Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 21 August 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

■■ o •ft u tiri ; 14x1: 4b ft bri. cfco-riß' ■ '<rii Prussianism - ?f ; vvbdlodihv;-' io - One day lin a moment of fierce . wrath, -} aroused by the contemplation of the ■ atrocities committed by . his countrymen in ; Ireland, t G. K. Chesterton scornfully asked Englishmen- whether it was Prussia or Prussianism, they were fighting. . Indeed, when we recall the hysterics of the white-feather brigade over alleged; and unproved; atrocities and corpse-factories and - witness the equanimity with which they regard - 2 proved- and attested crimes against women, and children in Ireland, there is. little reason to . hesitate about ; the . answer to Mr. Chesterton. From. the Dublin l Leader ; we reproduce two extracts which will convince any’ honest reader that the Georges and the Carsons and the Isaacses .are as brutal as the Huns were said to be. ? First, when the war was over, the Allies, chiefly through the British fleet, set themselves to force Germany by starving women and children to sign ; peace terms which were a flagrant departure from those proposed to Germany at the time of the Armistice. Rantzaxx’s words, quoted in the Leader, will go down to history as the scathing indictment of Mr. George and - his peers, which they undoubtedly are: ‘Crimes in war may not be excusable, but they are committed in the struggle for victory, and in the defence of national existence, and passions are aroused which make the conscience of the people blunt." That, perhaps, he alleged as a palliation for undeniable acts of Prussianism committed by Germany. Then he goes on to speak of the calculated and coldblooded crimes of the Allies: “The hundreds of thousands of non-combatants who have perished since November 11, by reason of the blockade, were killed with cold-blooded deliberation after our adversaries had conquered, and victory been assured to them. Think of that when you speak of guilt and punishment.” Did we fight Prussia or Prussianism ? Did a single one of our "day-lies” utter a single word of honestprotest against the massacre in cold blood of German women and children after the war? Now comes another extract. Here is what Mr. Ryan, of the IrishAmerican Delegation, has to say about the sort of Prussianism which we .fought to build up: “I saw and heard of police brutality, and witnessed in Dublin and Westport military displays that rivalled Prussianism. . . . These are the common, ordinary incidents of British rule in Ireland." Yet, not a word of protest from those pious Christian women who plucked white feathers and sent boys to slaughter in their eagerness to put down Prussianism when it was done by other's. If the worst and vilest sort' of hypocrite is the one who denounces in others the crimes which he commits himself, our Imperialists stand before the throne of God as the incarnation .of hypocrisy. There would be some hope for them if they could feel shame; but they are beyond - that. So, too, is the Empire, of which with such awful symbolism the head to-day is the Marconi-jobber, Mr. George. There is an. old saying that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. What can you make of an Empire such as ours? The scourge of God has been unavailing. Humility, truth, charity, and self-know-ledge are farther removed from the people, than ever. And those "Fourteen Points”—well, a writer in New Ireland was not so far wrong when he said that they had been condensed by the Peace Conference into one point, the Point of the Bayonet! The blatant bard of Empire was right: .’. , ■; ;; - - r -- i ' As it was in the beginning, - ■ So is now official sinning,.. -. ‘ And shall be for evermore. Amen. . ....... —

Superstitious Uses ' It ,v; . ; The London Month calls attention to certain superstitious forms of prayer which . are ■ not : infrequently circulated among the ignorant for the sake of i gain by

