Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 36, 8 September 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

The Course of War It is the tendency of modern war to keep on increasing in numbers, armament, and expense. And it seems as if we are rapidly approaching the military ideal of ' a nation under arms '—which, by the way, is merely a relium tio the principle of savage life that made it the chief business of every adult male to be a warrior. A body of 23,000 men changed the course of the world's history at Pharsalia 48 yeaifl before i/he Uhristian era. It took only 31,000 to alter the map of Europe at Crecy in 1316. The total number of combatants engaged at Waterloo was about 180,000, and they, too, changed the face of Europe. The numbers rose again during the brief campaign of 1866, when 425,000 Prussians ajid Austrians faced eaich other at Koeniggratz to decide nothing in particular. Four years later, also, nearly half a million wisps of cannon-fodder ragod and fought round about Gravelotte, and the line of battle expended over 30 miles. And last week, about Liaoya»ng, a good round half-million Russians and Japanese are reported to have been pounding each other at 'ong range and skewering each other at close quarters to determine which is to have ' influence ' in the eastern Sleepy Hollow of the Hermit Kingdom.

The battle of Plassey (1757) made Clive master of Bengal and virtually secured the establishment of British power in Jndia. Yet it only lasted about an hour and waa almost bloodless. Two years later was fought the brief, but more sanguinary, battle between the French and English on the Heights of Abraham, Quebec. r lhe rain oi bullets, like the fall of a sunshine shower, lasted only half an hour, yet it completed the conquest of Canada. Ramillies (1706) and Prestonpans (1745) were further instances of important battles being won in minutes. Unider modern conditions, battles may, (as at Liaoyang) run into days— three or four(says the French Captain Nigote), or even into a fortnight. The well-known military expert, Fritz Hoenig, thinks it orobable that we are even returning to the epoch of long sieges, and that the stories of Belgrade, Mantua, r*nd Plevna may be repeated. The world is not likely to witness again si. eh an experience as befell the British at Futt<ihpore, during the Indian Mutiny, when Sir Henry Havelock routed a great force of Sepoys, after a lively battle, and captured eleven guns, without the loss of a single life. Still more curious was the Abyssinian campaign of 1868, in which the British army fought two

pitched battles without having even one man • lope the number of his mess.' The opposite extreme was reached at Koeniggratz, where 50,000 men were slain, and at Gravelotte, where the death-roll amounted to over 32,QQ0. A like number of antagonists in Mahohuria, armed with m-'uch deadlier weapons of war, seem to ha\e produced far less carnage in a given time than marked the campaigns of 1866 and 1870. The old-time spear-fighting Maori chief hated the musket-it was- not deadly enough to meet his idea of what a proper and respectable tot tie ought to be. Perhaps, in like manner, the new scientific man-slaying machines rre, after all, more humane than the mitrailleuse arid Ihe chassepot and the needle-gun of 1870.

At it Again The Rome correspondents of the secular papers have been •> at it ' again. Tuesday's daily papers contained the preposterous announcement that ' the Vatican propose to appoint the Bishop of Dijon Vicar-Apostolic of Australia ' ! The statement must have been invented by somebody who was qualifying for a padded cell. Monsignor O'llaran spoke mildly when he described it as lan absolute absurdity.' ' There can never,' he added, ' bo such on oflice as Viear-Apost'olic of 'Australia. Such a personage is usually a titular bishop, and they are either stationed in countries where episcopal sees have not yot been established or where the succession has been broken.' But the ins>ane story furnishes fresth evidence of the extent to which the channels of intelligence have been captured by agencies that are open to the &ra\est suspicions by Catholics. Catholic news coming to these countries at first or second hand through Rauter or the Agence Havas is always, like Hood's doubtful oys,ter, ' open to suspicion.' And, in the matter of Vatican news especially, the secular press of Great Britain, Australasia, the Uniited States, France, an,d Italy, is abominally served. Some Rome representatives of great daily papers are merely grotesque ain«d farcical in their unreliability. To this class belongs the author of the fantastic absurdity about the 1 Vioar- Apostolic of Australia.' The correspondence of others— especially when it is merely an echo of the anticlerical and Masonic press— is commonly marked by singular malevolence and mendacity. To such writers truth is, in a re-al sense, strang-er than fiction. We sorely need en active Catholic News Agency in these countries to circumvent the Ananias of the cables.

