Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 21 July 1921, Page 14

Current Topics

The Irish Relief Fund We remind our readers once more of the appeal for the victims of the Orange ruffians of Belfast. The appeal has so far been a failure and we see no reason for maintaining it unless a vigorous response is made by the end of July. Many people who are not too well off have given small sums. The number that sent in sums of £5, or more, is very small. By far the most generous individual contribution was that of Mr. Shiel, who contributed £SO several weeks ago. Mr. Shiel knows the Ulster bigots and can realise better than most of us how fierce their recent war on Catholic men, women, children, priests and nuns must have been. This week we acknowledge a fine donation from the South Dunedin Sisters of Mercy, who are never found wanting when anything that concerns the honor or the welfare of the children of Patrick and Brigid comes before the public. We have little doubt that the success of the League of Prayer for Ireland, which they organised recently, is reflected at present in the not unwarranted hopes of the Irish people for a satisfactory settlement of the century-long war against England. . .

The Armistice

As we previously warned our readers it is well not to be too sanguine as to the result of the conference arranged between the British Prime Minister and President de Valera. We also point out the advisability of receiving cable news with suspicion. We have already had contradictions from the Southern Unionists and from Sinn Fein regarding a false report of the terms agreed upon, and it is likely we shall have many more unreliable rumors before the end of the deliberations. What has so far happened is a victory for Ireland, and we are confident that the further victory is only a matter of time. It may be very soon, if the conference realises the hopes it has aroused ; it may be delayed a year, or two, or even ten, but it will come. It is certain that Sinn Fein will not be deceived, as Irish representatives havd* been in the past; it is also certain that, after making such huge sacrifices, the leaders will not accept a shadow for the substance: whatever they accept will certainly be immeasurably beyond anything in the nature of Home Rule ever offered, or even demanded by any other Irish party since the Union. To the question, Will Ireland accept ominion Self-Government ? the only answer we can give is that already given on several occasions by Dr. MV».«vW X and by Eamon de Valera, who said that England had never made the offer, and that it was for the Irish people to determine for themselves if the offer should be made. We would like to think that the British Government is now sincere, but as long as Ulster is used as a weapon, and as long as the undemocratic and untenable plea is put forward that a nontv of twenty per cent, has the right to rule a majority of eighty per cent, we will not believe that England has any honest intention of settling the matter. Much then depends on what Sir James Craig will say—or be told to say by his Tory over-lords—at the conference. During the next few days it may be apparent from his attitude what real chance of a permanent settlement there is. The one thing that is certain is that Greenwood and Lloyd George were beaten by Sinn Fein and that all their boasting was in ?f. r as militai T operations are concerned, Michael Collins and the Irish boys had the best of it. Durmg the war the British Government lamented the fact that Irishmen who made the finest “missile troops” in the world were not rolling up to stiffen the Tommies. Since that war we now know that they have stiffened the Tommies,Hf in a different sense from that desired by the War Office.

