Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 22 January 1920, Page 14

Current Topics

British Fair Play We invite those dear Jingoes who used to tell us in the Ota Times and in similarly enlightened organs of the "Propaganda" that Ireland has no reason to complain of British rule, to . consider the efforts made to hinder the development of Irish trade. According to an American exchange, the Moore McCormack Steamship Line, running between Dublin and New York, have been subjected to gross annoyance and discourtesy by the British officials. Civilised people will find it hard to believe that taxes and dues, payable to Liverpool, are charged boats that never touch that port, but go straight to Dublin. Another feather in the cap of the champion of small nations ! i ■ i Bolshevism Panic dire reigns in London. Lloyd George had to admit that the Russian people beat his troops out of the field. Mr. Bullitt's revelations threw yet more light on the unspeakable Welshman's treachery towards Russia. English officers are letting the truth come out slowly. Books like Prank Anstey's are drawing aside the veil and manifesting to the world what provocation the English gave the Russian people whom they first encouraged. Now, it looks as if a swift and terrible retribution were approaching. The Russian armies are advancing southwards with astonishing speed, and the road to India is threatened. What will happen if the campaign succeeds in rousing the long-suffering Indian people is too dreadful to contemplate. It ought to be remembered, however, that for much of this the English Government is responsible. Lloyd George had his chance of making terms with the Bolsheviki, and lost it because he was afraid of a few wealthy rascals at home who might put him out of power. Instead of taking the opportunity when it came and helping to establish a sound popular government in Russia, he went on lying to the English people and pouring troops and munitions into Russia, in the interests of the capitalists. The blame is now to be laid at his door, and it is time that the British people asked themselves how long more they are to be misled and fooled by a corrupt plutocracy. Another big war may break out within a year or two. And it surely is a question of importance for the Dominions to consider whether they are to be thrown into a struggle again, simply because a few bunglers in London are tolerated in office. The democracy has certainly been fooled long enough. The war that was to free small nations and end secret treaties has riveted tighter the fetters on Ireland, Egypt, and India, and apparently put the British democracy under the heel of a man whose word nobody can believe. When is the Empire to be governed for the people and by the people, instead of by plutocrats and for plutocrats ? f Railway Crossing Last week's papers conveyed to readers throughout the Dominion the news of two more accidents at railway crossings; The entire community ought to have no difficulty in recognising that human life is a sacred thing, and the fact that the press— sad to say, is supposed to be a reflex of the public mind—commented strongly on the matter, shows in some fashion that the public would at least feel ashamed if no protest were made. And having made a protest, the New Zealand public, just as indifferently as it lay down under the outrageous passing of a Conscription Act without consulting the wishes of the people concerned, will go on as before until our State railways kill some other unfortunate victims. Then, again, there will be another protest, and later more people will be k lied. Now, what concerns us is the impudence of one of our dailies, which said that, as the matter of safeguarding human lives in this respect was very expensive, we ought to make the best of the status quo. That statement shows not only a callous indifference for human

