Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 3, 18 January 1923, Page 18

Current Topics

Liam Lynch j T To Liam Lynch, who seems to have assumed de Valera's position as head of the Republicans, we have referred as a- breaker of pledges. As a correspondent wants some information on that point we submit the following explanation from The Free State-. "Owing to the attack on G.H.Q., and other posts occupied by our troops,, by. the Dail Forces, and the position created by the , draft Free State Constitution, I have again taken up duty as Chief of Staff since Thursday, June 29, with temporary Headquarters at Mallow."

(“Proclamation” signed by Mr. Liam Lynch on reaching Mallow after release by General Eoin O’Duffy, and Colonel Commandant Prout.) In view of the destruction which the Irregulars, acting under Mr. Liam Lynch, have caused in Limerick and elsewhere, it is well to examine the excuses which Mr. Lynch has given for the breaking of his parole. Two reasons are given:(l) The attack on the Four Courts; (2) the position created by the draft Free State Constitution.

As regards (1) the attack opened on the morning of Wednesday, June 28, and it was not until the evening of that day that , Mr. Lynch was arrested ,in Dublin,, being released on his repudiating the action of the Irregulars in the Four Courts, Subsequently, on his journey to Cork he was held up at C'astlecomer by Commandant Prout, and was only released on his repeating his assurance. Had he declined to give his word of honor that he would not associate himself with the Irregulars’ campaign he would, of course, have been retained in custody. As regards (2) “The position created by the draft Free State Constitution” had not, of course, undergone any change since the draft was published weeks before, prior to the elections. • « Little wonder even the better elements of the Irregulars have become demoralised under a “leader” of this type.

No Comparison George Lyons, one of the men who arose with Pearse in 1916, complains because the Liam Lynch forces compare themselves with the men who won freedom for Ireland. He says: ~ The Irregulars wish to represent themselves "as the successors of the men of 1916. The men of 1916 were organised from the cream of the Irish-Ireland movement, Sinn Fein, the Gaelic League, the G.A.A., and the 1.R.8. The Irregulars were organised from the irresponsible' elements of the community—largely trucileers. Men who had never been in any National movement in their livesthe disappointed, the discontented and the. demoralised.

Men with a grievance can do terrible things. Only men with an ideal can do noble things. The men of 1916 rose against the might of an Empire, organised on a war footing with all the traditional hate of an age-long enmity lashed to a fury by the fever of war. , The men of 1922 rose against an infant State, struggling to its feet out of the wreckage of war—turning its back upon the nightmare of violence and hungering for the blessings of Peace. The men of .1916 rose against the foreign enemy. The men of /1922 rose against their own people. The men of 1916 rose to, drive the English out. The men of 1922 ; rose to bring the English back. , The men of 1916 braved the anger of the traditional foe.: The men of 1922 imposed upon the forbearance of their own kinsmen* ' , ;: ''•; j \ The men of 1916 surrendered according to the rules

of war, in order to save the civilian population. ; The men of 1922 violated all the rules of war in order to have revenge upon the civilian population, who failed to support their policy. The men of 1916 fired upon looters. The men of 1922 engaged in the looting; In 1916 I was in command of a squad on Westland Row Railway Station. Everything was at our command. Pay offices, cash-desks, and safes. I found on© of our men collecting odd pennies from his companions in order to obtain chocolates and cigarettes from the slot machines. These men never even thought of looting a slot machine, and this was the spirit everywhere. The men of 1922 shall be remembered for ever—• for their loot.

And yet we fdar for Ireland, For she has looters still

For Rory’s men are at the Bank And Roddy’s at the Till.

What the Government Owes Catholics The P.P.A. parsons and ex-parsons made a great pother because a few Catholic teachers were carried free on the railways in order to save a large number of children from making the same journey as the teachers made. The children could have gone free and cost the country much more than it cost to give a pass to a few teachers, but with their usual aptitude for making P.P. Asses of themselves, the political supporters of Masseydoin. attacked the Government for doing a sane and sensible thing and compelled it, as they have so often done, to do an idiotic thing. What these parsons never tell their dupes is how much Catholics are saving the tax-payers by supporting their own schools rather than send their children to schools from which God is banished. Readers who are fond of an argument will do well to keep by them the following summary of information which we quote from The Catholic Federation/at for December last:

In the report on primary education presented to Parliament this session it is found that the cost of educating a child in the State primary schools is £9 16s, arrived at as follows; Divide the number of children attending State primary schools, 205,181, into the total cost of primary education, 0i1,136. ? The number of children attending Catholic primary schools is given as 4 19,647. If this number is multiplied by £9 16s the sum of £192,540 is arrived at, and this amount represents the amount which the State would be required to pay if the children were taught in State schools; or this amount represents what Catholics are saving the Government through providing their own system of Christian education.

