Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 23, Issue 47, 23 November 1899, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

Boswell reports Dr. Johnson as saying : ' civis ' ' I have no more pleasure in hearing a man and the attempting wit, and failing, than in seeing a catholics of man trying to leap over a ditch, and falling new Zealand, in.' ' Civis,' who writes — or is supposed to write — the ' Passing Notes ' in each Saturday's issue ot the Otago Daily Times, 'tails in' every time with the monotonous regularity of the unsteady knight in Alice's tour through Looking-glass Land. He furnishes a melancholy example to disabuse the minds of budding journalists who fancy that native wit need not grow like the finger-tips, but may be acquired, like a knowledge of history, by study, or, like a Highland fling, by practice. Like some scores of our Catholic and non-Catholic acquaintances, we have long since given up as a weariness of spirit the perusal of • Civis's ' melancholy attempts to manufacture watery wit, and his acres of words, words, words, that cover up a puerile fancy like the endless wrappings of old newspaper which envelop an empty match-box or a bent hair-pin in the ' fishpond 'of a charity bazaar — but with this difference : that you are sometimes in luck at the ' fish pond ' and haul up a wax doll or a pocket-slate or a three-penny cigar. We do not dip in ' Civis's ' ' fish-pond ' now. Like so many others we have long since found his ( prizes ' to consist, week after week, of a monotonous and almost unbroken series of empty verbal wrappings. We peruse some of his paragraphs only when, at long intervals, our attention is specially directed to them by some leisured friend who is not particular about his reading matter. And we are on such occasions chiefly struck by the growing fatuity of * Passing Notes.' There is a demand for the light and airy treatment of current subjects in Saturday papers. If well served vp 4 such themes as the ' Passing Notes ' might be as whipped cream or freshly- opened champagne to a newspaper feast of solider matter. James Payn, ' Oriel ' of the Melbourne Argus, the ' Linkman ' in Truth, and the ' Flaneur ' of the Sydney Freeman are (or were) all readable and interesting in a bright and chirrupy way. * Civis ' is, in more senses than one, a distant imitator of them. But by comparison with them he is what a clothes-horse is to ' Carbine ' or a wash-tub to a warship. We like fooling — when it is clever fooling. There was a time when ' Civis ' could get off, once a quarter and in fine weather, what Artemus Ward would call a ' goak ' of a more or less cheerful or more or less melancholy kind. The aching intervals between were filled in with an occasional ' chestnut,' an occasional verbal transcript taken (without acknowledgment) from ' Oriel ' of the Melbourne Argus, occasional paragraphs supplied by obliging wits or would-be wits from outside Dunedin, and, for the rest — general vacuity. It probably suits some people — the guardians of the city and suburban perambulators, for instance. But ' for people that like that sort of thing, it is just the sort of thing they like.' * • • ' Civis ' is perfectly welcome to the utmost degree of dulness that he can compress into his weekly nonsense-talk. He* would receive no notice in this quarter did he not, for 1 divarshun ' or with malice prepense, throw stones occasionally through our window. His latest fling is about the election campaign, which is now in full blast. The Otago Daily Times Wf— ' Civis's * employer — is, for reasons which do not concern us, anti-Seddonite. We hold no brief for Mr. Seddon, but we may express our conviction that, even as newspapers go, the Times is not an over-scrupulous fighter. Yet there are some things that the Times or any reputable paper in the Colony, would hesitate to do, even in the full fury of an electoral campaign. One of these is, to directly and editorially raise sectarian passion and utilise it for the benefit of a political party. Such an expedient is to a political campaign what the poisoning of wells and the use of explosive bullets would be in military operations. Such methods of electioneering are left

