Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 10, 8 March 1923, Page 18

Current Topics

Pious Orangemen Ex Africa semper aliquid novil The latest news from Orange Ulster is tidings of a "religious revival." That is what they call it, and it looks on the face of it dangerous, when we consider that the religion of the Orangeman has always been to kill another man for the love of God. Logically, a religious revival there ought to mean an orgy of murder, but it is fortunate that in this instance the cableman is wrong in calling it a revival at all. It seems truer that some faint notion of religion has at last penetrated through some wounds in the hide of the Orangemen and that they are so astonished to find that there is such a thing as religion that they do not know where they are at present. They have limited the number of times they curse the Pope ; they even give back some of the things they have stolen; assassins have been known to force the Ulster police to take charge of their weapons ; and more nasal fervor is put into the singing of hymns in honor of King Billy the German.

Will it Spread? Anything that curbs the murderous nature of the Orangeman is to be desired, consequently we are pleased to read the cables that tell of the revival, even though there be only a very slight spark of truth in them. We would be still more pleased to learn that the change of heart was taken up by all the Orange Lodges in a serious manner, and that there is a hope of its spreading to all the distant lands where Orange oaths are heard by the full o' the moon in lonely Lodges. What a delightful final chapter in his great career it would be if Mr. Massey also "revived" ! Even if his political life lasts as long as his energy there cannot be many years left now. Let us hope that he will imitate the Orange brethren of Limavaddy and take the "matter to 'heart. There are magnificent possibilities in it for him. Think of him coming to Parliament in sack-cloth and ashes, scourging himself, and recanting his sins against New Zealand and his dealings with the scoundrels of the P.P. A. Better still, he can take to the hills and live in a cave, supporting life on blackberries and fresh air, learning from the "lark to sing vespers and matins, and reading sermons in stones and running brooks._ It were a far, far nobler gesture than that which it is reported he made one day on the streets of Wellington. And—from all points of view—his retirement would be a far, far better thing than any he had done before. Go to it, William ! Take our advice and repent, and you will not repent for taking it.

Demoralisation The following extract from the Dublin Leader is sad reading: There is a disinclination for work and an overinclination for play. Dancing—and not the Irish variety—is the rage. The country has gone dancing mad, and by all accounts drinking was never such an evil; we are probably more anglicised to-day than we were in, to go back no further, 1914. Twenty years ago if a man was killed Ireland would lift up its hands in horror; visitors to Dublin were shown the scene of the Phoenix Park tragedies. To-day we all take reports of shootings as ordinary occurrences and we in Dublin daily pass scenes where tragedies were enacted and never revert to them. There has been unfortunately a great change during the past few years in that respect. We need a spell of hard thinking. There has been so much quibbling and sophistry going on", that many people appear to have given up serious thinking—not that there was or ever will be very much of it in the country. But now is the time that people capable of hard thinking should cultivate thinking. \

The Saorstat na h Eireann The following are the Ministers, and Officers of the Free State: President of Government, W. T. Cosgrave; Minister of Finance, W. T. Cosgrave; Minister of Home Affairs, Kevin O'Higgins; Minister of Local Government, Ernest Blythe; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Desmond Fitzgerald; Minister of Defence, General Mulcahy; Minister of Education, Dr. Eoin MacNNeil;l l; Minister of Industry and Commerce, Joseph McGrath; Minister of Agriculture, P. J. Hogan; Ministers without Portfolios, Eamon Duggan, Finian Lynch; Law Officer, Hugh Kennedy; Postmaster-General, J. J. Walsh; Chief State Solicitor, M. A. Corrigan ; Stationery Office, E. 11. Pitman (Controller); Secretary to Government,. Dermot O'Hegarty ; Civic Guard, Gen. E. O'Duffy (Commissioner); C.1.D., P. M. Moynihan (Director); D.M.P., Lieut.-Col. Johnson (Chief Commissioner), Denis Barrett (Assistant Commissioner) ; General Registrar's Office, Sir W. J. Thompson, M.D., F.R C P I (Reg. Gen.); D.S. Doyle, LL.B. (N.U.1.) Sec. ami Asst. Reg.-Gen. Department of Agriculture, T. P. Gill (Sec), George Fletcher Asst. Sec), J. R." Campbell (Asst. Sec). Chief Vet. Inspector, D. S. Prentice, M.R.C.V.S.; Commissioner of Public Works, Sir P. H. Hanson (Chairman) ; Commission of Irish Lights, J. B. Phelps (Sec). National Health Insurance, Sir Jos. A. Glynn (Chairman), W. J. Maguide (Medical Corn.), Mrs. M. L. Dickie. Congested Districts Board, 11. R. Vereker (Chief Land Ins.), F. S. Sheridan FS 0 B.L. (Sec). ' Presbyterian Comment on State Schools The severest indictment ever made of Australian State* Schools appears in the current issue of the Presbyterian (Melbourne), in a report of the Victorian Presbyterian Assembly. From the report it appears that the committee has definitely concluded that the criminal class obtains its recruits direct from the ranks of the children who are attending the State schools. "There can be no doubt," the report states, "that among children attending school criminal acts or acts indicating criminal tendencies and dispositions are of far more frequent occurrence than is generally realised. Theft, untruthfulness, truancy, coarseness, and even immoral conduct, are offences which are surprisingly common. . . It is no exaggeration to say that a definite percentage of our school children, under our present system, will inevitably enter upon a career of crime or immorality, while others will" join the ranks of loafers and incapables." A system of controlling and correcting wrong tendencies in children until they are of a mature age, and even longer when necessary, is advocated by the committee. The State should receive the active support of the Church in a movement of this sort, it is added, and no time should be lost in the establishment of a special institution on the lines of one already in existence in America." After that, Archbishop Vaughan's famous propliecv may be considered, at any rate by Presbyterians, to be fulfilled.

