Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1924, Page 18

Current Topics

§ A Bigot .When Wells deals with the Catholic Church he takes leave of whatever little reasoning powers he normally posesses, Dean Inge is affected by Qie very word Catholic as a gobbling turkey is by a red —and even an Anglican v paper has to call him to order and remind him that his, profession warrants people in expecting him to be decent. A third of the same kidney is one Mr. Bertrand Russell who is a keen mathematician and a narrow-minded bigot. He surpasses even 'lnge in his fury and obeys Luther in persistently throwing mud and uttering calumnies about Catholics which make it plain that he must have concentrated so intently on mathematics that he learned nothing else—not even to be a gentleman. As some of the leading reviews give hospitality to this person it is as well to warn readers to expect from his pen much ignorance, passion, and distortions of truth. Recently, for example, he wrote in The Outlook the following passage which sufficiently illustrates Holy Writ’s warning that the man who says in his heart that there is no God is usually a fool: A man who is perpetually drunk, who kicks his wife when she is pregnant, and begets ten imbecile children, is not regarded by the Catholic Church as wicked. There is no need to express how intelligent people regard a man who writes in that strain; nor is there profit in. bothering further about, this rabid person Russell. Credo Quia Impossible These words, meaning “I believe because it is impossible,” are quoted now and then by rationalists to prove how credulous believers are. They are commonly attributed to Tertullian in a sense he never meant and in a form he never used.. In his work De Came Christi, written when he as not a Catholic but a Montanist, he says: Natus est Dei Filius non pudet quia pudendum est: et mortuus est Dei Filins — eredibile est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrectcertain est quia impossible. \ Only a free translation can make plain the meaning of the strained rhetoric of the original,' thus: The Son of, God was born— are not shocked, though, humanly speaking, we should, be: the Son of God suffered death—it is quite credible because meaningless to human intelligence: and after being buried. ■ He lose again— is certain because beyond human'power. Any person can see that the great thinker was far from asserting that he believed against the evidence of truth when he" wrote the- foregoing, from which a little bit taken from the context is used so often and so foolishly by those who. hate religion. •. • , . • The K. of C. ' , The editor of that able and fearless-Catholic journal, the Fortnightly Itcview , soundly rates the Knights of > Columbus for junketting ■ with Freemasons. It looks like a case of the wolf lying down beside the lamb. Chanty to all men is'truly cbmriiendable, but charity begins at home, .and the K. of C. are certainly not kind to themselves when they allow it to be reported in the secular press that they V are fraternising freely with a secret society condemned by , the Church and well known to be in nature and ideals •. hostile to Catholicism. Masons in English-speaking coun- , ; tries profess to be more or less harmless friendly societies. M But if so why the secrecy and the oath? Broadmindedness / can be carried to extremes,; and when a Catholic brother-