life, a truly Prussian ignorance of the value of life to individuals and to the community, but a contemptible spirit of acquiescence in the New Zealand Muddlement.. To erect gates at the most dangerous crossings may be an expensive undertaking, but it is a necessary one; and it is high time that the people took it in hand to see that their paid servants, the politicians, did their duty in the matter. It is —and high time—that the democracy of the Dominion should awake to th'i fact that they are not the prey of the Government, but that the Government is the servant of the people, and that when it ceases to be so, it ought to 'be kicked out of office. We have, had too much crawling subservience to dictatorship; we have been too blind to the faults of a gang that cannot even run a railway decently. A private company that made a muddle of its railways on such a gigantic scale as the Government did last year would not be tolerated for 24 hours; and,, a Government that did as ours did would not last in any other country but poor New Zealand. Too expensive forsooth ! Was it too expensive to send Messrs Massey and Ward Home for two tours during the war ? Did they achieve anything commensurate with the saving of one human life ? Was it too expensive to plunge the country into a Referendum agitation in the midst of a war, just because a number of noisy bigots wanted to enforce slavery on their fellows ? Was the sending Home of men who were absolutely unfit for military service too expensive ? Is taxation framed to fall heavy on the poor and light on the profiteer too expensive? Expense or no expense, it is time that the Government be brought to its senses and the lives of the people protected as they are in civilised countries. After the repeated warnings of similar accidents in the past, it is impossible to excuse those in power, and it is hardly straining facts to say that they are accessories to manslaughter. We suppose they do not care; but it is time that they should be made to care. It is time that the people insisted on being governed for the people, and that they who can find money to finance a wowser Referendum ought to be made find it to protect the lives of the men and women and children of the Dominion. Possibly we are so inured to loss of life now that the sense of humanity is dead within us as a people; possibly, we who did not protest against Conscription and against the brutal treatment of men like Mark Briggs, have lost all sense of compassion for the wronged and the suffering. If so, we have got the Government we deserve, and we shall probably go on reading of more lives lost in Mosgiel, in Palmerston North, in Ashurst, and wherever else there is a bad crossing for which a supine and worthless administration will not build gates. Sargeant Sheridan Again If we said that the outrages committed in Ireland were done by the express orders of Mr. George and the fool-general Prench (chiefly famous as the defamer • of a dead officer), our remarks would be received with incredulity by some people. Others, who know what English justice is, would probably agree with us. As a matter of fact, we have no real evidence for saying anything of the kind, but we have a hundred times more to justify us in saying so than the hireling press of the Empire, from Dunedin to Belfast, has for attributing the outrages to Sinn Fein. We do know that the English Government has paid politicians for the manufacture of crime. We do know that the same Government protected Sargeant Sheridan when he was exposed as a tool of the Tory-Orange gang. We also know that the Government deliberately "faked" German Sinn Fein plots that set the world rocking with laughter at the stupidity of Lloyd George and Shortt and Long. Moreover, it has been again ; and again demonstrated that the word of honor of a British statesman is worthless, and that tearing up scraps of paper and swallowing pledges is a favorite pastime of the Welsh contemptible. And knowing all these things; we may not actually warranted in making an assertionsuggest that the robberies and raids of which we hear so much are the work of the