From one Judge All Our Prime Ministers who led us into the war, and who, after the war, led us into chaos and confusion, are faring rather badly at the present time. They can console themselves that they are faring far better than they deserve. As far as one can see there is little to choose between them. Massey, Hughes, George, follow in a chain like the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of adjectives. Naturally the superlative schemer gets what is due to him, with more limelight on the scene. And the light is growing more lurid as time goes on. ‘ Here is the most recent note on the doings of David of Wales, son-in-law of McAlpine, friend of Mond, and sometime hero of the Marconi scandal: not to mention several other titles to the love of decent people on which we need not dwell. The Nation and Athenaeum says:

The revelations in the Daily Express make a terrible close to the story of Mr. Lloyd George’s responsibilities for the Greek tragedy. Even his sharpest

critics could hardly have been prepared for such a disclosure of recklessness. On Saturday, September 2, when the Greek army was on the point of collapse, and the Turks were sweeping down to Smyrna, the Greek Government besought the British Government to help them to conclude an armistice. The Greeks were ready to evacuate Asia Minor. To this cry of distress Mr. Lloyd George sent the following answer: “We are prepared to support the Greek Government if it thinks it absolutely necessary to apply for an armistice, but, in the Prime Minister’s opinion, the Greek Government should be very careful to avoid the mistake made by the Germans in November, 1918 namely, concluding an armistice on abject terms in a moment of panic. The best thing they can do is to hold up the Turkish army outside Smyrna; if they do that they can negotiate on much better terms regarding evacuation and everything else. If they really cannot stop the Turks, which is unbelievable, we shall support an application for an armistice.” This answer was given to Col. Mayes to take to the Greek Legation by Mr. Sylvester, one of Mr.' Lloyd George’s secretaries. Thus to the very last hour the Prime Minister of England was inciting this unhappy nation to make one last and desperate throw. The Greeks, whom he deluded, brought on themselves an appalling catastrophe, and on all Europe a great danger. It says a great deal for the moral effects of the war that a man who partly tempted and partly pushed this little people to its fate remained in power through the disasters which overtook his policy. His victims went to a shameful death; Greece was ruined; Smyrna burned ; and to-day the bones of thousands of men, women, and children litter the mountains and valleys of Asia Minor. But Mr. Lloyd George continues a prosperous gentleman. If the Opposition does its duty it will insist on the production of the documents through which this tragedy was accomplished.

"Be British" Unless representative government lias become a farce in the great and glorious Empire, we ought to find our best and noblest men at the head of affairs. Thus, as in New Zealand, our chief citizen is the cultured, scholarly, patriotic, broad-minded, unbigoted statesman, William Massey, member of the Orange secret society, rightly condemned by British Governments, so too in England until the other day one David Lloyd George, a sterling patriot who was challenged to say how much he got for putting another sterling patriot named Mond into the Cabinet during the war, stood at the top of the pole, socially, politically, and in other ways too. Close beside Mr. Lloyd George, in his elevated position, stood one Winston Churchill, a pure-, souled patriot too, and a descendant of the valiant and incorruptible Duke of Marlborough, who was always ready to sell his sword to the highest bidder. Apropos of the nobleman Churchill, we read in a cable, dated from London on February 19,.that in connection with the serial publication of Mr. Winston Churchill's forthcoming book, Sir F. G. Banbury inquired in the House of Commons whether the ex-Minister's revelations of Cabinet deliberations were not a breach of the Privy Council oath. Mr. Bonar Law replied : "Taken on the whole, I should consider the revelations as such a breach." Then Colonel Murray asked whether, if exMinisters are allowed to make money out of publishing confidential information, the same privilege would not be extended to ex-Civil servants. There, in a nutshell, is a picture of the right honorableness of one noble British gentleman. Now for another of them. From the Nation and Athenaeum we take the following extract:

It is interesting to hear from the Times that the story • of Mr. Lloyd George’s adventure in American journalism has been embodied, by an unanimous vote, of the Senate, in the Congressional Record. We do not know what fitting repository will be found for it here, unless the Cenotaph will do, but as it seems to make for the edification of journalists, if not of statesmen, we append the following summary: 1. While still Prim© Minister Mr. George sells for