heod becomes hail-fellow-well-met with members of a society, which we are forbidden to join under pain of excommunication, it seems extreme ’beyond all doubt. Excursions beyond the limits of what the good sense of the faithful will permit are bound to be injurious to a Catholic society, and no doubt it’ is due to such practices that in some higher Catholic there has long been noticeable a coldness towards the Knights. Press Corruption in Paris The whole world resounds to the echoes of the American oil scandals just. now. Matters were even worse in England under recent governments but there was apparently nobody sufficiently clean to throw the first stone. All over the country one can hear astonishing stories of the way things were done in New Zealand during the War, and, again, there is nobody ,to clean up the mess. Now comes from L’HumaniU) the chief organ of the French Socialists, under the flaring title of. L Abominable Vcnalitc dc la Press Francaise a series of documents, alleged to be drawn from the archives of the Russian Government, demonstrating that from 1897, right up to 1917, the Imperial Russian Government controlled a substantial number of the leading Paris newspapers, dictating their attitude on foreign policy, and, of course, paying them well for the privilege. How much Parisian journalists must have made out of the shameful transaction may be gathered from a note sent by the Russian agent to Kokovetzev, the Minister for Finance: y _ For the first ten months the abominable venality of the French press will have absorbed '(over and above the advertising of the loan of 800 millions) a sum of GOO thousand francs, of which the banks have put up half. . . This payment is made to maintain the Russian prestige, and to soften the systematic attacks made on the Russian Government in general, though it cannot prevent them. On ‘March 1, 1905, he wrote again? It is necessary, according to Vernouil, that we should put great pressure on the political section of the newspapers to publish, along with the telegrams, editorial notes calculated to reassure the public about the solvency of Russia and the improbability of revolutionary success. He reckons the expense at between two and three millions for the year. It seems a lotin February, 1904, it took 1,200,000 francs. Among the papers making a good thing out of Russia are named Le Petit Parisien, Le Petit Journal, La Libert Le I'ujaro, and Le Temps. The latter undertook to publish special numbers about Russia when the mighty Empire was tottering during the War, and a contract to this effect was signed in Petersburg, in 1916, between the Imperial Minister foi hi nance and M. Rivet, Russian correspondent of the Temps. Tho corruption is still vforse because the French Government—if these documents are authentic—knew about the matter, encouraged, and, at times, directed it. Thus there is a letter, dated in 1912, in which Iswolski wrote: From my conversation with M. Poincare I feel sure that he is ready to give his co-operation in this matter, and to show us the most suitable lines along which to spread out the subsidies. e In a letter, dated February 14, 1913, he further says: In the course ®f my conversation with M. Poincare, now President .of the Republic, I was convinced that he shares, my opinion on this matter. Furthermore, M. Poincare has expressed a . wish that nothing should be done unknown to him, and that the distribute* of . the .sums should be effected in co-operation with , the i French Government, and - through M. Len»ir. y '

- If these revelations are trustworthy, a foreign Power was able, with the consent and support of the French ’Government, by the vilest methods to suborn and corrupt the greater part of the Paris press. Investors were em couraged to put their money into shaking securities, and men who told the real truth ere denounced as traitors. " Through such investments France is said to have lost the nice sum of a round thousand million pounds sterling. The Nation and Athenaeum says that the fact that the papers attacked have taken so little action against the Socialist organ seems to indicate that the documents published are authentic. Here we have yet one more proof of the corruption and venality of the daily press all over the world at the present time. Protect the Children Ever since the Reformation destroyed education, amateurs have been trying along wrong lines to rebuild, the ruins. When we consider that one of the ; leading influences directing modern educational fads is the naturalism of Rousseau, who qualified sublimely as an authority on the care of children by sending his own to a Home for waifs, we need not wonder at the extravagances which surround us. A recent exposure of the absurdity of the theories, that have their brief day, as experiments made by tinkers with the souls of children, may be had from Mr. Chesterton’s remark that when he was a child children were whipped for making mud-pies and mud-pigs, and «o forth, while at the present time a muddy piece of plasticene is forced on them and they are whipped if they do not make things with it. To-day is education a thing of whims and insanities, directed by men whom one would be reluctant to appoint as managers of a toll-gate. It is a thing ©f disorder and confusion. This year’s experiments are rejected as failures, to be followed by others equally nonsensical. All sorts of subjects are crowded on the children, and there is no depth while there is much glitter of superficial showmanship. Quite apart from the fact that modern education begins by asserting that the most important thing for children to learn— is their religionis of no importance, it is a failure from a merely material and temporal point of view. It is good that leading educationalists in many countries are beginning to See this and to denounce the nonsense. It may be hoped that in the course of ten or twenty years, Mr. Parr,' or his successor, will find out that people who know what they are talking about have thrown systems like ours in New Zealand to the scrapheap, Dr. Butler, to quote one prominent American authority, complains that the schools have fallen for too much under the influence of faddists, and he urges' a return to common sense. Nay, he even hints that it may be one day necessary to form a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children by such persons as our Mr. Parr. The simple business, as he puts it, of training young children in good habits of exercise and in good habits of conduct, of teaching them the elementary facts of the nature which surrounds them, and of giving them ability to read understandingly, to write legibly and to perform quickly and with accuracy the fundamental operations with numbers, has been rudely pushed into the background by all sorts of enterprises from lectures on the alleged evil effects of alcohol and tobacco to the sale of War Savings Stamps. . It may be necessary on© of these days to organise a society for the protection of the elementary school in order, that that indispensable institution may have an opportunity to mind its own proper business. The Gospel of Selfishness ■ V During .the War there were here Wid there a few fools who believed that' the British press and politicians who ranted of the high ide.als of the great and glorious Empire . were sincere. ' We even had the wonderful spectacle of nincompoops who believed them while they were doing in 'lreland the very things they falsely accused the Germans of doing. General Butler blamed England for being unable to fight' a clean fight, and certainly her organised campaign „