Another Lesson for Bigots / In New Zealand two magistrates and half a dozen. Members of Parliament gave the P.P.A, a thrashing such as was never administered from such quarters to any association in the memory of civilised man. In spite of that, such is the lack of self-respect and ordinary decency among these bigots that they still glory in being the followers of a horsewhipped cad, a calumniator of a dead nun, and even the mayor of Dunedin has the audacity to go to their meetings and pretend that a society led by such a notorious and mercenary hireling makes for the good of the people. They never learn ; honor and truth are as far above them as waltzing is above an elephant; and their only conception of religion is to deprive a poor Catholic of a job and to sing fervently “To Hell with the Pope” in honor of their friends in Ireland who are at present burning a defenceless minority out of their house and home, while the horsewhipped cad tells his admission-by-ticket-only dupes that it is only the people who are thus persecuted and plundered and* murdered by the Orangemen who are bigoted in Ireland. However,' a,. lesson now and then is good for them. So, it is a source of satisfaction to read that their brothers in Australia have also had their gruelling. We refer to the case of Sister Liguori. We know what prejudiced and bigoted reports and insinuations were sent over here by people like that British gentleman who sends from Sydney now and then tall tales to that other British gentleman who protects the forger in our local morning day-lie. We know what capital the forces of Carsonia out her© made of the case and how they assumed as they always do that they were now going to give the “Romanists” (we borrow the word from Professor Dickie and similar Twelfth-of- July vulgarians) a final upper-cut; and we can form some idea of what a loosening of purse-strings there was among weak-minded and faded spinsters such as may usually be relied upon to finance the , schemes of the Yellow Pup. Alas, the judge who tried B the case was an honest man; he was also a sensible man, as judges (if not Chief Justices) usually are. And like the New Zealand magistrates, Messrs. Bishop and Fraser, he turned the, tables on the No-Popery gang and drubbed them out of his Court. Having dwelt on the importation of sectarian feeling into the case he went on to say that whatever verdict the jury might bring in, no fair-minded man could but rejoice that the charges against the nuns were disproved. Regarding the Thompsons, who took charge of the escapee, his Honor said IT WAS VERY UNFORTUNATE FOR HER THAT SHE HAD NOT GONE TO SOMEBODY WHO POSSESSED A LITTLE COMMON HORSE SENSE. IF THEY BELIEVED THE PLAINTIFF'S STORY ABOUT ATTEMPTED MURDER THEIR OBVIOUS DUTY WAS TO INFORM THE_POLICE. THEY HOWEVER FORMED THE OPINION THAT THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT THE GIRL WAS TO SEEK THE PROTECTION OF THE ORANGE LODGE IDO NOT THINK SO. AND IF THE POLICE HAD BEEN FORMED there WOULD have been no NEED TO APPEAL TO PROTESTANT JUSTICE - OR FOR THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE MELO?wnw AT I C METHODS OP THE PICTURE SHOW. As might be expected the verdict for the Bishop was received by the crowd with loud cheering. J And thus another effort on the part of the No-Popery mob was foiled, and the chief movers in the scheme exposed as people with little commons sense and less V principle. One wonders now what sort of provision J the bigots will make for their poor dupe, a weak-minded w d kystencal girl whose greatest misfortune in ' life . was to fall into the hands of* the enlightened Orange Tiv Society of which other branches are at the present Sm moment engaged in arson and manslaughter in Bel-^ fast. Knowing what we know of their Christian ' M charity we need not be prophets to foretell that she « will yet be glad of the assistance of her . Catholic neigh'- ; * bors who pity rather than blame her. > a W lc W* -. ,

Another Welsher - In the early days of the great strike a dramatic thing happened. Two hundred M.P.’s decided that they were not going to take Lloyd George’s word concerning the points at issue. Their desire to learn the truth gave him the shock of his life, as it gave Labor an opportunity such as never came before. However, instead of a sweeping victory Labor has lost inasmuch as the defection of the rest of the Triple Alliance from the miners has been the severest blow Labor ever received. Who was responsible? Mr. Chesterton has no doubt as to the culprit and his guilt. He writes

“And then when the battle was joined, when the hour struck for which the miners had been waiting, with the finality that leaves no redress Mr. Thomas shattered the Alliance, and the weapon forged with patience was shivered in the dust.”

Of course one Welshman played into the hands of another. Thomas betrayed Labor just as David had previously betrayed every man who ever trusted him. Mr. Chesterton goes on; “Why did Mr. Thomas do this thing? We have already touched on the defence he put forward. Stamped with the agility which marks his mental processes, it has been received by the unthinking members of the middle classes with applause. Thomas, they say, is a patriot; he is the sort of Labor man we understand. In the face of the miners’ refusal to negotiate it would have been criminal to declare a strike. But the attitude of Labor generally is not enthusiastic. The workman has an infallible instinct for disloyalty. And confused as the situation is both railwaymen and transport workers alike feel that they with the miners have been betrayed. That personal motives played a large part in the decision no one who has followed Mr. Thomas’s career can doubt. He is a vain man, and the steady increase of Mr. Hodges’ influence, the superiority of his intellect and character alike must have inflamed the restless jealousy of the Welshman. But larger issues were involved. The future of Labor was at stake, and af such moments the petty ambitions of the most hardened self-seeker have been known to give way. For Mr. Thomas is an old Trade Unionist and has worked at the amalgamation of the various railway organisations. But studying his career you find again and again that he has never faced a direct issue. Like Mr. George, who hails him as a compatriot, he always juggles the facts in his favor, and like Mr. George he wants above all else to keep his job. . . . Labor has no further use for him. The House of Commons are emerging from the Upas shade of Mr. George. Let Labor follow the example and leave behind the crooked shadow that has divided their ranks.”