£40,000 to a highly respectable American newspaper syndicate a book of war memoirs, to be completed within two years, the proceeds of which (after protest, public and other, against the diversion to profit) are to be devoted to charity. 2. Immediately on retiring from office he negotiates with a less distinguished syndicate, including the notorious Hearst papers, a series of articles on political subjects for £7500, to be written within a period overlapping that assigned to the memoirs. r , 3. The New York Times, and later on the Chicago Tribune, two of the best-known newspapers in America, learning this plan, protest energetically, with a special eye on advertisements appearing in the States the articles to be “much more valuable than the memoirs." They finally ask for an injunction restraining publication, and alternatively demanding that the contract be cancelled. A London friend then intervenes, and begs Mr. George not to close with the Hearst syndicate, suggesting that he should offer the articles to the hew York Times for £BSOO or £9000; £ISOO more than the original guarantee. Mr. George consents not to close at once with the Hearst syndicate. .4. The New York Times refuse the transaction indignantly, saying that if they took the new series and offered it to the newspapers that had bought the memoirs “we might be justly regarded as having defrauded them,” and that it would be worse still to offer them (as had been suggested) to a new clientele. 5. Finally, Mr. George offers to cancel the New York Times’s contract, and the offer is accepted. > '

The Fear of Germany

A godless, unjust, revengeful Treaty, following on a gross breach of faith on the part of the Entente, enabled the Allied Powers to rob and ruin Germany. Now, in spit© of what they did to murder her, they are in terror of their lives jest she shall come back and demand an eye for an eye. Their terror is all the greater because there is a rumor that with Germany, arrayed against them for vengeance, will be the Russian people whose treatment by the Entente, and particularly by the British Empire, was one of the most disgraceful pages in history. Can Germany come back, is the question in European capitals to-day. Has Germany arras of which we know nothing, is another which is causing sleepless nights to some of the murderers of the German women and children. The London Daily Mail claims that Germany is coming back, and already arming for a war of revenge, and that there already exists a secret agreement between Germany and Russia. The same paper says that if America and England hold aloof in the next war, Germany will be free to attack France, . but. it overlooks the fact that both Germany and Russia will have old scores to settle which may not allow to England an opportunity of remaining aloof. It is very likely that if war comes England will be deep in it, and that she will pay a heavy price for the scheming of Lloyd George and William* Massey and the rest of the men who, at Versailles, sowed dragons teeth in Europe. - It is asserted that Russia can feed both herself and Germany, and thus escape the terrors of a naval blockade. Mussolini, who has recently been studying affairs for himself in Germany, has grave fears for Italy particularly since there is a possibility that Turkey may side with Germany and Russia. Italy, as w© know, has not altogether a clear conscience on the matter of her coming into the Great War. France is in the greatest terror, and all her actions seem Inspired by panic. In Chicago not long ago Clemenceau said:

“Almost every day in Germany we find guns of every description. The Germans have been getting this large amount of armament. Don’t you think it is for the purpose of destroying us ? As you know, Germany has made a treaty with Russia. The. German officers are -well equipped to drill the inexperienced Russian soldiers, and there is an arrangement with the Krupp manufacturers to transfer their activities from Germany to Russia for the making of armaments. All the military organisations of Germany still exist, every one of them, and are we not right in fearing aggression?"

Fear well founded inspired that plead for help. France has done a great deal to make the world’s peace abortive, and her grasping and vengeful tactics have embittered the whole German people ever since the day when negro troops were quartered on a white . population in Catholic Rhineland. In America opinions are divided. Those who want to keep out of European turmoil say that Clemenceau is talking through terror and that he cuts no ice. Others say that he is right, and that he has serious grounds for being in terror of Germany. Thus, the New York Tribune says that Germany “is steadily arming and calling on Russia with the idea of recovering the territory taken from her. She is further away from ruin than at any time since the armistice and she is more a menace to Europe than at any time since the Allies imposed peace on her. For behind the published commercial agreement with Russia there is manifestly a far-reaching secret agreement.” Certainly when Germany agreed to an armistice her armies were intact. Her surrender was due to internal trouble rather than to military defeat. It was also due to the fact that reasonable terms were guaranteed her by the Allies. It is a very important fact now that the Allies broke their solemn pledges once they got hold of Germany, and that they imposed new terms which they enforced by a most inhuman blockade in which thousands of German women and children died. That treachery and that inhumanity are likely to count for much if Germany again arises against her foes, and one has but to put oneself in the place of a German whose wife and children have been starved to death by England and France in order to imagine what his sentiments towards these countries will be‘on the day when he finds himself powerful enough to fight them. All this menace is the result of the Versailles jobbery after the people had won the war. What the soldiers won, Messrs. Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and even small fry like Mr. Massey deliberately undid. They are the enemies of the people.