same inglorious gang of "statesmen." It would surely surprise nobody who knows them to hear any day that the money taken from banks by alleged Sinn Feiners was all going where "Dope" profits and Marconi "tips" went. Besides, we know that the high suspects are not without' suitable tools. The man who would rob a dead man of his reputation would surely rob a bank and we know what the French person has done already. Again, Ireland is filled with the scum of Wales and England —in British uniform, —and British officers have been caught leading their merry men forth to- rob defenceless householders and to plunder jewellers' shops. And they not only admitted their guilt, but excused it by saying that Ireland is in a state of war ! On the whole, there is reason enough to presume that the offences and the robberies for which nobody is arrested are all part and parcel of the Sargeant Sheridan tactics of other days. To confirm this, let us add that we know the Sinn Feiners, and to say the least of it the worst of them compare very favorably, morally or intellectually, with the French person. . Even Horace Plunkett, who loves not Sinn Fein, indignantly denied that Sinn Fein was guilty of promoting the outrages so - glibly alleged against it by the lying press of the corrupt Government. Discussing the calumnies circulated so freely and unwarrantedly by our "Daily Dastards"— Dunedin and elsewhere where press-lying has become so common that it is recognised as a trade now —Mr. Chesterton says: "Can the Government, ask us to believe that the Sinn Feiners shot one of their own Boy Scouts in order to arouse indignation against the military ? Will the Government dent/ that the authorities want a rebellion to take place, and that the Sinn Fein leaders, great and small, art' doing their best to •prevent it? . . . We begin to suspect that there have been other cases of crime committed on behalf of the authorities and fathered on Sinn Fein. Injured innocence will not do now, and, moreover, we remember Sargeant Sheridan."' Mr. Chesterton here refers to the case of the lad Francis Murphy, who was deliberately shot by the military, and for whose death Clare was proclaimed. "Turn the case round," he says, "and imagine that the victim had been an English soldier who had been shot by men firing through the open window of the cottage wherein he sat reading a Blue Book by the fireside. Would there not have "been a courtmartial, would not at least one Sinn Feiner have been executed?" Such is British justice in Ireland. In such ways does Lloyd George fulfil the noble war aims for which New Zealand sent so many men to die ! Did we fight Prussia or Prussianism, think you ? In South Westland We had a few days to spare on our way south after the Convention, and a subliminal consciousness of a pledge to see the Franz Josef Glacier drew us towards "The Coast." So it happened that after a visit to the Sinn Fein headquarters at Beef ton and Nelson Creek, we found ourselves again in hospitable Greymouth. A day later, at Hokitika, we met An at hair 0 Sioda, who did not want much persuasion to be convinced that it was his duty to come with us on the journey south. Another day saw us departing from Ross in a gig drawn by a horse that had many outstanding points. For a few hours we jogged along under blue skies, seeing the glorious bush at its best. The pohutukawa.'s scarlet blaze lit up the long aisles through which we drove, and the marvellous ferns hung their great fronds over our heads, making the narrow road like a long pergola such as we used see in other days in Latian vineyards xne ousn avenue that began after crossing, the river below Ross and went on with with few breaks—to the Franz Josef, is a drive that has no rival in the world. Artists rave of the road from Frascati to Marino and of the elms that Lorraine loved, but the native trees and shrubs in South Westland, and the ferns and mosses and flowers in the undergrowth need not fear comparison with anything in the world. There were many fivers and creeks to cross— they became more .frequent as we went farther south, and the fact

that so few of them are bridged is a poor testimonial to the present Parliamentary representative for the district. Some of the river-beds are rough, and frequently the water rises rapidly and makes them impassable. At such times the natives are wont to wax eloquent in admiration of Mr. Seddon's inactivity. At .Hari Hari we found a river, called the Little Wanganui, running in spate high up in the paddocks on each side of its wide bed. There was no crossing that night, and our horse did not regret it. In fact, the animal scored • some points in manifesting its dislike to proceed. An, t'athair O Sioda says he has a photo of the spot where we capsized, when Rosinante bolted off a high narrow road. If the rain was "not all for heat," as Mick Fitzgerald invariably says it is when it pours on the Otira, it was all for the best, At Hari Hari we found hospitable quarters, and, moreover, a host who insisted in sending his own horse to see us through. Another member of the staunch Catholic community there volunteered to come, and after an early Mass at which we had a congregation of 20, we set off gaily, although the clouds were threatening. By the time we got over Mount Hercules they did more than'threaten, and it was wet and cold we were when late in the day we came to the Waiho Gorge. The rain did not permit us to enjoy the views of the lates on our way down, but in sunshine, coming back, we saw Waihapu and Mapourika at their best. Lovely lakes they are. too; wooded hills come down to the water and wonderful reflections of hush and hill are mirrored in the depths below. Snowcapped mountains appear in the "background, and the silver shields of sunny water add the final charm to this Paradise of the Westland. The Franz Josef was veiled in mist when we arrived at the Waiho Hotel, and as our first anxiety was to find a warm fire we were quite satisfied to await the chances of the morning. We quickly found the fire and a warm welcome from our hosts, who made us comfortable in this out-of-the-world spot in the south. As the next day was Sunday,, many Catholics welcomed the opportunity of hearing Mass and approaching the Sacraments, and we had in the early morning a homely little congregation in the hotel before starting for the glacier. We were blessed with glorious sunshine, and on going out of doors the wonderful glacier came into view at once, a solid cataract of light that hung like a Jacob's Ladder between the sky and the earth. To reach the ice we had to walk only three miles from the hotel. The track followed the bed of the torrent, and wound through the bush in an easy ascent right up to the foot of the glacier, which came down to some 700 ft above the sea-level. From the moraine to the summit of the Franz Josef is nine miles, though looking up at it one would hardly think it was ; five. The ice is like a frozen cataract. Wordsworth gives us an image of a distant waterfall which looks to an observer as if it were motionless, but here we have square miles of solid ice tossed and thrown into fantastic shapes as if blown by the wind and broken by crags over which it leaped in its headlong race. It does not race, however; its speed we were assured is only two feet a year, and at that it is a Desert Gold among glaciers. Slow as it moves, it is the forward motion over rocks and cliffs, hidden far beneath,. that breaks up the ice and forms the minarets and pinnacles and battlements that shine with a thousand varied hues in the sunlight. There is white, as of frozen marble, faint blue, ultramarine, indigo, green and opal, glowing, gleaming, dazzling, a marvel of color that no artist may hope to picture on canvas; there are waves as of the ocean in a rage, dimples such as the Greek poet saw, laughing and many-hued, in the sea that slept below an island crag in summer seas of long ago; spires and domes of crystal, and hills that change from showy white to blue fence at their ridges. Snow-capped peaks frame it above, and farther down it is set in a bower of green bush, with here and there, delicate, wax-like, mountain-flowers along its bed. At last there was the Franz Josef; and it was worth getting wet and cold on the long road that led us to it. An t'athair 0 Sioda took something like five million photos, but unfortu- , nately we have seen not one of them yet, so that we