by reputable journals to the oath-bound fanatics of the Orange lodges. But there are three well-known ways of driving a coach -and-f our through this elementary law of journalistic honour. They are as follow, and are used separately or jointly as the editorial judgment or the circumstances of the campaign may dictate: (i) The repeated publication of reprint matter — extracts, cuttings, etc. — calculated to arouse sectarian passion and direct it along the desired course. (2) Another method is to open the columns of the paper to correspondence along the proper channel. Such correspondence frequently, if not usually, originates with, and is kept up by, persons connected with the newspaper office itself. It is for the most part anonymous, and uniformly abusive and exaggerated. Replies may or may not come to hand. Effective replies, unless coming from persons of some note or position, are frequently either thrown into the waste-paper basket or published in a form so mutilated that their value is destroyed. In order to give an excuse for the prolongation of the correspondence, weak, wishy-washy • replies ' are, in case of need, concocted, frequently at the newspaper office, and published anonymously or over bogus names ; or semi-illiterate effusions, coming nominally or really from some indignant but well-meaning ' domestic help,' are selected for their sublime worthlessness and inserted as the best and only reply the ' other side ' can make. (3) The third method of raising the sectarian demon non-editorially is to utilise the services of what we may call the ' free-lance ' department, where it exists. ' Civis 'is the ' freelance 'of the Otago Daily Times. Cheap writers of this class have definite and well-recognised functions in the secular Press of our day. Ideally,, their office would be that of wits at a brilliant literary gathering. But the ideal condition is very seldom attained on provincial papers ; for wits come only a few in a century. Like true poets, they are born, not made, and they usually gravitate to the capitals. The actual function of the cheap free-lance writers referred to above is the same in principle as that of the court-fools of medieval days : (a) to tickle the crowd with quips and jokes and verbal antics (it they can) ; and (£) to yell out the political innuendoes and personalities which the canons of journalistic honour and dignity and pcudence forbid a reputable paper giving expression to editorially. Briefly, they do their newspapers' swearing and cursing and ' language* in election campaigns, and spend the rest of their time earning an honest livelihood by tickling the jawbones of yokels with an oaten straw. * * • Now, the Otago Daily Times has, within the limitations mentioned, raised the sectarian cry as part of its electoral plan of campaign. (1) It has not published reprint matter of the kind indicated, tor the simple reason that none was available. (2) It has, however, given full scope to anonymous and other correspondence denouncing the Catholics in exaggerated terms for their alleged relative numerical superiority in certain branches of the Public Service of the Colony. A perusal of those productions will serve to throw grave suspicion upon the honajides of a great part of the correspondence. (3) And now ' Civis ' has taken up the task and with his cap awry and his bells a-j ingle gets off some remarks anent Catholics and the general elections which the editorial columns would not carry. Stripped of their wrappings of redundant phrase, the following are ' Civis's ' remarks :—: — There ia another matter of practical and pressing interest upon which, were it possible, I should very much like to confess the Tablet editor.. Is it understood that throughout New Zealand Roman Catholics will vote for the Government candidates 1 . . . Does an understanding exist between certain high _ contracting parties that Roman Catholics, as far as their ecclesiastical authorities can influence them, shall be influenced to vote for Government candidates ? ... If such an understanding exists, the rest of us would like to know it. And that's where, I am afraid, we shall come short ! Bat, failing authoritative information, we shall be able, putting two and two together, to form for ourselves a pretty accurate judgment. There is just one other question : Supposing: that Roman Catholics generally are going to vote for the Government, what is the inducement ? What is the Government going to do for them in return ? These are questions upon which electors of all parties may with advantage chew the cud of reflection.