unscrupulous persons. - He also ' adds - : that some - such leaflets . found their way among the soldiers who for one reason or ) another ; ,were ready-to .welcome superstition; in various forms. ; One; prayer was supposed to i bear with;, it a : promise that all sorts ;of immunities- and - temporal blessings, would be the reward of those who used it , and ; a threat ,of God’s displeasure .upon the incredulous * was ; also : associated . with it. It ; was - alleged that it was found on Our Lord’s grave in the year 303, *or in 803, or in : 1003. The promises run -as; follows : : i “Those who repeat it devoutly, or hear it repeated every day and keep it with them shall never die a sudden death.; ■; Poison shall not affect them. If said over a woman in. labor, she shall be safely delivered: when the child is born say the prayer and he or she shall not meet disaster. If laid on a person in fits they (?) shall recover or be relieved. They who repeat it in any, house shall be blessed by our Lord, and they who laugh at it shall suffer. They who keep it about them shall fear neither lightning nor thunder. They who repeat it every day shall have three days’ warning of their death." ; , Another form purported to contain revelations made to St. Brigid by Our Lord. It ran as follows: 1. • When I was apprehended in the garden I received 30 cuffs and 820 blows. 2. Going to the house, of Annas I got 7 falls. 3. They gave me 540 blows on the breast. 4. They gave me 5 cruel blows on the shoulders. 5. They raised me by the hair of my head 630 times. * . • - ' ...... 6. They gave me 30 blows on the mouth. 7. With anguish I sighed 888 times. 8. They drew me by the head 308 times. 9. They gave me 6666 stripes with whips. 10. I was bound to a pillar and they spat on my face 68 times. 11. They put a crown of thorns on my head. 12. The soldiers gave me 558 stripes with whips. 13. Falling upon my cross I received mortal wounds. 14. They gave me gall and vinegar to drink. 15. When I was hanging on the cross I received 5 large wounds. After this catalogue come a number of promises of favors to all who say certain prayers. Plenary indulgences galore are guaranteed. It is not necessary to say that these leaflets bear no evidence of authenticity and that as a rule they are devoid even , of the imprint of the publisher. An ordinarily-instructed Catholic would of course reject them at once with the scorn they merit, but unfortunately some weak-minded persons are always more willing to receive such impostures than to avail themselves of the real opportunities for saving their souls which our Holy Church gives to all her children. It is worth noting that Father Keating states that he believes there is no serious evidence for the computations sometimes introduced into books of devotion and attributed to St. Brigid. . “Even the clause often, introduced at the public recitation of the Rosary, ‘The number of stripes * they gave Him being above 5000, as was revealed to St. Brigid,’ was declared as long ago as the seventeenth century, by Gonsalvo Durantus, the editor of her Revelations, to be , altogether without authority.” Surely there are enough lawful devotions for all persons. For our part we believe strongly ixx the importaxxce of concentrating on the essentials — simple prayers of our childhood,, the Holy Mass, the Blessed Eucharist, and Our Lady. Many will always be drawn by minor attractive exercises, but the main things should come first and everything, not sound should be jealously avoided. , . v .

Democracy . .. . , .. Democracy - is a Greek word that we are very fond of . at present. There is so .much truth in the old French saying, A vec dm (tree on a . to-u jours raison, that we are too : much inclined to take even the word itself for granted. ~ . Mr. Wells is a writer with whom some people.,: will. never , agree because, he holds ; some principles that they do not agree with; but notwithstanding

the attitude of such narrow-minded persons, Mr. Wells has - a very 1 keen 1 mind, and can be -very sound at times. He rightly points out that when 1 people spoke 1 -about Democracy in i Greece affairs were so simple that politics could -be discussed and the statecraft examined : by the human , voice in an assembly of all the 'citizens. ; The same conditions might be - found to-day little States like San Marino or Monaco; but in larger; States ' the problems of politics have -grown so complex 1 and so vast that the old terms can only apply to the new conditions by a remote analogy. This sort of ■‘traditional: acceptance of an old word as if it could still bear its old force is perhaps responsible for a good deal of the confusion that lies at the bottom of most modern thought about Democracy. No little study of modern conditions and no little analysis is necessary before we can arrive at anything like a clear notion of what different interpretations may be put on the word Democracy to-day. Approaching the subject as it concerns government, we find that views may be very broadly divided into two classes ; some think that the common man can govern; others think he cannot. Following from this startingpoint we next find that some think the common man is wise enough and good enough to act rightly ; for the common good if only he is left alone. Others, not prepared to go so far, think that the common man can be depended on to express himself wisely and rightly by a majority voteon the principle that “you cannot fool all the people all the time.’’ Those who hold that he cannot govern may hold that he needs stirring up by education, and that political facts must be thrust upon him to secure his assent to proceedings of the able people who manage affairs. Others regard him as a person to be ruled and not consulted at all. With his customary clearness Mr. Wells thus analyses the problem: —■ Class I. —lt is supposed that the common man can govern ; (a) Without further organisation (Anarchy). (b) Through a majority vote by delegates. Class ll. —lt is supposed that the common man cannot govern, and that government therefore must be through the agency of Able Persons who may be classified under one of the following heads, either as—• (1) Persons elected by the common man because he believes them to be persons able to govern—just as he chooses his doctors as persons able to secure health, and his electrical engineers as persons able to attend to his tramways’ etc. (2) Persons of a special class, as, for example, persons born and educated to rule (e.g., Aristocracy), or rich business adventurers (Plutocracy) who rule without consulting the common man at all. (3) A sort of intermediate class of persons elected by a special class of voter. Now from this table it is. evident that we often

