The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1900. SOME TORUS OF COSMOPOLITANISM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9, 1 March 1900, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1900. SOME TORUS OF COSMOPOLITANISM.

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T ih <i fai 1 cry back to the clays in 17.") ii when the the British public first curiously fingered the l<ja\es of Golds.mitu's Citizen of the World. The title and the thiiuj 1 were neither new. For if llluodotus tells us truly, the great Greek philosopher SociiA'ii.s had ages before styled himself a ' citizen of the world ' — and that, too, in the midst of a people on whom the idea of

cosmopolitan ism had at the time never dawned. This was four long centuries before the Christian era. Soceates' idea fell on barren ground. At a later date Akistotle, another great leader of Attic thought, maintained, says Lf/'KY, ' that <J reeks had no more duties to barbarians [<>„ to non-Greeks] than to wild heists ; and another philosopher was believed to have evinced an almost excessive range of sympathy when he declared that his affections extended beyond hU own State, and included the whole people of Greece.' The cosmopolitan idea first really soaked into and influenced the political mind during the stirring times when Alkxandkii made all Greece tingle to its farthest corner with the sense of the presence of a masterspirit — of a sort of secular Messiah who, emerging from the wilds of Macedonia, eclipsed the ancient glories of Athens, and Sparta, filled the heated imagination of the Greeks with golden visions of a world- wide empire, and, in the words of Lkcky, 'accorded to conquered nations the privileges of

conquerors, and created in Alexandria a great centre both of commercial intercourse and of philosophical eclecticism. The fact and sense of conquest, but over a much wider field and for an indefinitely longer period, contributed to broaden the sympathies of the Romans towards people of every race and tongue. Even after their conqusst of Greece, while they dominated their new territory in politics, the latter held the ascendancy over their conquerors in the intellectual sphere, and the influx of Grecian philosophers, Grecian artists, architects, and dmrmlisK turned the liome of 4 high society ' for a lengthened period into a spurious and somewhat vulgar replica of the Athens of the Lime. But it was Christianity, and Christianity alone, that really and finally broke down the barriers between race and race. And it did so not by virtue of any principle of social or political expediency, but by the inculcation of a doctrine hitherto undreamed of in the philosophy of heathendom — the Fatherhood of God and (in Him and through Him) the Brotherhood of Man. In His eyes, said St. Paul, ' there is no distinction of the Jew and the Greek ' (Ro)n., x., 12) ; and again: ' There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female ; for you are all one in Christ Jesus ' (Gal. iii., 2H).

The cosmopolitanism of Christianity is divine in its origin and motive. It has by no means displaced, but it has overshadowed and guided the weak imitation of itself that still finds its sole and all-sufficient motive in political expediency and in the shadowy ' religion of humanity.' Its best practical application and test will, perhaps, be found in the missionary spirit that characterises all periods of religious fervour. Thus, in the far-off centuries, Ireland gave Columba to her kin beyond the North Channel, St. Gall to Switzerland, St. Columbanus to Italy. Wales gave Ninian to the Picts. St. Boniface, called ' the Apostle of Germany,' was an Englishman. So were his associates Willibald and Willibrord. St. Augustine, surnamed ' the Apostle of the Anglo-Saxons,' and his companions were Gauls and Italians, and were Pope Gregory's precious gift to the English people. And so on, over all the wide area covered by missionary enterprise and charitable zeal down to our own day we rind the true Brotherhood of Man — that which is intimately bound up with the Fatherhood of God — receiving everywhere at Catholic hands a glorious practical application such sis w.is never dreamed of in the shallow creed of mere philantl ropy or in the tangled 4 moral teachings ' (if such they can be called) of ' the religion of humanity.' Even the most civilised paganism of the olden time — that of Greece and Rome — set up a wall against the exercise of fraternal charity beyond the limits of the State. The normal fate of prisoners of war among the barbarians of those times was death. Among the civilised Greeks and Romans it was usually worse than a swift and rushing death following fast on capture : it was slavery ; it was strangulation in the Mamertine, during or after the brief glories of the victor's triumphal march ; or it was death in the gladiatorial arena, where thousands of wretched captives were, after every campaign, ' butchered to make a Roman holiday.' But Christianity knew neither bound nor bar to its charity. It recognised no ' colourline,' no distinction oft bond or free, of enemy or friend. It proclaimed, so to speak, free trade in well-doing — from the days of St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles to those of Lal Casas the Apostle of the Indians and of St. Francis Xavier the Apostle of the Indies and of Father Damien the Apostle of the Lepers.

In certain quarters we hear much flowing talk — including a deal of sounding nonsense — about the solidarity of the race. AVhatever there is of folly in it all is their own. All that is solid and true in it — and not mere hollow-sounding brass — is as old as the days of the parable of the Good Samaritan. But it is none of your out-of-date old things, like a stone quern — fit for use only in unpleasantly primitive states of society or in places that are k remote, unfriended, solitary, slow'; or like a fifteenth century borabard, too ancient and rust-eaten and dangerous for use in our time and fit only for exhibition as a curiosity in a museum of antiquities. No. The Christian principles on this matter have been quietly and without pause leavening the life and thought of the nations to this very hour. At an early period in Christian history it succeeded, as Lecky

points out, in putting a stop to the gladiatorial shows, in partially abolishing slavery, and in diminishing to an altogether remarkable extent the atrocities of war. Long before Grotius wrote Ins famous treatise on international law (de Jure Belli et Pads), the rules of war, as binding on Christians, had been clearly stated, and, in a sense, codified by the Spanish theologians, Suarez and Ayala. It is, in fact, owing to the long and steady operations of the principle of Christian Brotherhood that the present relatively - satisfactory condition of international law has become^ possible. Much of the old mutual suspicion and hate between nation and nation arc dying away, and the growing cosmopolitanism of the age shows itself in many a various form. Not the least curious is what may be called that free-trade in talent which makes genius the possession of the race rather than of any particular nation, and readily welcomes the man of great mental acquirements, no matter what the colour of his skin or to what clime he may owe his birth.