Now the office-boy could have told * Civis ' that these are questions which the Otago Daily Times could not put editorially. The second question is really the vital one. It involves an impertinent prying into the private concerns of persons who are vaguely termed the' ecclesiastical authorities' — presumably the Catholic bishops. Herein appears the usefulness, in a political newspaper office, of the modern counterpart of the rude medieval wearer of the cap and bells. The questions, however, suggest certain very evident counter-questions by way of retoit, which we have no intention of asking, but which — with their corresponding ' putting two and two together ' and forming ' a pretty accurate judgment ' of our own — will readily occur to the minds of ' Civis ' and his political friends and paymasters. But we should like to 'confess' 'Civis' just a little as to the drift and purpose of his questions. Now, ' Civis,' cannot any person who knows a hawk from a hand-saw see that ycur questions are purely rhetorical ; that they convey a charge or insinuation that the Catholic 'ecclesiastical authorities' in New Zealand have secretly struck a bargain which in the minds of you and jour party would be a rank-smelling crime to be avenged by a no-Popery shriek fiom one end of the Colony to the other ; that you have already put your two and two together and found they make twenty-two ; and that— to travesty the old anti-Jacobin song — Seddon's (to you) a dog and the Catholic episcopate an ass : the one to be kicked with hob-nailed boots, the other to be beaten with a crowbar and tortured with the unmusical ' passing notes ' of your cracked bassoon — and all in the sacred interests of party? Come, now, 'Civis ' ! We * would like to know,' you know. But, of course we don't expect (nor particularly want) a reply. And failing such reply, can we not also ' put two and two together to form for ourselves a pretty accurate judgment ' ? You see, good ' Civis,' that two at least can play at this little game. Trial by jury has often been a ' mockery, a delusion, and a snare.' But what shall we say of the new-fangled trial by interrogation which you have attempted to introduce into the howling wilderness of New Zealand politics? In the hands of any political party it would be a calamity. In the hands of political campaigners who are ready to raise and profit by the sectarian cry it would be the abomination of desolation. That is about the only difference.

We have a few more queries to put before we have done 'confessing ' • Civis.' (1) You, ' Civis,' write as if you had judicial authority to interrogate the editor of the N. Z. Tablet, to demand a satisfactory reply as by sheer ri^ht, and failing such reply, to pass sentence in form. Pray, who set you astride of this high rocking-horse and constituted you the witness-jury-and-Judge-Jeffreys of the Catholic 'ecclesiastical authorities' of New Zealand? You put on more airs than a British Lord Chief Justice. But where's your high and mighty commission? Or are you merely a tin-pot melodrama creature in paper 1 ermine sitting upon a prosaic barrel-end ? (2) Did jou really want an answer to your impertinent questions or — honestly — did you not prefer to get no reply, so that you could ' form your judgment ' and pass sentence without the distressing burden of hearing the other side? If jou wanted an answer, why did you not send us a marked copy of your queries? Or have you so quid a conceit o' yersel' as to fancy that the editor of the N. Z. Tablet habitually impairs his mental digestion by swallowing weekly doses of your flat and watery home-made gooseberry beer ? As a matter of fact we learned of your remarks through meeting — what we seldom meet nowadays — one who reads ' Passing Notes.' And he reads them just as he reads the funeral notices, not for 4 divarshun,' but merely to kill time: ' and labour dire it is and heavy woe.' Again (3) did it not occur to your ilow fancy that we might even see your questions and decline to answer them on the plea of their general impertinence and meddlesomeness, or on any other plea, or on no plea at all ? Or (4) did you not reflect that some angel or imp might suggest to us that we might elect to act on the old motto and 'answer a fool according to his folly ' ? Yet again (5) supposing we gave a perfectly satisfactory reply : would that reply be satisfactory to your Royal Highness ? And would you place it honestly and squarely and without hostile note or comment before the readers that are still left to you ? Or would you not rather pass it over and thereby leave your dwindling clientele to fancy that no answer was or could be made, and that, therefore, Mr. Seddon and the ' ecclesiastical authorities ' were up to their eye-brows in a 1 conspiracy to keep your political friends for another few years hungering and thirsting for the sweets of power and the gains of office ? Or supposing that our answer to your over-cunning — yet in one sense under-cunning — queries were, per impossibile, such as to defy the ingenuity of the quibbler and the double- microscope of the hypercritic, would you not affect to disbelieve us and regard our ' straightness ' as proof conclusive of our ' crookedness ' and insincerity ? All this is part of the political game, you know. And as you're in the game you're probably of it and not an angel floating in resplendent innocence in the ether above it. Pray, be patient, good ' Civis/ and don't take up your hat and 'move;' for we have a further question to put to you, just to make the round half-dozen. (6) Now — honour bright !

— was not, and is not, your purpose to strike out at the 1 ecclesiastical authorities ' in any case, whether the editor of the N.Z. Tablet replied to your queries or not — like the drunken husband in Joe Miller's Jest Book who vows he'll blacken his wife's eyes when he gets home if he finds her up, and that he'll likewise blacken them if he finds her abed? For, mark you, it louks very like it.