The Catholic population is estimated at 157,064, and cost per head of the total population for primary education is £1 16s 7d. If these figures are multiplied, the result, £287,296, gives the amount which Catholics are compelled to contribute, through taxation, to the State primary system of education. If the cost per head for both the primary and secondary education, £2 6s, is taken jnto consideration, Catholics are contributing the enormous sum of £361,247 to a system from which they receive practically nothing in return. Summarised, the position is as follows: 1. Cost of State primary education £2,011,136 per annum. • • ....,/. 2. Number of children attending State nrimarv schools 205,181. *' r ■ y 3. Cost of educating a child in the State primarv schools £9 16s. - \ , - • 4. Number of children attending Catholic primarv schools 19,647. . \ J 5. The Catholics of New Zealand save the Government, on primary education alone, the sum of £192,540. . 6. The amount contributed by Catholics through taxation to State primary education £287,296 this in addition to saving the Government ' the amount mentioned in (5) £192,540. ' ' '. >:■ • •; -■ 7. The Catholic/ population of New Zealand is estimated at 15f,064. . - V 'T .v -> :

8. Cost per head of the population per annum for State, primary education £1 16s 7d. 9. Cost per head of the population for education in all its branches £2 6s. 10. The amount contributed by Catholics to the total cost of State education, including all branches £361,247. ' - 1 : '

11. If the Government allowed Catholics the sum of £9 16s per annum for each child educated in Catholic primary schools£l92,s4o—there would still be left in the Treasury of the amount contributed by Catholics the sum of £168,707. ‘ ‘

Some Scottish Statistics During the compilation of the latest census in Great Britain, the registrar-general came upon a computation of the relative numbers of Protestants and Catholics in Scotland in the year 1755, by a minister of the Kirk, one Alexander Webster, of Edinburgh. At that time -there was not a single Catholic known in Glasgow; to-day there are approximately half a million. In smaller towns and parishes, according to the ancient compiler, Catholics were practically non-existent; there were 12 in Solay Firth, 85 in Buittle, 22 in Dumfries, 118 in Maxwellton, one in Paisley, three in Dundee, and 135 in Aberdeen.

In „the Highlands the Catholics were more numerous. In the parish of Ardnaraurchan, from which they had never been expelled, there were 2300. Altogether 'there were only 16,490 Catholics in Scotland. To-day there are more than 600,000. r As the Catholics increased the Protestants decreased. Of a total population of close on 5,000,000 only half attend any church at all. Hence, one-fourth of the church-goers of Scotland to-day are Catholics. In the area of the Glasgow synod, the population increased by 87,000 in the last ten years, but the number of ‘ Protestant churches decreased by five. In Glasgow during the same period, the population went up 25,000 and the churches down by three. As regards marriages and school-children, Catholics are progressing. In 1907 there were 2555 Catholic marriages; in 1921 there were 5894. The number of Catholic school-children increased 1037 in two years; the number of Protestant school-children decreased

1812 in the same time. In Dundee, in the same two years, the Catholic school-children increased by 176, and the Protestants decreased by 873. In Edinburgh, for the same period, the Catholic increase was 175, and the Protestant decrease 1389.

However it be explained, the facts are that since the year 1755, while the total population of Scotland has multiplied six times, the Catholic population of the country has multiplied forty times. Thus, even in the home of John Knox —and we© John Dickie—those “Romanists" are gaining ground rapidly.