•Rome Rule' In connection with the attack on Father O'Hara (to which JurMier reference is made in our news columns) Mr. Wyndham, Chief Secretary for Ireland, has informed the Irish Nationalist Party, in the person of Mr. Devlin, M.P., that he could not consent that the report of the evidence taken before the Court of Inquiry in the case of the constable referred to should he laid on the J able of the House of Commons. The London correspondent of the Dublin ' Freeman ' of July 23, reports that the Chief Secretary ' said it would be without precedent. But then,' he adds, ' the u"se the Orange members! are making of this case is als-o without precedent. They and their newspapers have made it the basis of the most slanderous charges against a priest of the highest reputation ; but they are discreetly dumb when the Irish Party demands publicity for the official facts or a fmsh inquiry. Mi. Wyndham, while ostensibly defending the persons falsely attacked, including Sir Neville Chamberlain and Sir Antony MacDonnell, is really playing into the hands of their assailants. The only effectual metihod of putting, 1 an end to these attacks is to consent to the publication of the facts.' The use that has been made of this case in several New Zealand papers is sufficient apology for the extended reference which we have of late made to it in our columns.

The Annual Insanity It seems to be generally agreed among the Brethren of the Saffron Sash that they have ' a ripping good time ' when the lecurrent spasm of insanity seizes them on ' tfhe Gloridub Twelfth.' A literary instance of happiness anid insanity embracing and kissing is furnished by thajt lugubrious book, ' Tihe Sorrow^ of Werter. 1 It tells of the demented youth Whom Werter found, like another primrose, by the river's brim. Once upon a time the poor addle-brained youth had known what it was to be perfectly and serenely happy. 'Ah ! poor lad,,' slaid his mother to Werter, ' that was the lime, sir, when he was outrageously mad and confined ; he never ceases to regret it.' There are generally visions about—^pink Jesuits and Squirming swarm,s of Popish Plots, and sihiploads of thumbscrews, and herds of horned Popes, and such-like phantasmagoria — when 4 lu> July delirium turns the yellow orators into March hares anjd sends thrills and shivers of most delicious fright througjh the souls of the brethren who are ' out for a night of it.' Some cleaning up or patching or burying has, at times, to be done to statements made by reverend and other orators under the wild influence of ''the glorious, pious, and immortal memory.' One reverend sword-swal lower, for instance, announced, at Invercargill, the amazing discovery that there are 50 femlale cleamers and fire-lighters in Gevernment House, Wellington, and— fearful to relate— that 48 of them are Papists ! The Columbus of this great discovery ought, however, to have tried to lie plausibly. Simple folk wlh'o keelp their feet warm and their heads cool would be surprised to learn that even Windsor Castle has such a large fire and floor brigade whether in breeks or petticoats. But, then, your ' Glorious Twelfth ' orator knows t|he capacity of his audience's gullet anJd the serene aplomb with which they bolt any M,unchausen tale without taking the common-sense precaution suggested by the late Artemus Ward— to ' smell of it before swallerfa'.' AJnd, by the way, the portentousi' fact 'of the 48 Papisft charwomen was advanced -as evidence of the scandalous ' favoritism * shown by the Seddon Administration Ho Catholics. Now it so happens that Government House does not come wittiin the province of the Government at all, so fax as appointments go 1 . ''"he Governor employs his own servants. We are informed on excellent authority that only one of the women engaged in Government House is a Catholic. Her name is before us. We are also informed that she goes there in the daytime to do her work, and that she was> em-