We do not expect that ' Civis ' will answer these questions. And in any case we shall not go to the trouble of adding two and two together, for we already know they make just four, and not — as 'Civis' evidently fancies — two-and-twenty. We do not blame • Civis' for not reading the N.Z. Tablet, but we might reasonably have expected him to have dipped into it if he wanted the editor's views on the elections. Had he done so he would have saved himself the trouble of putting so many minstrel-show conundrums and proclaiming to the public once more what the reasoning portion of it knew long ago : that he quite forgot to learn even the bare elements of logic when he was at school. However, if ' Civis ' persists in exposing week after week his poverty of thought and shallowness of reasoning- and weakness in matters of fact, that is his own affair — ipse viderit. But when he drops his plugged shells into this camp, he may expect a naval-gun reply that will promptly dismount his rusty and rickety old smooth-bore. That is all. And a word to the wise ought to be sufficient. For the rest, the Catholic position in New Zealand is no secret, as our readers know. There is no ' inducement ' offered to Catholics ; no pact, agreement, promise, or understanding of any kind ' between certain high contracting parties that Roman Catholics, as far as their ecclesiastical authorities can influence them, shall be influenced to vote for the Government.' We notice ' Civis's ' ready insinuation to the contrary as an evidence of what the hack branch of journalism is prepared to descend to in order to arouse a cry or a suspicion against the Catholic body for the benefit of a political party. We can speak on this matter with all the greater openness because we are not, like ' Civis,' neck-chained to the verandah-post of any political party and fed to bark and bite for them. But we foresee, none the less, that, whatever the final result, some of the tactics of the Otago Daily Times will throw many a vote into the balance for Mr. Seddon, and that ' Civis,' with his clumsy innuendos, could do no worse service to any cause than to be its advocate. ' Civis ' ought to be happy now. He expected nothing from us, and we have given him much and made no charge, (i) We have categorically answered his questions. This ought to improve his mind, by adding to it a valuable stock of much-needed information. (2) We have read him a little homily on the perversity of certain methods of electioneering. This ought to improve his political conscience — we suppose him to have one. (3) We have pointed out the cool impertinence of his questions and manner of questioning. This ought to improve his manners. (4) We have, moreover, treated him to a perfectly candid, if not particularly refreshing, bit of literary criticism. This ought to improve his ' Passing Notes.' But we have not the slightest hope that it will. His ' notes ' are not 'passing' but passees : cracked and damaged beyond repair — like those of the ringledy-jingledy old piano ,n the Wanganui museum. Alas, poor Yorick !

The following cable message appeared in the Vatican last Friday's papers :—: — and the The Ossrirvatore Romano, hitherto the official boer wab. organ of the Vatican, has now declared itself an unofficial journal except in regard to the announcement of matters of fact. The paper adds that the Vatican haa decided to remain neutral with reference to the Transvaal. In this connection we may mention a peculiarly discreditable attempt made by the London Times to cast odium upon the Vatican in connection with the Boer campaign. Some lunatic at large wrote a letter to the Osservatore, which contained the following foolish calculation as to the results of the Boer campaign :— Patience and clemency have been carried too far. Catholics must now trust in the God of armies. The Freemasons are terrified at the po-sibility of war between England and the Transvaal. But Eoglaud cannot give way without covering herself with ridicule. Can it be that this war is providential ? Will Protestantism be exhausted by it ? Has the period of the great transformation of the world begun when the Church will accomplish a new conversion of the Gentiles ? Let us have courage, determination, and faith in God, who is now and ever the God of armies. This was in a ' letter to the editor ' and published as such. But it was enough for the son of Ananias who represents the Times at Rome. He forthwith wired the whole extract to his journal as the editorial opinion of the Osservatore and, incidentally, of the Vatican, upon the Transvaal campaign ! The Times knows how to select its agents. It is keeping alive the traditions which flung so evil a notoriety about its persistent support of the forger Pigott long after the rest of the world had recognised him to be a vulgar criminal of the deepest dye.