-There you have a clear character-sketch of the second Welsher, the man who betrayed Labor. What wonder that British Labor was false to Ireland with such a man in power! British Labor swelled the ranks of the forces in Ireland and handled the ammunition and the dum-dum bullets that killed Irish women and children. British Labor was under the thumb of Lloyd George’s compatriot, another Welshman whose sole desire was to keep his job and to advance his own interests. It will be no mean victory for Labor if Thomas is kicked out of power and , sent fleeing to David for protection and a billet. But it will be a long day before Labor recovers from the blow struck at it by this traitor. Coming back to the miners, one wonders how much the Irish question had to do with their determined 1 attitude. It may have had very little to do with it, but it is well to remember that the backbone of the Welsh miners are Irishmen.

Dangers in Education In a recent article in the London Tablet, Hilaire Belloc wrote: I had almost written that history is the most important department of all education.’ To put this without , modification would, of course, be to put it wrongly. The most important part in the teaching is Dogma: next, and inextricably connected with it,

the teaching of Morals: next, the securing of continuous Catholic daily custom. History comes, of course, after all these. Any Catholic, parent would much rather that his child grew up ignorant of history than ignorant of the Faith or of sound Morals, or of Catholic custom or habit. Nevertheless there is an aspect in which history may be called the most important of all subjects taught. And that aspect is precisely the purely scholastic aspect. “If I am sending my child to a school where he is taught positively certain things for a few hours a day, I may at a pinch guarantee his getting his religion and morals at home. But I cannot prevent his history being taught at the school, for history is regarded everywhere as part of the secular curriculum. And yet, upon what view of history he absorbs in youth depends a man's judgment of human life and of the community in which he will pass his days.” In a country like ours the evil here pointed out by Mr. Belloc is very real. In State schools history is taught from a purely anti-Catholic and anti-Irish (which is the same thing) point of view. Catholic children brought up in State schools are in truth ignorant of history, and worse than being ignorant they are taught to believe falsehoods. We need but recall Minister Parr’s atrocious letter to the school children to realise what rubbish is inflicted on the children in the name of history. But the State school children are not the only ones to suffer. As long as Catholic children, even in Catholic schools, are going in for examinations according to a curriculum prescribed by the State the evil will result for them also. The books prescribed are written by Protestants and their view is distorted. It is not history: it is the Protestant and anti-Irish fable that is given them as history. It is the English superstition; the sort of nonsense that tells us that a plundered and murdered people are enjoying liberty under the Union Jack. As Mr. Belloc says, the essentials are anti-Catholic; and by the essentials he means the selection, the tone, and the proportion observed in anti-Catholic history. As to selection, only such facts are selected as will convey an antiCatholic picture; as to tone, the use of words, and the whole atmosphere, are prejudiced as to proportion, so little space is given to Catholic events as almost to obliterate them, and undue space is given to events of the other kind. “We are surrounded,” says Mr. Belloc, “by an atmosphere of, and presented with the machinery of, anti-Catholic history, history which produces its anti-Catholic effect not so much by misstatement ■ of fact—that is rare—as by anti-Catholic selection, anti-Catholic tone, and anti-Catholic proportion.” He goes on to point out that practically all English historians, and nearly all their German cousins were anti-Catholic, and that most histories in English and German are written against the Church, and therefore against the Truth. Even in Prance, the infidel movement produced the same result; “At any rate, whatever the cause, there you have it. Every name you —Montesquieu, Mommsen, Michelet, Freeman, Stubbs, Treitschke, and a host of minor ones—tells the story of Europe and of his own country against the Church. The popular rhetorical historians do the same thing. Every line in Macaulay is anti-Catholic. The same is true of the dull and would-be-accurate

school-books. . . The great compendiums, such as the Oxford History, or the much superior Rambaud and Lavisse, are in the same boat.”

When we consider that opinion of an expert calmly, what conclusion can we come to but that if there is a single Catholic school in which both the history of the Catholic Church and the Story of Ireland are not taught, it ought to be burned down promptly?