ployed in a similar capacity by the late Governor, Lord Ranfurly. Multiplying one lone Papist by 48 is a splendid modern example of the story of the rogues in buckram. * So much for a little romance at our own door. At Junee (New South Wales) a reverend nrebxa&d made ' a coarse and. blackguardly attack on the moral, Pflrjty ot the local Convent of Mercy. The pestiferous; 't'e'llp'w' so wooded his charge tihat an action at law 4 id not lie. Something better, however, took place. A public meeting asjsemibled on August 12 ' to indignantly „ protest against tihe unwarrantable attacks that had latejy ' been wade on the Convent schools, arid the cr,uel insult that had. been offered to the Sisters in charge of them.' The; meeting was attended by people of every creed (many ladies included), and among the principal speakers were the Mayor (Alderman Carter, J.P.) and some indignant members of the coarse-grained slanderer's congregation. The following resolutions were carried hy acclamation : ' That this meeting indignantly protests against the unwarrantable attacks that have been made on the Convent schools ' ; ' We' hereby cqnvey to the Sisters of Mercy,, Junee, our most respectful sympathy, and we beg to assure them that we regard the charges hurled against themselves amd t/heir schools as base calumnies-, 1 nowing ag we do that the moral conduct of the children committed to their care is in safe hands, and that the religious convictions of the Protestant children attending the Convent schools are scrupulously respected. 1 The bright example of chivalry who made that blackguardly attack on saintly and devoted ladies must have felt black and blue all over as a result of the castigation which he received from the decent manhood and womanhood of Junee. A final example of the July* insanity comes from Sydney. One Wheeler, a prominent and noisy knight of the order of the Yellow Pup, made the following statement when under the pressure of the vertigo that is abroad when the dog-star is in the ascendant in the northern sky : 'It is the duty of the people to see that only properly ■qualified men and women are appointed to teach in the piublic schools— teachers who will not pervert the children's minds with the tenets or doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. (Applause). In this connection a little episode occurred in the Woollahra electorate (,nly qn Tuesday -which 1 want to refer to. A little girl went Mo a public school with a small piece of orange ribbon pinned to her breast. She was called out of her class by the teacher, chastised, and sent home, because that piefce of ribhun reminded her (t!he teaflher) of tjhat 1 renegade and blackguard, Dr. Dill Macky.' (Laughter* followed by great cheers and rounds of Kentish ftre for Dr. Mapky). I want you to understand flhat a little episode of that character is not going to pass ujnchallonged—(oheers) — because it is no part of the duty of a public school teacher to find fault with any scholar who wore a piece of green or yellow ribbon. (Ch€fcrs).' ' Of course,' says the ' Catholic Press,' ' ooir yellow dailies published this choice item, and the department cocked 'up its ears. An inquiry was at once set afoot, hut it was blocked at first owing to the usual "vagueness of the indictment and the difficulty of identifying the school concerned. However, the man Wheeler was written to, and, much to the surprise of everyone acquainted with Orange tactics, he actually gave tthe information required. And upon being furnished by him with the necessary information, accompanied by a <leclaratiion, from the mother of the child, Mr. Bridges instructed Mr. Senior-Inspector Willis to hold *n inqfuiry.' >■• * The sequel is soon told. It took the form of an official repjort, which tfhe curious reader will find in the news qolumms of this issue of our paper. The yellowish 1 Telegraph ' sums up the restult as follows : ' The re-

suit of that officer's investigation is given below, and the Minisltejr of Public Instruction thinks tihat the report should be published, in justice to all concerned. From it a time account of the incident may be gathered. It will be sqen that the published allegations were not sustained, and were quite incorrect, as t,he child was neither oalled.out of Tier class, chastised, nor sent home, nor was the quoted allusion to Dr. Dill Macky made. In Mr. Wheeler's speech he appears also to have urged the (fluty of the people to see that only properly-quali-fied teachers were appointed to teach in public schools, who would not pervert, or attempt to per,vext, the children's mintfs with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. It so happens that the teacher complained of in this case is a Presbyterian ; but, apart from that altogether it may be; stated that tiie departmental rules and practice require all teachers to be qualified, and strictly forbid and prevent any attempts at perversion. '" Nbthing musit ever be said or done by, any teacher in a pupil's hearing or presence calculated to offend the religious views of that pupil, or of any other in the school, or of the parents of any pupil." ' A.nd thus a fcrio of yellow ♦ yarns ' go up in smoke.