Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 20, 24 May 1923, Page 18

Current Topics

An Official Denial Reports concerning the treatment of prisoners by Free State soldiers have been circulated abroad for some time past. Some people, among them supporters of the Free State, cabled to President Cosgrave about the matter, and on receipt of the cable, the Irish President sent the following message by cable to the New Zealand Tablet "Dublin, "New Zealand Tablet, Dunedin, N.Z. "Reports maltreatment and torture of prisoners are utterly unfounded. Do not depend on propaganda statements. No such charges have been heard of in Ireland for months past because prompt investigation of every allegation showed its falsehood and the propaganda became a boomerang. Men interned, although guilty of more bloodshed and destruction than the Black-and-Tans, are actually receiving treatment equal to that of .prisoners of war. ' People and Parliament expect confidence and good-will from Ireland's friends abroad. A letter follows. "MacCosgair, ''President of the Executive Council, Irish Free State!"

Catholic Statistics in France

In an article on the above topic in the Catholic World, Denis Gwynu, a reliable correspondent who has for some time past resided in France, presents some arresting figures. He quotes M. Avenel, an authority who commands respect, for saying that at the present time, outside the population of Paris and of AlsaceLorraine, there are thirty-four million people livingin France. Of these ten millions are practical Catholics. If this figure is startlingly small, he reminds us that it is far larger than it was before the Catholic revival began. He insists that that revival did not date from the war, as is commonly supposed, but from the beginning of the present century. He quotes an astonishing estimate made in 1847 by a well-known French priest, PAbbe Petitot, Cure of Saint Louis d’Antin, who declares that out of the thirty-two million people that then formed the whole French population, only about two millions went to confession. This pessimistic estimate was supported by another famous priest, PAbbe Bougaud, afterwards Bishop Bougaud, who declared that a certain bishop of his acquaintance had informed him that, on being appointed to his See, he inquired how many of the 400,000 people in his ’cliocese had made their Easter duties, and was told that the number was 37,000. In 1851, the celebrated Monsignor Dupauloup, in a pastoral letter, deplored the fact that of the 350,000 souls under his jurisdiction barely 45,000 went to the Sacraments at Easter. In that particular diocese, of Orleans, ■ the latest returns furnished to M. Avenel show that there are now over 100.000 instead cf 45,000 Easter communicants, and that there are fifteen times as many frequent communicants as there Avers formerly. He was informed that in Sens there are now 75,000 Communions in the year, as compared with 35,000 ten years ago, and that at Auxerre the number has increased bv 40,000 in a short time.

The Letter of Lentulus The other day seme practical joker sent to our daily papers a cable announcing that there had been found in the Vatican Library a wonderful letter giving a minute description of the appearance of Our Lord". Considering that the joker went so far as N to admit that the letter was written by one Publius Lentulus he must have had a very intimate knowledge of the culture and education of our daily editors who, as he rightly judged, could be deceived by such stuff. It is getting on for twenty years now since the Catholic Encyclopedia was published. Yet, we need only turn up its pages to find that "Publius Lentulus is a ficti-

tious person, said to have been Governor of Judea before Pontius Pilate, and to have written the following letter to the Roman Senate :

"Lentulus, the Governor of the Jerusalemites, to the Roman Senate and People, greetings! There has appeared in our time and there still lives a- man of great power, called Jesus Christ. The people call him the prophet of truth, his disciples, the Son of God; He raises the dead and heals infirmities. He is a man of medium size {statura procerus, mediocris et spectabilis); he has a venerable aspect, and his beholders can both fear and love him. His hair is of the color of the ripe hazel-nut, straight down to the ears, but flowing over the shoulders. It is parted in two on the top of the head after the manner of the Nazarenes. His brow is smooth and very cheerful, with a face without a wrinkle or a spot, embellished by a slightly ruddy complexion. His nose and mouth are faultless. His beard is abundant, of the color of his hair, not long, but divided at the chin. His aspect is simple and mature, his eyes are changeable and bright. He is terrible in his reprimands, sweet and aimable in his admonitions, cheerful without loss of gravity. He was never known to laugh, but often to weep. His stature is straight, his hands and arms beautiful to behold. His conversation is grave, infrequent and modest. He is the most beautiful among the children of men." Having thus presented our dailies with a much more complete version of the letter than the% T bought from their cable-man, we also make them a present of the information that this recent and important discovery was first printed in the Life of Christ, by Ludolph the Carthusian, at Cologne, in the year; 1474 ! hence this important and startling discover-.' has the merit of being four and a half centuries old, as_ well as being utter, and absolute nonsense. But that dees not matter to the cable-man who is able to sell his wares in New Zealand so easily. Father Maas, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, says (hat the letter is certainly apocryphal, that there was never a Governor of Jerusalem, that no Procurator of Judea was called Lentulus, that a Roman Governor would have addressed the Emperor, not the Senate and People.

