CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 158, 13 October 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

HOME RULE. The Premier of Canada lately mentioned that he could not conceive why England should not concede Home Rule to Ireland since Canada, Australia, South Alrica and New Zealand each ruled its own affairs. The extraordinary delusion that an Irishman or a Scotsman could not possibly be a good citizen of Britain if he were permitted the small favor of self-govern-ment is persistent in England. The average Englishman says ''England," whether he means England or the British Isles, and there is more than a suggestion of scorn in the notion that the Irishman in that part of "England'' in which Cork is situated is unfit for the same duties that Australians and New Zealanders of British descent are permitted to undertake. The love of the Irishman for his own land is passionate, and. if one may be permitted a Hibernianism, the more he loves Ireland the sooner he wants to get out of it. The love of a Scotsman for his native heath is also proverbial—tout he has not got Home Rule. Throughout the world the Irishmen and the Scotsmen are ruling other lands. England itself seethes with brilliant Irishmen and Scotsmen, who have a way of '-'taking hold" when absent from their homes in a very wonderful manner. It is unreasonable and unkind to hotchpotch Scots, Irishmen, Welshmen and Englishmen together under the title "English," for the people ■of these countries are as distinct in character, genius and ideal as wood is distinct from iron. The Englishman has many virtues and one of his faults is that he likes to pattern everybody according to ihis own idea. Somebody lately pointed out the value placed on distinctiveness by the various peoples in Germany, showing that nobody grudged the Hamburger calling himself a citizen of a free republic as long as he was faithful to the Fatherland, and that no person wished the Bavarian to swear he was a Prussian if it 'hurt him to do so. There are no people in the world more sensitive than the Celts, mora fightable, more lovable, and more misunderstood. The genius of the people of Ireland is given to the outside world, because it cannot develop fully in Ireland itself, which has eternal, and very real, grievances. Perhaps there is some consolation in the fact that withholding Home Rule from Ireland has frozen teas of thousands of bright brains and strong arms out of the Emerald Isle and that the colonies and the United (States have been wonderfully 'helped by the men to whom every avenue seems open onoe they are away from the "ould sod."

| CHURCH BELLS AND " NERVES." I The interesting case in Melbourne, in | \vhich citizens obtained an injunction re-' I straining a cleric .from ringing a church bell 'before a certain hour, will probably be read with amusement. It could be proved, however, thatv such an action need not be the outcome of pique or spite, but that the sound was in very truth an agony to the hearer. An insistent clamor has been known to deprive persons of their reason. But of more interest than this point is a study of the reason for the ringing of church bells. Like many other customs, it has a barbaric origin, and it dates back to a time greatly anterior to Christianity. The birthplace of the custom was China, and in the dim bygone ages any natural visitation was looked upon as'a visitation of evil spirits—a -belief the priests were very careful to nurture. If pestilence, famine, raids or internal strife visited a community all the ibells and gongs were perpetually beaten to "drive out the evil spirits." Later the utility of the bell in calling the Chinese to religious observance was recognised, and it was only a matter of time before the custom spread to the eastern world. By tradition and a certain degree of emotionalism the mere brazen clangor of a church bell is held by many persons to be a "sacred" sound, the idea being supplied by the fact that the clangor proceeds from a place of Christian worship. A similar idea is frequently held in relation to a series of words, which are held sacred if they are within the corners of a book used in edifices for worship. Thus many people may be found who would denounce the singing of a literary or musical gem on Sunday as a profanation, and who wouid gladly permit the imost unskilful hymn to be sung as a tribute to the Unseen. In the matter of church bells they seem necessary in a community that has no clocks and are really valuable as a deference to the old tradition. The traditions that the beautiful and simple and good are worth keeping intact, and it seems to follow, therefore, that although the ringing of church bells has its origin in heathenism, if the ibell is beautiful and musical—and no one objects—it should still call the faithful who have no clocks to its home.