Freemasonry

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 35, 31 August 1905, Page 2

Freemasonry

Foreign Freemasonry we know — by its words and works. And since the disgraceful revelations of espionage and persecution carried on by it in the French army, there is none so poor to do it reverence. But by many outside the Craft Freemasonry under the British flag is regarded as an association of well-meaning and, perhaps, somewhat peculiar citizens who vary the profession and practice of philanthropy with occasional bouts of goori4rumored horse-play and practical joking and hanky-panky mystery behind the closed and guarded doors of the lodge. Some old-fashioined and unsuspicious folk in England were, therefore, somewhat startled a few weeks ago to learn that the influence of the Craft was usod, in connection with the Holborn (London) municipal scandals, to defeat the ends of justice. A special Investigation Committee of the Council had recornrniendeid that one of its officials 'be proceeded against under the Statutory Declaration Act, 1835, and that it be referred to the Law and Parliamentary Committee to take the necessary steps.' It so happened that the official in question was a Freemason. When the matter came before the Council, Dr. Smith (chairman of the Committee) declared (according to the report in the ' Westminster Gazette ') that ' the grelatest pressure had been brought to bear upon individual members of tfhe Council ' by the Freemasons 'in relation to the subject—" not only personal influence, bait influence of an association which ought never to have been bxou'^ht) into tatny question of this kind." ' ' I am a Freemason myself,' said Dr. Smith ; yet he 'deprecated and condemned in every possible way ' the pressurc'that had been brought to bear by the ' brethren of the mystic tie ' to defeat the recommendations of the Committee. But it was in vain The lodge had done its ■underground work, and done it well. The higfh official of the Holborn Borough Council stands unmolested. He was- not invited to make his bow before the « beak.' Lear once spoke in the l/Hterness of his heart:— 1 Plate sin with gold ; Ajnd the strong lance of justice hurtless breads ' Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it ' ' In our day the place of the corrupting gold' that once shielded many from ' the butt-eixl of the law ' seems to be taken by the oath-bound fraternities • that work, not in "God's open daylight like men, tyit in the dark like rats in a cellar. And iif they use the cloak of night, even in England, to hide their friends from the pursuit of the law, may they not, with equal ease, work the ruin of unprotected innocence 9 United States President John Quincey Adams protested in his dayj aglainst the evil influence of the Masonic fraternity upon the cooirse of justice in the United Seates. And in England, Sir James Crichton-Brown put to a wellknown Mason some years ago the following pointed reminders' which have never yet been answerod : 'If Masonry hasta secret, the knowledge of which would benefit all mankind, then for Masonry to keep such knowledge to itself is immoral. If, on the other hand, the '" secret " is not for the benefit of mankind, in professing it to be so, Masonry is again guilty of an immoral act. If you Masons say that it is only to benefit certain persons who are prepared to receive'such knowledge, them' there is an end of the univeisality of the brotherhood of Freemasonry.' We leave these nuts strewn about for the brethren to crack— -if they can.