Canada's Independence When we recall that the Free State Constitution was officially declared to be drafted on the model of the Canadian Constitution, the fact that Canada has asserted her right to sign a treaty independent of British interference is interesting for Irishmen in view of the light it throws en the powers of the Free State. The treaty in question was between the United States and Canada, and it concerned certain questions- connected with the fisheries. The only signatories to it were Mr. Hughes (on the part of the U.S.A. Government) and M. Lapointe for Canada. This step was hailed by important American papers as a declaration of independence. Thus, the Chicago Tribune gave it the headline: "Canada Rejects British Domination." A well-informed correspondent to the Manchester Guardian says, that it was done in the face of opposition from Downing Street. There is of course, in Canada a reactionary school of political mugwumps who put England before their own country just as our political deadlights do in New Zealand, but it is clear that their day has ended and that,nothing less than the assertion of its untrammelled independence of outside control will satisfy the Canadians. It is significant that the present head of the Government asserts boldly that Canada should not concern herself in British wars unless they had a direct interest for herself. All this emphasises the fact that the British Empire is a thing of the past. Its place has been taken by a commonwealth of free nations, and the Irish Treaty was the official passing-bell of the dependent Dominions.

Mussolini's Way The recent Italian Revolution might have meant ruin for Italy; but fortunately it was inspired and directed by a man who combined wonderful statesmanship with great courage and patriotism. We have already seen that Catholic papers praise his activities

and recognise his worth. Well-informed secular journalists bear out what we have already published concerning him. A striking corroboration is found in a letter from the Rome correspondent of the Manchester Guardian of March 23. He says: “An authoritarian Government such as that of Signor Mussolini could not fail to make itself felt in regard to some matters which Liberal Governments have generally preferred not to touch. “Although neither a Clerical nor a bigot, Mussolini made it clear from the first days of his conquest of power that the Catholic religion would in future receive very different consideration from the Government to that which it had received in the past. The crucifix was replaced, near the King’s portrait, in the school halls. Religious instruction in the elementary schools was given special attention by the Minister for Education. The name of God appears frequently in Government manifestos and proclamations. And in many public celebrations Mussolini and his Ministers prayed in public. The belief is prevalent among the lower classes that Mussolini goes to Mass every morning before commencing work.

“Break With Freemasonry. “Fascism has, moreover, officially broken with Freemasonry, an act which has won it the sympathies of the Vatican and the Catholic Partito Popolare. It is premature to state, as some papers have done, that the Roman question has thus come much nearer to a solution. Probably Signor Mussolini makes no such claim. In doing homage to the Catholic religion he shows his desire to increase the respect for moral values. In a country like Italy the lower strata of society lack all other bases of moral and political discipline. “Apart from these general tendencies, the Government has begun to take action by police ordinances against immoral literature and pictures. Immediately after the war Milan especially became a busy centre for the publication of\loos© novels, of mediocre and worse literary quality, with offensive illustrations. Certain writers secured a period of fame and profit,by playing down to the vulgar tastes of war profiteers, cocaine victims, and the cafe-concer£ public. The police have now proscribed and confiscated a great part of this literature. Some police commissioners have gone even further in their campaign ; there are towns, for example, in which Casanova’s Memoirs , Colette Willy’s Vaga-

bonds, and Maupassant’s Bel Ami are proscribed. The protests of the press have been heeded by the Government, and it may be hoped that in future the rigors of police action will fall only on morally equivocal works of no literary importance.”

The Free State Constitution

Supporters of Document No. 2 protest that the Treaty did not give Ireland everything that was her right. That is certainly true, but by the same reasoning Document No. 2 stands condemned, for it gave Ireland, in name only, more than the Treaty. De Valera’s oath differed from that of the Treaty only by a quibble, as Cardinal Logue said. Document No. 2, in spite of the claims of its friends, left the Ulster question exactly where it is, and with less hop© of future settlement. How far-reaching the much-abused Treaty was may be seen by the fact that it has had no small influence in arousing the Canadians to a sens© of the independence that is really theirs. South Africa also realises the importance for her of the explicit recognition of the national independence of the Irish Free State, and it may even happen in time that there will be found in New Zealand men and women strongenough and noble enough to imagine that they too are fit for something better than beings pawns in the hands of politicians directed from Downing Street. In the Nation t and, Athenaeum for March 31, we find the following reference to the bearings of the Irish Treaty on the affairs of the Dominions “The constitutional status of the Irish Free State

