apparent defeat has she looked towards the dawn with eyes in which hope shone brighter than now.