of lies and calumny during the late War justified his severe indictment. Now that the War is over, the mask has once, again been discarded and we have a prominent man like Lord Birkenhead openly preaching the gospel 1 of selfishness as the plain duty ,of Englishmen. He contended, in Glasgow, last November, that “the motive of self-interest not only is, but must be, and ought to be, the mainspring of human conduct.” What he said then he has repeated since in an essay in the December Empire Review. Thus he has made it plain that not only is he serious but that he is unable to imagine any higher standard of conduct than this justification for aH kinds of public and private violence and rapine. His gospel, preached to Englishmen, is the gospel of theft and robbery and lust— very gospel which England blamed the Prussians for putting into practice during the War. That they never did half what the British press said they did is immaterial now; Lord Birkenhead’s principles would justify them, and he would have Englishmen who are logical say with him that if the Prussians did these terrible things they were quite right. It is no wonder, then, that a. motion was brought before the League of Nations to blot out the name of this noble Lord but it is a wonder Uiat there were not enough supporters to carry the motion. After all he is but one example of the kind of godless and unprincipled politicians by whom the 'Empire is governed in outrage of'Christian ideals and feelings. Whatever of Christian wisdom was left after the Reformation has apparently been rejected by public men at the present time. Morality is no longer governed by the exalted standards of the Law of God. Even beneath the level of pagan Plat® and .Aristotle have these modern rulers and law-makers fallen; which is as much as saying that they have lost the .conception of common decency in human conduct. Birkenhead, has operfly proclainfted himself a Hedonist, going back to the sty of Epicurus for his morals and ideals, and telling the youth of England that they ought to follow him. Unselfishness is for him foolishness, and he is a frank advocate of the gospel that might" is right. Such elevating maxims of conduct as “Be ye perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” and “If any man will come after .Me, let him deny himself,” are unknown, to this leading English Imperialist, who after all only differs from most of - his class in being honest enough to proclaim the base motives which are his inspiration and guiding principles. Glittering prizes are for stout hearts and sharp swords, says this militarist. Strong nations are quite right in forcibly plundering the weak—“the indig. enous weaklings” he shouts. He knows no higher ideals than self-interest and self-aggrandisement; he is unabashed by the hypocritical speeches made during the War by himself and his companions in what Lord .Welby called “a government by crooks.” And the worst of it is that he is typically English in his philosophy. What he now says was said by the Times over and over in the pre-War past. It was said by Lord Rosebery who used to spout about the duty of stamping the mark ef ; the Anglo-Saxon on the world. It was put in practice in the days of Olive and Castlereagh, as well as those ... of Greenwood and. Lloyd George, and while it was,.the. foundation of the Empire it disgusted every decent-minded .man- in England and gained for the nation the contempt and hatred of the civilised peoples of the globe. Thus, after the War that was to end all wars, we are back once more to naked British 'Jingoism of the old, old type.