The 'Grey Argus's' Eye

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 31, 3 August 1905, Page 19

The 'Grey Argus's' Eye

The ' Skibbereen Eagle ' once warned the Tsar of Russia that it had got its piercing eye upon him. And now the ' Grey River Argus ' has gone and done likewise for the King of Spain— but without the friendly warning. It has got one of its co-Id Grey eyes upon Alfonso, an.d clapped him under the microscope, and searched him with its X-ray gaze, and found him, on tha whole, a rather sorry specimen of a monarch. Alfonso does not (so we are told) ' taike a tolerant view of Protestantism.' But what is the evidence for this statement ? The ' Argus,' for all its hundred eyes, saith not. King Edward is a worthy monarch, and has won full many a time the spurs of popularity which he wears. But does the ' Argus ' forget that, on the day of his accession, he— as a barbaric statute requiredsingled out Catthohcs from among all his subjects— Christians, Jews, Mahomedans, Parsees, fetish-worship-pers, anld the rest— and took an oath expressing a belief that they are ' idolaters ' ? Now, whatever Alfonso's faults may be, he has too ' tolerant a view of Protestantism ' to outrage the sentiments of its adherents by such a hideous calumny. Nor has Spanish law ever required that its monarchs should do so. If our Greymoutih contemporary was out with its smooth bore musket, stalking intolerance, why did it go so far afield, when it had such a fine and well-fed specimen, so to speak, on its own farm ? We will join it any day in a grand battue against the evils of religious intolerance. But justice, like charity, should begin at home, And before we cairy the campaign beyond the Pyrenees, would it not be well that we should deal with some of the intolerant ' relics of barbarism ' that still remain within the circle of our own imperial ring fence ? * Now, when all is summed up, it turns out that the head anld front of young Alfonso's offending is this : that he is the devout Catholic son of a devout Catholic mother. Now Alfonso's faith is officially declared by his brother monarch in England to be ' superstitious' as well as ' idolatrous. The first of these harsh terms of offence has been adopted by our Grey River contemporary. It votes the young King— on the strength of a statement which It declares to be ' apparently well-in-formed '— ' as superstitious as any monk.' But how does the ' Argus ' know that the information is sound ?

And where did it learn that monks are ' superstitious' ? And which monks ? And what are their * superstitions ' ? And where do they appear ? Arid what is ' superstition,' anyway? The fact is, our western contemporary has fallen into the chiWish fallacy that .is known to .logicians as ' question-begging. 1 It (or father the anti-Catholic ' Daily News, • whose opinions it com* mends as well-informed) disapproves of Alfonso's religion, flings at it the question-begging epithet ' superstitious,' and then, in effect, proceeds to argue that because it is ' superstitious,' it must be sneered at and spat upon. That is what it all comes to. But the point to be proved— <and the thing we i deny— is thai the' manly and well-trained boy-king's faith or religious practice falls within any proper definition of * superstition.' We shoulfd like to see either the ' Daily News-** or its We|st Coast echo set about the proof. They would find it ' labor dire and heavy woe.' On Catholic matters, at least, the ' Grey River Argus • would be wise if it were chary of accepting the news and views of the ' Daily News.' Since its latest change of control, the ' Daily News ' has displayed towards the Ancient Faith a truly deplorable fanaticism. Scarcely a • week passes without an exposure of some or other of the No-Popery tales that it grubs up among the dustheaps of Continental anti-clericalism. And what a clownish gaucherie to fling* such terms of offence at the King of Spain when he was Great Britain's national guest J The New Zealand echo of the ' Daily Mail's ' ill-man-nered speech tooik place, with a striking, though perhaps unintended appropriateness, in the month of July.