Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 6 February 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

The Teachers* Tribute .When the teachers of our State schools come together we look for an' attack on the private schools which have grown up side by side with the favored institutions to which Mr, Hanan and the omniscient oracles of the Stout type afford their patronage, and we ought to regard it as a bad sign if no such attack be made. If the private schools were not flourishing and efficient the teachers would not trouble about them, but, on the other hand, when we see the teachers worried and calling on the Government to protect them against the institutions to which those parents who have a right idea of education send their children we have every reason to feel that the private schools are justifying the great sacrifices made in order to support them.’ This year* it was proposed with all due solemnity that the Government should further penalise private schools in order to help the State system; in matter of fact an admission that the private schools were dangerous rivals, to say the least of them. A Mr. Webb proposed that private schools should not be examined, and that no certificates entitling to public privileges should be issued to their pupils. He did not discuss the question whether the pupils of private schools were more worthy of certificates or no, or whether the education given to pupils attending them was better or worse. He simply asked that our godless Government should step in and punish still further those parents who believed that religion is the foundation not only of education but of social welfare; and to this truly tyrannical piece of bigotry there was no dissenting voice save that of Mr. Malone, of Grey. Some years ago the matter lay between the Catholics and the teachers at present the other Churches are beginning to realise the fact that we must have religious teaching in the schools, and the day is coming when we shall see on one side all those who think with Sir Robert Stout that children ought to be brought up like young barbarians, and on the other those who know that they were created by God to His own image and likeness and that they have immortal souls to save. We are not afraid of the future. The time will come when public opinion will compel a cowardly Government to do justice to the private schools and to discontinue the present system of legal robbery. Next year we shall probably have the teachers calling on Mr. Hanan to have introduced here the old Irish Penal Laws which made it a crime for a Catholic to teach. This would be but the logical conclusion of their present attitude. Yet, there are some wise people among them who know their position and remain content to do the work they are payed for. Ingratitude A doctor who had charge of a district during the epidemic remarked to us that he was painfully struck by the ingratitude of those who suffered during the plague. A gentleman who worked hard to help those who were unable to do their work, who was up late and early seeing that their interests did not suffer while they were prostrate, told us that many, of those whom he helped never even thanked him. We know what the nuns did in all the afflicted centres, and though individuals expressed their lively sense of gratitude for what was done for. them we have seen very little sign that the communities were a whit thankful to those devoted, workers. The nuns did not work for any human reward; and as surely they got none. A sense of justice and chivalry is hardly the salient feature in the character of a. people who can witness devoted women risking their lives in the cause of charity without being moved to some outward expression of admiration and of thankfulness that we have among us such workers. Those who provide the daily cloumns of reading matter for the Dominion cannot all have been blind to what was done but most of them were dead to the sentiments of decency which ought to have moved

them to pay .to the Sisters- their due tribute. It is but one more indication that the people of New Zealand are becoming a material race; for materialism is the root of that selfishness which can even go so far as to hate benefactors. And if we want to get at the root of the materialism we must got to the schools which are conducted apparently on the supposition that religion does not matter ; for religion is the fountain of charity, of true nobility, of humility, and of every finer feeling which the virtues nourish. The man must be blind who can go through New Zealand without being struck by the want of courtesy and the lack of reverence among our young people. These are grave indications of the trend of the national character, but still graver is the fact that gratitude for favors received is as absent in the hearts of many among us as it is in a wolf or a bear. An ungrateful people! We have reached a low level indeed. Irish Affairs The war was fought to secure for oppressed peoples the right of self-determination. If any man doubts that he is a Hun who places no reliance on the pledges and promises of English statesmen. Consequently now that the war is over it is a natural thing to see, that the oppressed Irish people have claimed the right for which Lloyd George said he was fighting. Hence, we have to-day an Irish Parliament sitting in Dublin. And it is a Sinn Fein Parliament with an united Ireland behind it. What more does Lloyd George want ? Still it appears he is unhappy about something. He seems to think that the Irish people understood that he was only fighting to free the people oppressed ‘by the “other fellow”; he is not pleased when he is reminded of President Wilson’s terms; and he would if he dared upset that Dublin Parliament now. But that would be rather awkward while the Peace Conference is sitting to make the world safe for small nations like Ireland and to put down “Prussianism” like that of the English Government in Ireland for the past seven hundred years. So the Sinn Fein Parliament goes on. We shall be much surprised if it has not come to stay. A nation cannot be killed, and a nation, rejuvenated by a baptism of blood and tried as pure gold in the fire of tribulation, is behind that Parliament with an unanimity and a patriotic fervor never surpassed in history. If we were inclined to laugh, how we should laugh at the “Daylies” which kept on telling their readers that Sinn Fein did ’ not* represent Ireland at all. Sinn Fein is Ireland; and Sinn Fein has beaten John Bull. The Parliament now sitting in Dublin is a public indictment of the oppressor and pledge-breaker. We are very confident that Ireland has practically won her case, and that the era of broken British pledges and torn scraps of paper is ended. But we suppose they will still preserve the Treaty Stone as a monument and a warning lest any future generation should be inclined to believe that., any English statesman would keep his word to Irishmen, To-day at last it is Sinn Fein Ahu. .