The American troops have learned a few lessons lessons in the Philippines, but they are not prom the just the lessons that the jingo pulpits and Philippines, newspaper offices anticipated. One lesson is this, that the conquest of the Philippines is about the knottiest problem Uncle Sam ever set his brain and hands to solve. In fact, he is heartily sick of the whole affair. Another is, a wholesome respect for the Spaniard, wh N o succeeded, by peaceable means — and chiefly by aid of the Catholic clergy — in turning those beautiful eastern islands into centres of Christianity and civilisation. The third lesson i^ one of respect for the dusky-skinned Filipino : a respect extorted from his invaders after they had seen the white of his eye look coldly some hundreds of times upon them along the levelled barrel of a well-aimed rifle. And last, but not lea^t, the American Protestant pulpit is beginning to realise that the Filipinos are not pining for 'an open Bible ' and for amalgamation with any of the thousand warring Christian sects of the United States, but are satisfied to hold fast by the one true Fold of which the vast bulk of the population of the islands has for so long been devoted adherents. So much is told by the Rev. Peter McQueen, a Protestant clergyman now in the Philippines, in an interesting review of the religious situation in the islands published in a recent issue of the Congregationalist. In the course of an interview, General Otis said to him :—: — In regard to the establishment of Protestant missions in these islands at the present time, they will have a hard and stony time. The Filipinos are all earnest Catholics, and any attempt at proselytising them would stir up their anger against America, whom they accuse of trying to take away their religion as well as their liberty. The Rev. Mr. McQueen expresses his own opinion in the following fair, set terms :—: — I believe the masses in the Philippines are more intelligent and progressive than we thought they were, and I assure you that, while I have great hope of Protestant missions here in the future, yet I think, as General Otis does, that they will have hard, stony ground. Ido hope that the whole Protestant Church in America will aid them instead of starting rival sects and competing missions, which will only tend to emphasise the unhappy differences that exist among sectarians and which would certainly lead to complications among the natives. The heathen in his blindness cannot possibly understand why there should be so many different kinds of Protestants, and a series of theological discussions would certainly not conduce to his forsaking his idols.

Mr. McQueen had also an interview with General Lawton. It gives a pleasant insight into the bravery and intelligence of the native population that was reclaimed from barbarism through the beneficent action of the Catholic missionaries, who established schools so successfully throughout their missions that, even at a time when the education of the masses was sorely neglected in Europe and America, nearly every Filipino could read and write. General Lawton spoke as follows of the Filipinos :—: — Taking everything into consideration, the few facilities they have, the many drawbacks, they are a very ingenious and artistic race. And, taking into account the disadvantages they have to fight against in arms, equipment, and military discipline, without artillery, short of ammunition, powder inferior, shells reloaded until they are defective, inferior in every particular of equipment and supplies, they are the bravest men I have ever seen. The Filipinos are not military by nature. They are rather domestic in tastes and habits, peace loving and industrious. Nine-tenths of the people of the island will strongly favour peace, even at the expense of some of their theories, wishes, and hopes. I believe that with a liberal government, such as the United States can and will establish, they will be a peaceable, thrifty, happy people. I believe that it was a great misfortune that we were not able to give them a chance to sample our government before hostilities opened. The only thing we have to fear is from ambitious youths, who want to obtain control for financial reasons, that they may practice what the Spanish have taught them. Among the Filipinos there are many cultured people who would ornament society anywhere in the world — ladies who have studied and travelled, men who have a good educatian and a fine brain. Take them as a class, there can as many of them read and write as the inhabitants in many places in America. As for their treachery, you would not have to come so far as this to find that. There is plenty of it in North America. All nations are treacherous more or less. Some oen and nations have treachery trained out of them more than others What we gm tis to stop this accursed war. It is time for diplomacy, time H mutual understandings. These men are indomitable. At Tfacoor Bridge they waited till the Americans bronght their cannon to within 35 yards of their trenches. Such men have the right to be heard. All they want is a little justice. I established a civil government at Belinag, with the government entirely in the hands of the natives. It worked to perfection. All these people need for self-government is the protection of our troops till affairs have quieted, and then they will, I have no doubt, advance as rapidly as the Japanese, perhaps more rapidly. lam very well impressed with the Filipinos.

If thou canst not make thyself as good and as clever as thou wouldst, how canst thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking ? Bear then with thy enemies and friends.