Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 48, 1 December 1904, Page 1

Current Topics

Attempt at a State Creed ' It's a real splendid world,' said old E'ben Holden. ' God's fixed it up 90 ev'ry body can hcv a good time if-, they'll only hay it-. Oince 1 heard uv a poor |van 'at hed a huis'hel 0' corn gne tew him. lie looked up I, ind o' sad an' ast a they wouldn't please shell it. Then they tuk it away. Cod's gin us happiness in the ear, but he am't a-goin t' shell it fox us.'

* (Jad has ' ti\cd up ' Australia so that a reasonable mortal may iind in. it. a reasonable amount of kappmess — in the ear. Hut there has ever been a knot of fretful malcontents whose little souls are soured because all creeds ha\e (nominally at least) enjojed equality .»■- Eoic the law. and the spirit of religious asiemlaney finds little ia\or among the tree institutions of these new countries Repeated attempts— some duect, others indirect, some open, some by underground and de\ ious ways — June been made to establish a Slate Church m Australia. The latest attempt belongs to the roundabout and side-wind series. It took place recently in Melbourne, when some banners presented by the Kins were blesfsed and consecrated by a number of Protestant clergymen according to what) Archbisihop C'arr correctly 'describes as a ' distinctively Protestant form of prayer ' which was ' drawn up without the concurrence or knowledge of any Catholic representative.' The Commonwealth military authorities appear (slays the same i'istinguisihed Prelate) to have ' studiously ignored ' the Catholic body in the matter ot the appointment of a Catholic chaplain. For several years— e\er since Ihe Commonwealth became an accomplished fact — there has not been so much as a Solitary Catholic chaplain in the Australian forces. Only Protestant clergymen (Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists) are permitted to minister in things spiritual to the men that constitute the first and second and last line of Australia's defences. The latest performance of the military auth rities affords fresh and flagrant evidence of their disregard tor the denominational equality w.hich is (on pap<u) supposed 1 to be one of the proud distinctions of United Australia. The incident will, no doubt, be urgod as a precedent by those who desire to see Anglicanism ie(.•oftimed as the State religion. And years hence, when our toes are turned towards the roots of the daisies, why should not this bit of departmental blundering lie appealed to by some Federal Premier, with ambition 1o

be a ' Supreme Head,' as historical testimony of his sacred and inherent right to formulate prayers and draw up Orders of Service and impose them upon the various deeds within the seas that wasih the scores of the Common weal tih ''

Englishmen are credited by their Gallic neighbors with taking their pleasures sadly. Througihout the (cremony ol blessing the King's banners there ran a vein ol high oomoay of which the participants seem 'to have been solemnly and absurdly unconscious. It was what Shakespeare calls a humorous sadness. A Presbyterian and a Methodist military chaplain took part with the Anohcan oeletirant in the blessing. Which leti Garsdimal Aloian to point out to a representative of the ' Uatiholic Pie* s ' whore (to use the late A. Wand's words) ' the JaiUire cume in ' ' Another feature of the ceremony,' said he, ' is that it appears to be a parody on religion to unite iepresentatives of various Churches to unite with tdiose who proless that they have no power to impart blessing, and have no power to bless, and have no blessing to eive 1 think,' added his Eminence, 'the system putiMic-d m Germany is the proper one. When the Kaiser presents colors to a regiment 'he has them brought to the church with solemnity, and there they are duly blessed, lie then presents them, in due form to the regimentment When our own King Edwurd presents banners and they arrive in Australia it seems a strange thing ijiat before they are presented to the regiment the Premier thinks it necessary to exorcise them.' It is better to pic\cnt the demon of religious ascendancy sneaking his head into the body politic Liiaoi to have to exoicise him later on. We are ot the number of tnose who regard

' The cause of Christ and civil liberty A» one, and moving to a glorious end.'

Hut its conquering chariot-wheels may receive passing che:'k.s in its onward way, or creak along with slow and toiltul grind where it might glide with swift and easy inn. ' Obsta pnncipiis '(' resist the beginnings ') is a good rule of personal condaict in many of the incidents of uaily life. It is likewise a good watfahword as against the obscurantists who try to block the onward progress of the conjoined ' cause of Christ and civil liberty.' In our twn country tine chief, and practically the only, ellort to establish and endow a State creed is that which is being made in the interests of the indolent clerics of the Bible-in-schools Leag,ue. Those who value equality before the law should watch that retrograde movement wiWi their eye-halls skinned.

Where Persecution Strikes Persecution, like the bigotry of -which it is the outcome, 'has neither brains t;o think nor a heart to feel. The persecution in France, as that of the penal aays in the British Isles, is ohiefly directed against those who are the light of Catholic life in the laiiid. But iljjs hardest and heaviest blows iall upon the poor and the afflicted. Some weeks ago a number of French doctors visited London and inspected its great hospitals. One of the visitors trntn acrms-s the Straits of Dover made il sufficiently clear to a representative of the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' that the banishment ot the nuns from the Frendh hospitals is a heavy woe to tihe p^oor smfferers there. The speaker is a member of the staff of one of the leading Paris hospitals ajiid n,.ad experience of similar worn in Vienna and Berlin. ' What has impressed us mosit, perhaps,' said he, ' after our first astonishment that tihis great work is supported solely by voluntary contributions, is the high standard of the nursing staff not only here but in every hospital we have seen,. \ou seem to be able to attract a socially higher and better educated class tor the work tihan we can. Of course, at present we a"c very badly oft in France. Mapy of our best nurses were rehgieuses. They have now been deported, you understand. They were kind to the patients, but — ennn, tihey were ichgieusep. Now we have to educate a new supply of nurses, and I hope we shail be able to attiact the type of women you have.'