The Peace Conference First let us remark that Sir Joseph Ward seems to have got what he wanted. But what an undignified position was his for the past few weeks!. A cartoon described Mr. Massey talking to Lloyd George with Sir Joseph in the background. Lloyd George asks our William who is the stranger. William replies airily, “O, a chap I met coming over on the boat.” . Jokes aside, Sir Joseph made very little of himself; and he had already made himself too cheap by playing second fiddle to Mr. Massey. However, there they are now, and we may shut our eyes and wait with open mouths to see what the future will send us. It looks as if the Peace Conference is developing on the lines we forecast some time ago. It would not be a bad speculation for a man to go to Paris at present provided with a supply of shillelaghs. The row is rising. . An. American has already described the proceedings as a squabble over tea-cups, A Paris paper spoke of the

"brutal” claims of England. People in our cars and trains are indignantly asking what right has Wilson to talk! (Query: If he had gone in on the other side would we question his right to advocate fair play at the Conference that would be held in Berlin ? O, gratitude The most amusing thing about the whole proceeding is that the sane and. just proposals of the American President have been called in the British press a new morality! That at least was frank. But it was not complimentary to English statesmen to tell them indirectly that principles of justice and fair play were to them something new and extraordinary. Most Irishmen would agree that this is exactly what such principles are to English statesmen. But then of course Irishmen are only a few millions of people who have been robbed and plundered and murdered with impunity so long that they ought to be used to it now. Anyhow, President Wilson is standing fast for truth and justice. And it may be just worth remembering that it was he who saved us from being conquered by Germany. And he did not win for us ; he came in and - won for the cause of humanity for German humanity as well as for British. Remember, too, that there are certain other people who will be heard. Foxinstance Germany and Austria and Turkey. The Latin races, represented by France and Italy, have logical minds. And Russia has no love for tyranny.

On the West Coast When the editor returned from the West Coast he wanted to say many things about his trip which, either because he was tired with much travel, or because he realised the futility of attempting to say what ought to be said in the manner becoming the subject, he left unsaid. However, here is what he said instead : It was in the Catholic Club in Hokitika. The editor and Don Cicilio were pretending to play billiards. A young man opened the door and looked sympathetically on their efforts for a minute. Then he said: “I notice you are not wearing your Sinn Fein badges.” It was a reproof. We, deserved it jointly and singly. And the rebuke given us by this youth of Westland, with his honest, true eyes, and a candid face that carried for ever its unwritten testimonial to his sincerity, is the note that dominates our impressions of the West Coast. Sinn Fein is there in all its pride, unabashed and unashamed, disdainful of the lies and the sneers of the poor little wights who do Harmsworth’s dirty work—or is it Lloyd George’s ?—among us. In the Westland you feel that you are in Ireland. And that is why the rain does not matter, or why it seems so kind and so soft and so unlike our harsh, cold rain on the hither side of the Otira Gorge. Don Cicilio did complain a bit because the rain did not stop after the second, or third, or fourth day, but the muchabused editor felt that the rain was only a minor detail, and that the warmth of his welcome made up for many things. Though had he been of a jealous disposition he would have envied Don Cicilio when the people came out of their homes to greet him as he passed by the way ; for Don Cicilio had been on the Coast years before, and the West Coast people have the Irish hearts that do not forget. We saw the sun once. It shone on us for an hour during which we drove with a West Coast sagart to see the Ten Mile Creek. And what a drive it was ! A little way out from Greymouth we came upon the old, grey sea, calling, calling to us as it always calls to island-born people. The road lay through beautiful bush, and our eyes were delighted by a scale of greens that only Ireland can surpass when Autumn has touched the woodlands and once, when wc came out on a bluff, the sea breezes had burned out the green and the trees were cowering and leaning inland, with bare, twisted branches, so wild and fantastic that our guide, with happy accuracy, likened the landscape to a picture by Dore, and one thought of that hufera in female . that swept through the Inferno. And then we arrived ' at Ten Mile Creek, which was a scene from Paradise, with the music of the silvery-plashing