will be fertile of action and counter-action between the Dominions. A sign of this is the lively interest taken in Ireland in the circumstances of the Canadian Halibut Treaty and the evidence from Ottawa of a similar in-

terest in the Irish constitution. When the Canadian , Government overbore Sir Auckland Geddes's resistance and successfully insisted on the solitary signature of M. Lapointe, the Canadian press hailed the new Treaty as the first-fruits of a virtually independent treatymaking Power. If this is an overstatement it has still mare of the logic and facts on its side than the conservative criticism and explanation. The King appears to have unreservedly taken the advice of the Canadian Government, who sought the issue of full powers to its representatives. Meanwhile, Major Power, a Quebec member, has brought, forward a resolution inviting the House of Commons to affirm that henceforth Canada, except in case of invasion, cannot be committed to participation in war without the authority of her Parliament. The occasion of the resolution derives from Mr. Lloyd George's recent action towards Canada in the Near ' Eastern imbroglio, but the text of the resolution is the text of Article 49 of the Irish Free State Constitution. These matters are followed attentively in Ireland. The difference of opinion on the Anglo-Irish Treaty arose in part from some misconception of the extent of the implied powers flowing to Ireland from it. The difference between Document No. 2 and the authority exercised by Mr. Lapointe in the course of his day's work becomes the shadow of a shade. Add Sir Clifford Sefton's programme and it virtually disappears. Such events may smooth the way to peace in Ireland, of which steadily maintained optimistic reports deriving from the South of Ireland and from, it may be assumed, Republican sources, are still current this week. The presence of Monsignor Luzio in Ireland will add some popular credit to these rumors. The journey to Rome cf two Republican envoys of protest was apparently skilfully availed of by the Holy See to send Monsignor Luzio to Ireland on what is described as a private mission which does not exclude peace objects."

O'Higgins on de Valera's Conduct In the course of a second interview Mr. Kevin O'Higgins (whose aged father was recently assassinated by the Irregulars) threw further light on the quibbling which has marked de Valera's conduct ever since the Treaty was ratified by Dail Eireann. Dealing with the conditions which led up to the signing of the Treaty, Mr. O'Higgins said: The situation was well understood by the Cabinet of Dail Eireann and by Dail Eireann itself. Mr. de . Valera had made it perfectly clear by explaining to us in private that "it had really boiled down to a question of what we were going to sell the cow for." Now I do not want to be taken as blaming Mr. de Valera for giving up the "Republic," as he did when he spoke to us of "selling the cow," and more particularly when he drafted Document 2 (of which I spoke last week) as his ideal settlement. (I think that waa a necessity of the situation, and the only course consistent with his own interpretion of the Dail oath). I merely wish to emphasise the fact that he did quite definitely abandon the "Republic," and, consequently, has not the right to talk about it now, still less to use it as an excuse for plundering the Irish people and burning their homes.

It is true that in public Mr. d© Valera had nob been as outspoken as he was in private. In public, he had merely said “We are not Republican doctrinaires,” and “we do not negotiate to save faces.” This was the diplomatic intimation to the British that “the cow” was for sale. It follows, then, that Mr. de Valera’s quarrel with Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith was not based on the fact that “the cow” had been sold. It was a question of the price. Mr. d© Valera’s price was Document No. 2, with its oath to l recognise the King of Great Britain as Head of the Associated States” (Ireland being one of these States), and,its yearly money vote to the King personal revenue in token of that recognition. ' And Mr. de Valera, author, of Document 2, who was “not a Republican doctrinaire,” who merely took the Dail oath as “a pledge to the people to do the best he could for them,” who “would never .put, himself in

the ridiculous position of an engine running away without its train"what has he done? Under cover of-a signed Treaty he has attempted an undignified scramble back on to "the rock of the Republic," and has proceeded to savage the people he pledged himself "to do the best he could for in any circumstances." It might be a very serious matter if he should ever decide to do his worst. Goaded on by a lot of hysterical young women (who really ought to be at their five finger exercises, Or helping their mothers with the brasses) he has attempted to loose anarchy in Ireland. Unfortunately there is only one way of dealing with anarchy and that way is the way of force. If there was another way the Government and the Army Council would take it. for we are not by nature bloodthirsty. But rather than allow this nation's hopes to be shattered, rather than allow the British to return with a title deed they never had before, we will use force to the utmost, and we expect from the people, in whose name and on whose behalf we use it, understanding and support. If people are inclined to ask themselves "What is it all about?" let them remember that it all arose out of a foolish idea of Mr. de Valera's that he was justified in "wading through blood" and putting a people through the hell of civil war for the difference between the Treaty terms and Document No. 2, with its oath and its yearly money tribute to the British King.