use the term Democracy to cover a section which comes under the class of those who even hold that the common man cannot govern; (1) in class 11. and (b) in class I. cover what is commonly meant by most people who speak of democratic government at present. The latter may be called "delegate Democracy" and the former "selective Democracy." When wc simply say "Democracy" we may mean either but they are two entirely different things, based on two entirely different ideas. We may take it for granted that a good government on the lines of "delegate Democracy" is not possible under modern conditions. The Democracy of which President Wilson is the ablest and most authoritative exponent is that which demands personality and initiative in the elected representatives. '" The trend 'of the movement in England is on the same lines as in America. The tendency here, where we are a wowser-ridden community, represented by politicians who for the most part do not know what a man means when he talks about principles, is the other, way. - Progressive ! countries elect sound men and ask them to use their brains wowser-ridden New Zealand elects the men who pander most to the bigots of the hour, and, not expecting them to have either brains or principles; looks 'ion them as puppets.';.,,,..;',.. ..'.,„,_'^.: ,:„,...■„ "_-,.,.-. r i;-ii= ii-C--

' V- s? :• tt - ir-z," 1 '• v :• 1 Out of the Fulness of the Heart ; A -gentleman recently told ; us that while walking J up Princes Street he could - not help hearing the conversation of two schoolboys in front of him. --To-say, he was shocked : would I be putting it mildly. The obscenity and the indecency spoken on the public street, loudly enough for a man walking behind to hear easily, were : appalling." ! - We ' have more - than once heard in the trains language from 1 sober, well-dressed men that would be - rightly punished by - imprisonment with hard labor 1 ; and 1 these people are usually so lost to shame, so corrupt and debased that they care little who bears them. There are 1 very few -travellers whose ears have not been offended in like manner on many occasions. And when we add to r the obscenities the curses and blasphemies heard so frequently we have one further clear proof : of the state of 1 affairs in this country for which schools that banish - God and indirectly teach children that it is a matter of indifference whether the Ten Commandments be broken or kept are responsible. Of old it was written : The things that proceed from the mouth come forth from the heart. . . Out of the heard come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses. Judging society by these words, what a rottenness obtains to-day ! What Our Lord said of the corruption of the individual seems only too true of society nowadays. The verdict that one is compelled, to pass on the people is terrible and in the light of all that students of sociology in our time have written' the evidences of the perversity of the heart are too obvious to be mistaken. The radical cause of evil language—be it blasphemy or obscenity—is the weakness of the religious sense and that is,certainly due to the Servile Schools established and maintained in our midst by injustice and outrage on liberty. If the sanction of religion is removed as it is by our legislators, what power will teach boys and men self-control, what will save them from corruption, what will make them speak reverently of God, in a word, what will train them to be gentlemen? The answer is, nothing on earth can do it. Therefore every parent who cares for the honor of God and for the salvation of his children will avoid the godless schools as if they were infested with leprosy; therefore every true Christian will, for the honor of God’s Holy Name and for the sake of purity and' decency, strive by every means in his power to help on the penalised private schools which are struggling to save this country from its political place-hunters and adventurers. Another cause of the rottenness is the prevalence of evil literature and the laxity of the press. Of this phase we will only make one remark: even clergymen have openly advocated the introduction of a book which a member of Parliament said that only a blackguard would allow his children, to read. That fact shows how far the plague has eaten into society and how great the need of reform. That book was one that dealt almost 1 professedly with subjects that “only a blackguard would allow into his home’’ ; and when clergymen attack the authorities for prohibiting it, what zeal for decency and for clean literature can be expected from the’in ? The writer of the book was himself a. clergyman, and what can one. say of him except the words of St.- Matthew already quoted? The book was written expressly to calumniate Catholics, and, apparently it is considered permissible to introduce a vile book and to corrupt the young provided that by doing so No-Popery gets a boom. Could there be greater evidence 'of the intense perversity of heart and mind than - that one fact ? What could such a guide do to uplift the unfortunate people committed to his charge ? What is he likely to care for decency or purity among them? Apart from obscene books recommended by clergymen there are" others always procurable and always in circulation, as every confessor knows. We have heard how young l girls who read these books speak, and how unblushingly they lay bare to everyone who hears them the corruption within them. -From minds fed- on- filth what- cleanness[ or wholesomeness can one expect ? - And . how i much of what the . modern boy or girl reads or hears to-day can bo' described . by any other . r words than filth? The evil is indeed appalling. The

radical remedy is the religious school. "Until -\ve get what we can to promote-good literature and healthy Catholic papers and "among our own people. We have/not- only to save ourselves, but also to become the'Source'ifroift-5 which the influence of right principles will one day I reach'others. :