There is nothing new in all this. Only the movement is, owing to a variety of causes which it is not necessary to specify, more marked now than in the olden days. The great Englishman Alcuin occupied, eleven centuries ago, a high and honoured position in the court of Charlemagne. An Irishman, Johannes Soot us, filled a like honoured place at the court of Charles the Bald some 40 years later. Lanfranc, the great, scholarly, and fearless Archbishop of Canterbury, was an Italian. So, likewise, was Cardinal Mazarin, the famour chief minister of France during the minority of Louis XIV. His proper name was Giulio Mazarini. The first Napoleon was a Corsican, and by the merest chance had his fortunes permanently linked with the French, instead of the English, army. Gambetta was an Italian. M. Waddington, the French statesman and ambassador at St. James's, is an Englishman. So is Rajah Brooke, of Sarawak. The Italian admiral, Acton, is of English descent. Sir Robert Hart, disector of the Chinese Customs, is an Irishman. So is Sir Halliday Macartney, Chinese ambassador in London. Marshal MacMahon was of Irish descent. So are the Lallys, the Taafes, the De Lacys, and the Nugents of Austria, and the O'Donnells of Spain. The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army is General O'Bhuts( heft (a Russianised version of the Irihb cognomen, O'Brien). Marconi, the wizard of wireless telegraphy, was a grand-nephew of the enterprising Italian, Charles Biaxcoxi, of Irish mail-carrying fame. His mother is a Power of Gurteen. It is, perhaps, but natural that a world-wide empire like that of Great Britain should, after t l e manner of Imperial Rome, attract to its centre from all the winds of heaven, men of talent to add a new lustre to its art, its literature, its statesmanship, and its military policy. In this case, at least, the expected has come to pass. The c is, perhaps, no old-world country in which aliens, or the near descendants of aliens, or those who, though born subjects, are not ' sons of the soil ' enter so closely into the life of the nation as in Great Britain. To select a few prominent examples : The financier, Mr. Goschen, is the son of German parents. The Rothschilds the Goldsmids and others among the kings of finance are also Germans or of recent German descent. Lord Reay, who was appointed Secretary of State to India in 1894, was 'born in Holland in 1839, and became a naturalised British subject only some 22 years ago. Sir Francis H. Jeune is of French descent, and another distinguished English lawyer, Sir John Day — one of the judges on the Parnell Inquiry — was born at the Hague, and claims a long line of Dutch ancestry.

Turning from politics and finance and law to the lighter arts of life, we find a wide field occupied by persons of alien birth or blood. Of the ' British ' writers that are more or less prominently in the public eye, we find that Henry James is an American — an old Harvard man. William L. Alden, the novelist, is also American by birth and training. Max O'Rell (Paul Blouet) is a fullblood Breton. Swinburne claims a mingled French and Scandinavian ancestry. So, in his day, did Lord Tennyson. Richard Le Gallienne's blood is 'mostly French,' and his family were from Guernsey. The gifted Kosetti family uere Italy's gift to England. Marie Corelli is half Celt, half Italian. M. De Blowitz, the

noted Paris correspondent of the Times, is an Austrian. Israel Zangwill, the Jewish writer, is German by immediate descent, though probably not by birth. Coventry Patmore also claimed German blood. And Robert Browning is described as ' a strange admixture of English, Scotch, German, Dutch, and Creole ' — a sort of human J^ramhambuli or salmagundi. Among the honoured bead--roll of strangers that have added a lustre to British art, Mr. Alaia-Tadejia is a Hollander by birth and education : Mr. Briton Riviere is of French extraction ; Mr. AVhistler is American by birth and training ; so, too. is Mr. Abrey, R.A. Of the famous living singers that have made England their temporary or permanent home, Madame Albani is a French-Canadian : Madame Melba an Australian : Christina Nilsson (Countess de Miranda) is a Swede ; and Adelina Patti is of Italian extraction, but was born in Madrid. Of the men who have added a lustre to British science, Siemens, the srreat metallurgist and electrician, was born and educated in Germany. To the Fatherland also the Right Hon. Friedrich Max-Muller, the famous Oxford philologist, owes his birth and education.

Both sacred and profane history give us instances of the scions of conquered races or nations being entrusted with the reins of Government of their conquerors. But the instances are rare indeed. Rarer still is it to find the sons of a subject people entrusted with supreme or very high commands in the armies of their conquerors. The first Napoleon is one conspicuous instance in point. The history of the British army in the present century furnishes many such. The two great British Commanders-in-' 'hief of the century, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Wolseley, were Irishmen. So were many of the mosj prominent British leaders of the past hundred years : Lord Gouuh, Sir Charles James Napier, Sir Eyre Coote. So likewise are by far the greater number of prominent officers now or recently at the front in the South African campaign — Lord Kitchener, Generals White, Clery, nnd Kelly-Kenny. Lord Roberts, though born in India, is of Irish parentage, proudly describes himself as an Irishman, and is described as such in comparatively recent speeches — now before vs — by Major-General HrrroNiind Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Behesford. AYe do not even except the exploits of Marlborol t (.h when we state that Great Britain's Irish generals have, of all her military leaders, left the deepest mark upon the later history of the Empire. It 'akes many kinds of men to make a world. But an Empire that adopts a policy of limitless expansion needs strong hands and clear brains, from whatever point of the compass they may come. And it is both justice and good policy for Great Britain to practically and gratefully recognise the good that is in the little island-rock out of which so much of her military greatness has been hewn.