Some people say that after all the Catholics in Scotland are Irish. That is not by any means the whole truth. There are many Irish Catholics dn Scotland, no doubt, but the old Scots who never denied their faith still survive and multiply, and among the descendants of those who were robbed of Catholicism there are many coming to see the Truth as time goes on. Like the powerful tides that threaten to wash away his house on the sands at St. Clair, the stream of truth is washing away old prejudice and old lies in the homeland of Professor John Dickie. We do

not know what the wild waves are saying to him, but we do not want to hear what he would say to the wild waves if he knew how things are going in Bonnie Scotland.

Writing in the Dublin Review for October, Professor Phillimor© thus comments on the significance! of

this growth V : “Of all circumstances, none is more full of en-

couragement than this: the Catholic case welcomes and demands light, critical inquiry, re-trial of judgments; the Protestant position is rooted in obscurantism and the sanctity of the chose jugee .” . /i The Catholic Church waits and waits and . time is

on her side. The Newmans and the Mannings and the Bensons and the Kinsmans flower of Protestant

scholarship—are led by the light back to the old Church,

while quietly and contemptuously the people drift away from the tin tabernacles in which ranters rave ignorantly about Rome. The yelping, of the Orange puppies in a Knox Church, the violent , deeds of a Klu-Klux-Klan, the lies of P.P.A. narsons may stir up for a time the hatred of fools; but the old Church waits and waits, growing as silently as the tree in the forest all the time. There are narrow-minded persons who are troubled when storms arise against us, but in the philosophy of history we see clearly that attacks are a sign of success and that we ought to rejoice in them. In Scotland, as in ancient Rome, the blood of the martyrs becomes the seed for the harvest.

Foundations There is abundance of talk of reconstruction and we have by no means heard the last word in silliness spoken by politicians on the topic. We know by now, if we are ; not fools, how vain is the talk of what' are called statesmen and how guilty they are of making reconstruction impossible through their habit of saying much and doing nothing, or through their passion for building on wron,g foundations. , Take the case of Versailles, where a Treaty was made and never kept, nor intended to be kept. ' Its foundation was the assumption that Germany was the sole cause of the War. We all know that this assumption was-only an Entente war-lie, but the lie has remained as the foundation of the trouble which still disturbs Europe at the present time. Germany's troubles are due to that lie; France's claims are based on that lie Lloyd George's downfall was the one thing of good that may have come from that lie; America's disgust with European pledgebreakers is the worst consequence of the same lie. If we turn from the platitudes of politicians to the sane suggestions of Christian thinkers we find material on which a' new world might be built, if it were not for th,e fact that the politicians or the Jews who pull the strings do not want any real reconstruction. If something or somebody could only awaken to the manner in which they have been deceived by press and by politicians the common people there might be a beginning on a sane plan such as we find suggested' to us by an active Anglican body which drew up the following admirable summary of right Christian prin-i ciplesof reconstruction. Recognising the rottenness of society all over the world, they claim that recognition of the subjoined facts ought to be made the beginning of reform: . > (a) The all-embracing sovreignty of God, in whose Kingdom'all nations are provinces; so that every nation should regard itself, not as the final .end of its own policy but as : fulfilling its. own destiny in so far as it serves the Divine Kingdom, of which Kingdom the State must learn to regard itself as 'a minister. (b) The sanctity of personality, since every man and woman is a child of God. E (c) The obligation of fellowship, since all are members of the family of God. (d) The duty of work, since, "If a man will not work neither let him eat" is only another way of savin? "Thou shalt not steal." - 6

' . ( e ) The comparative unimportance of wealth and social position, provided that the requisites of a complete human life are secured. r (f) The supremacy of the law of, Christ over the conduct of corporate bodies no less than over that of individuals. 1

The adoption of these principles would, it is hoped, be effective “in securing a reasonable minimum in goods, conditions, leisure, and status to all workers, or fixing a reasonable maximum : to be reserved in the shape of profits; in prohibiting unscrupulous competition; in evolving the ethical basis which should regulate the administration of joint stock companies, and the like; in checking the exploitation of public need for private advantage in upholding a high-standard of hpnor and integrity in public life;- in declaring that true social health depends on the acceptance of stand ards of value , other than those of- power or. material wealth." - ;■ . -*• •-•••• V -5 ■'■t:-:- ■

,; All this means plainly that we must get back to Christian principles. .... x :; . , ,„• Jj