cannot reproduce the glacier for our readers. No doubt one of these days he will make «. film representing our tour/' thither and back, with the intention of showing it to his friends. A reward will be offered to anybody who brings us convincing proof that he has stolen or destroyed the said film. That, however, is by the way. The fine weather that made our visit to the glacier a golden day continued on our way back to Ross, where, after seeing lan the, Mapourika, and Waihapu at their best, we arrived, behind our weary Rosinante, two days before Christmas. Our Yuletide was spent in Greymouth, where we saw the fine church filled with our good friends for the Midnight Mass. Then, reluctantly, on Boxing Day, with the soft rains falling, we climbed the Otira and went down once more to the monotonous plains on the hither side of wonderland. We bear with us a lasting memory of two things for which one must go to the West—the unrivalled scenery and the warm welcome that two Irish sagarts —Sinn Feiners both—met with all the way from Nelson to Waiho. A last word now: we censured the present member for Westland, and we hope the censure will be continued until bridges are built along that lovely road which a moderate expenditure would make fit for a regular motor service, advantageous to tourists like ourselves, but a hundred times more so to the farmers who are so neglected by a Government that can find thousands to squander whenever the wowser wills it ; and to that censure we add another for the Tourist Department, which does so little to encourage visitors to see the grandest and loveliest scenery in the world.

A TRIBUTE TO CONVENT MUSICAL TRAINING. ; In its comments on the recent concert given by the Christchnrch Orchestral Society, a local daily paper has this to say of the artistic ability of a young Catholic performer :-—" The young performer to whom was allotted the heroic task of soloist was Miss Agnes Lawlor, a pianist of force and temperament, with wonderful powers of both tone and execution. In the beautiful middle movement her close fingering passages were the perfection of graceful accuracy, constituting the most finished portion & of her performance, although her virile grasp of the whole concerto (Tschaikowsky's first pianoforte "Concerto") was equally admirable from the point of view of musical mentality. This girl of 21 has the material from which eminent soloists are made, and when, with further development the deeper side of her art becomes more in evidence she will add ono more to the list of executants of whom New Zealand may be justly proud." Miss Lawlor studied for eight years under the Sisters of St. Joseph, Waimate, and subsequently under Mr. A. J. Bunz, organist and choirmaster of the Catholic Cathedral, Christchurch.