INTERCOLONIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 47, 22 November 1900, Page 20

INTERCOLONIAL.

The new Victorian Parliament contains 13 Catholic members out of a total of 93.

It is said that two-thirds of the members returned to the new Victorian Parliament have declared agaiDst Bible lemons in the State Bchools.

The Rev. Father Duff, ho well known on the fields in the early days of Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie, and now attached to the Dioceae of Perth, hnn written an original dramatic oratorio. ' The Two Worlds,' which will be produced at the Perth Theatre Royal. The Victorian Government wn« defeated la«t we«k on a no-eon-fidenoe motion tabled by Sir G. Turner, which was carried by 51 votes to 42. Mr. McLean handed to the Lieutenant-Governor the resignation of himself and his colleagues, and Sir G. Turner has formed a Ministry.

In the New South Wales Assembly on Wednesday the Old Age Pensions Bill wai read a second time on the voices. Mr. Ashton said it was stated by leading philanthropists in New Zealand that one of the principal effects of the scheme was to enrich the publicans. In committee, Sir W. J. Lyne promised to insert a clause providing for relief between the ages of 60 and 65 yearn, if it was proved that the person was unable to earn a living. The death of the Rev. Father D. A. Harnett, pastor of Cooma, which occurred on Friday, November 2, came as a great shock to his many friends in New South Wales. The deceased priest was only 42 years of age and was brother of the Rev. T. Harnett, of Bega. He was born in County Kerry, Ireland, in LS.JK, ordained priest in All Hallows' College in 1882, and arrived in Sydney the same year. In Mittagong, Bowral, Moss Vale, and Menangle he left enduring monuments of his zeal and devotion to his duty in the shape of churches, and at Moss Vale he built a comfortable and commodious presbytery. From all those parishes he carried away on his departure from them substantial tokens of the esteem and respect in which he was held amongst hia people. The ministers of all denominations in Cooma called at the presbytery and tendered to Father T. Harnett, parish priest, Bega. their nincere sympathy Mr. Royle and Mr. Mouatt, of the Railway Department, who knew Father Harnett for years, offered to his afflicted brother the sympathy of the Presbyterian congregation.

Many people implicitly believe that the secular Press is a great publio educator. Here is how the two big Melbourne dailies dealt with Mr. G. H. Reid's speech in the Town Hall on f reetrade :— Said the Argus : 'A great orator. . , the unsparing exposure, the searching criticism, the cutting sarcasm, the brilliant humor, the eloquent advocacy.' The estimate of the address by the Aye was • • Mr. G. Reid, whom Nature evidently intended for a Cheap Jack, held his freetrade meeting in the Town Hall last night, and was volatile as usual. He amused his audience, as he always does, but flattery itself cannot affirm that he instructed them. His forte is certain audacity of statement that refuses to be tied by any such trifles as accuracy, and hia feebleness resides permanently in his facts.' After examining some of Mr. Reid's statements the Age adds : ' An instance like this proves that no man can take Mr. Reid Beriously. His exaggerations and falsifications reach the grotesque. They enable us to see why Sir William Lyne, in Sydney, averred' that Mr. Reid's " reckless use of figures has no parallel in the political history of the colony." . . This is not controversy. It is low class trickery. It smells of the back office of the Old Bailey practitioner, and it puts the man who descends to it out of the category of statesmen, and ranks him with the low comedian of the stage or the mountebank of the market place.' How is the average reader to know which of these estimates is the correct one / If he were to depend for his education on the public Press of Victoria as to the merits or demerits of freetrade his ideas would be ibadly mixed.

On Wednesday morning (cays the Catholic Prctn, November 10) the Catholic community was startled to hear of the demise of the Very Rev. Father Vincent Grogan, C.P., the parish priest of Marrickville. No man was better known throughout Australia than the deceased priest, and no missioner exerted more influence in his day than Father Vincent. His personality was gracious, simple, and charming, and among all denominations he was a favorite. To meet him was to love him, and of no man could it be more truly said that if he met an enemy he would part with a friend. The late Father Vincent was born in Rhode, Ireland, in the year 1«;{7. At an early age he evinced a vocation for the priesthood, and was educated at Carlow College, and was finally ordained when he was 27 years of age. After spending three years on the secular mission he joined the Passionist Order at Broadway, Worcestershire, England, and for a few years was on the mission in various offices, during which, throughout England and Ireland, he achieved results so wonderful, and received so many distinguished converts into the Church, that even recently the leading Catholic papers of England have referred to hie work again and again as extraordinary, and stimulative of the highest zeal on the part of the new generation of missionary priests. So great was Father Vincent's success and so conspicuous were his judgment and zeal that it was not long before he was elected Provincial of the Anglo-Hibernian province, an office which he held for nine years. He came to Australia as VisitorGeneral in 1891, and in the following year took charge of the Australian mission, which office he held until the beginning of this year, when he was oompelled to relinquish it in consequence of illhealth. During his term in Australia Father Vincent gave missions in most of the towns in New South Wales, Tasmania, New Zealand and Queensland, and can be considered one of the greatest evangelisers that those colonies have known. His was a household name, and his gentle, kindly spirit drew him to all who met him. He was an ideal priest and a true friend, one of the dearly loved type that suffered bo much and did so much in the more arduous days of our young nation.