river mingling with the voice of the tremulous sea far down below our feet. . The world was far. away here, and the only living thing that broke the spell of those great wooded hills was the note of a bell-bird, repeated four or five times as we lingered there, loath to leave that fairyland. The I sun shone brightly, though the diamonds of passing showers glistened on the green leaves ; and no more perfect picture of a landscape in which were blended bush and sea and river could be imagined. ... On another day, when the rain had ceased for a while, though the skies were still grey, we went with J. K. L. to see Lake Kanieri, which is his province. We drove through miles of virgin bush, along an avenue that surely has nothing like it in the world. The tall trees were so high and straight that over our heads there was another avenue cut out of the sky. And over foamixxg torrents, by brawling streams, we passed quickly until we came forth on the broad waters of the lake hidden in the bosom of the mountains. A path- ran along the shore, and we followed it for some distance through the bush, while J. K. L. gathered for us rare ferns, so various and so lovely that it is quite clear that New Zealand has an undisputed claim to wear the fern as her badge. Our guide was versed in woodland lore, and the Maori names of trees and, shrubs fell from his tongue like music. He brought us to a little glade where we heard other music that you must go to Kaxxieri to appreciate. The little waves of the lake fell like tinkling silver on the white sands, and from the deep, mysterious heart of the forests arose the song of the tixi. We recalled hackneyed lines about pathless woods and lonely shores ; but we felt we were in a cathedral where the only poetry worthy of utterance was the Psalm which tells how the mountains and the seas and the rivers and the skies praise the good God Who made them all. And then we came back again to where a motor car recalled us from the land of dreams and brought us back to the prosaic world once more.

Far down towards the south was the Franz- Josef glacier, whither our hearts would have led us. But . wisdom told us that if we went thither we might not return as soon as we would. For the rain fell, day after day, and night after night- and the rivers rose higher and higher until fords became impassable. But there remained the Buller and the Otix-a, by one or other of which we must pass on our way home. When you go through the Buller you will be ready to vow that there is no grander scenery in the world than this ; and when you go over the Otira you will hold that even the Buller cannot surpass it. From Westport or Reefton to Glexxhope is a drive to remember for eternity and a source of everlasting dreams, and in days to come the poets of New Zealand will . find their inspiration there. But is the Otira any less magnificent and inspiring? To walk in the rain over the pass is xxot a pleasxxre when one has to wear a heavy waterproof and when the wind and weather bear one backward at 5 every corner; but there can be few greater pleasures than to pause for a rest now and then and to look down on the road one has come over. Even though the sky is not always blue the eternal snow is always white, and the solemn woods are always green, and the thousands of cascades are always playing like organs in the deep aisles of the pass. And when at length the straining horses have caught up the walkei-s and the top of the Gorge is reached, it will not be without feelings of regret that one thuxxdex-s down the winding mountain road and leaves behind the West Coast with its grandeur and its loveliness, and its soft, kind rains, audits warxn, kind hearts. That is what the editor rernorW to o follmu-naccanorpr lipf.WPP.il flip Dflnr.lPr A/nrl ~ •• o Arthur’s Pass. And- between the courses at Table d’hote, while the fellow-passenger was translating the French names on the Menu, and weighing the rival claims of ponimes de terre an savon, agneuu tres antique, and gig of, a Voutrance, the editor scribbled the following rhyme, which he sends to his friends on the Coast, with a hundred apologias :

’Tis the Westland, with its wet skies and its soft rains forme , / , " The Westland, with its green woods and its old, strong sea. i Hokitika, Westport, Reefton, and the Grey, God send that I may come to you again another day! In the. dark woods, the deep woods, the bright lakes gleam, And there through a slimmer day an idle man might dream, While the little wavelets stumble and whisper as they fall, And the hills hold the echoes of the tads silver call. Bright cascades flashing are tumbling through the trees, And you hear a hundred rivers that know no rest nor ease ; There’s snow upon the mountains, there’s gold on the sands, Sure the Westland is the loveliest of all the fairylands! Tow'll see there, the Irish eyes of clear grey-blue Thai tell you when a woman’s soul is always true; And the strong men, the big men trill somehow make you feel That you have to go to Westland to find the hearts of steel. ’Tis the Westland, and its wet skies and its kind rains far me • lts deep lakes, its big hills, and its old, grey sea.: The strong men are kind men, and the cailins are fair, And when you leave the Westland your heart stays there.