Perhaps. But the crude and heartless Sairey Gamps of various ages that were attracted to one great municipal hospital in Marseilles proved siidh a nightmare to the stricken poor that the banished nuns had to be recalled. The same thing will, no doubt, happen for the same reason elsewheie In the meantime it is interesting t)o learn from a competent authority that the sick in the 'hospitals are ' very badly oft in France ' as a result ot the Uornbes regime of proscription and persecution.

When Man is Beast ' Mian,' said Eben Iloldcn, ' he can be any kind uv a beast, bkit a panther he can't be nuthin' but jest a panther.' The brute that is in him commonly show s its ways at their woist during the operations of that ' trade of barbanans,' war Whether l.n ftast or West practically every campaign ot what is termed ' ciwhsed' warfare has been spotted over with savage incidents as with a leprosy. White people were rightly horrified at the wtholesale slaughter of unresisting combatants and of non-combatants by both parties duung the Taeping rebellion in China. At Nankin, for instance, the Taepiings are said to ha\e ictt only a hundred persons ali\e out of a population of 20,01)0 that occupied the Tartar quarter ot that city. let Captain Blakiston tells us that the cruelties 01 the Taopin^s were ' hardly a counterpart of the 'lsing (linpenal) atrocities ' And he tells how, in the same uowded centre ol population, the Imperialists, in turn. ' enjoyed a three days' slaughter and left neither man, woman, nor child in that unfortunate city.' The CJiino- Japanese conflict was als ) stained by a three days' massacre by the victors at Port Arthur. Their swift adoption of Western usages failed to stand the rude test of war.

However, Western warriors- are little entitled to throw stones at the .Shinto soldiers of -Japan The arms ot professedly Christian States have been all too frequently stained by similar atrocities. In 1821, for instance, a scattered Mussulman population resident in Greece are said to have been cut off to the number of about 20,000. At the sack of Tripolitza some 8000 persons of every age and of both sexes were cruelly put to death. To this day British people cannot but recall witih deep shame the fearful scenes of rapine and slaughter that accompanied the sacking of Badajos and San Sebastian during the Peninsula campaign. There are many still living who can recall the red orgies of the Servians at Belgrade in 1862. The Franco-^German war opened with a relatively high, spirit of chivalry on

both slides. But in a short sipace it led to the not infrequent shootrng and hanging ot prisoners by the irregular Frane-tireurs a,nd of unonending peasants by the Germans, and culminated in the mad blood-revelry of the enraged animals in military uniform who shot ajid hacked and burned non-combatants of both sexes in the stiects ajnd houses of Ba/.eilles. And what shall we say 01 the series of worse than Bulgarian atrocities that were oommitted in China by hordes of degraded brutes in the uniforms of various Western annies — but not by the soidiers ot the Mikado— during the Boxer troubles of I'JUO ?

An Unwritten Law of War Mucth has been done by international codes m the direction of humanising the armed conflicts of nations. But the history ot all later wars, and the meagre repots that trickle over the wires regarding tihe present campai&n in the Far East, go to show that much yet remains to be done. In one respect, however, tihe present campaign between the yellow mian and tihe white man in the Far Ast rises, perhaps, t,o as high a level as has yet been attained in the wars of civilised peoples. We refer to the old-established custom which protects sentries and men of the pickets furnishing; them from being stalked or ' stuped ' oc shot (down without necessary and due warning. This good old usage was- abandoned by bo Mi Boer and Briton during the whole oi the longdrawn campaign in South Africa. It was generally observed during tine Franco-German struggle Much hot feeling was displayed when it wa^ discovered that some hdll-civilised Turctxs (or native Algerines wlio served in the Fremoh army) once in a while stole out of camp under cover of darkness, crept as quietly as big cats up to some German sentry, and then, with sudden spring and switt and unerring stroke ot knife or bayqnet, sent the surprised watcher's soul adrift. The miodus operandi is dramatically described m Erckniann-Cftatrian's 1 JJistoire dv Plebiscite.' In the early encounters) of the Vmerican Ciwl War the opposing sentries and pickets wasted a good deal of Government powder alnd shot and other valuable energy in administering 'hypodermic arguments to (\iLih ot'hcr, and ' sfnipins; ' came near to bein^ cultivated to the verge oi being a line art. But better •-ense and saner and more humane customs soon grew up, Each Mdc learned to respect the other's valor, and first by mutual agieement, and attorwards by a tacit understanding, sentries ceased to be made targets for legmiental crack-shots.

A good deal of chivalry of this kind existed all through the rough-and-tumble struggle of the Peninsular War, even at a time when leehng between Frank and Briton ran at a tever heat. Sentries and pickets stood within a Brown-Bess gunshot of each other without <\ny exchange ot the murderous, bone-splintering round Imllet'S of a period when military men considered a mus-ket-ball ol no u t>e unless it was big enough to smash the fore-leg of a cavalry horse. When an advance took place the pickets making the forward movement stepped out holding up the butts of their muskets as a courteous intimation to ' their triends the enemy ' that the legiettable exigencies ot war rendered it neces&iary that the truce between the outposts should terminate. Cavalry patrols, as well as infantry, when advancing, were hrst greeted by warning shots politely fired fai o\er their heads. It they still persisted in their ud\ance the courtesies of war were deemed to be at an end, and the musket-balls were sent dropping, not over their heads, 'but into them. No such courtesies were practised during the South Atircan campaign. Sentries, pickets, and mounted patrols on both sades were made targets tor the ' sniper ' or f;or volley-firing as s;oon, as they came within lange. Jt is pleasant to noie that the gooid old custom, which goes beyond Peninsula days, has been revived by Jap and K,uss, at least before Port Arthur. It lessens to some degree the range of mental and pHystical anguish of a conflict that, apart from this, appears to have a reasonably full share of what are called the horrors of war.