Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 21 February 1907, Page 9

Current Topics

Why have Protestants been Silent?

To those who have , followed with any care the course of events, and the. utterances of politicians in France during -the" past few years it will Jong ago ,have been apparent that the campaign of spoliation pnd oppression, which has been, carried out- recently with such virulence and -brutality,- is a deliberate . attack, not on the" Catholic Church alone, but on Christianity itself— is, in a word, as the * Tablet ' has already expressed it, ' Christ-hunting ' pure and simple. It is, and. it is meant to be, au assertion of the absolute supremacy of the civil power over all spiritual rights and interests, and this being so, it is an astonishing thing that not one of the Protestant churches has •been found to raise its " voice in protest against the .French infamy or in approbation of the firm and. heroic stand taken by the .Vicar of Ohrist on the question. This is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that some at least of the Protestant bodies" have gone through a very; similar experience to that " which the Catholic Church is now undergoing in France and, to their credit be it said, their resistance to the aggression of the ' civil power was as strenuous •as it was successful. To take but one instance 1 : If there "is one episode in their history of which Presbyterians are proud — and of which they have just reason to be proud —it is what is known as the Disruption 'of 1843, and yet the men who ' came out ' on that historic occasion and formed the ' Free Church of Scotland ' were merely asserting the identical principle for which the Pope is contending to-day. For many years the intrusion' of unacceptable and undesirable ministers, under the Patronage Law of' 1711, had been "regarded, as a grievance 1 by the Scottish people, and in 1834 the General Assembly of the Church passed a Veto Act-, which' gave a majority of the male heads of families in a congregation the right to reject a minister, presented by the patron, ' on a solemn declaration that they could receive no spirit tual benefit from his ministrations. Almost-immediate-" ly this Act brought the Scottish Church and the Civil Power into collision. ,A few months after its passing, a minister presented by the Earl of (Kinmoul to the parish of Auchterarder, was ' vetoed ' by almost the whole people ; and' the local Presbytery refused v tot proceed to his induction. The case was -brought before the Court of v Session, and thence was .taken by "appeal to the House of Lords. Both of these high tribunals affirmed their jurisdiction in the" matter, found that the - Veto Act was ' ultra vires" on the part of the Scottish Church, and declared that the Presbytery of Auchterarder had acted illegally. Various other- cases of a similar kind occurred, and affairs grew more and more complicated. The Civil Courts interfered with the ' Church' and the Church bioke the orders of the Civil Courts. At last, in 1842, the General Assembly of the Scottish Ohiurch laid at the foot of the throne its 1 Olaim of Right.' That Claim met with an unfavorable answer. The House of Commons, also, by a large majority, supported the views of the Government Then the crisis came. Two hundred members of the Assem-' bly of the Scottish Church which met at Edinburgh in May, 1843, laid upon its table, on the first day of its sitting, a Protest against what they- conceived to be a series of unconstitutional invasions of the Church's rights, and proceeded, under, the presidency of Thomas J Chalmers, to form v themselves into a x separate Communion, to which they gave the name of the ; Free Church of Scotland.' A few- days later they executed an * Act of Separation and Deed of Demission, ' by which, refusing to acknowledge ' the ' Ecclesiastical Judica/tories • established by Jaw in -Scotland/ -they declared their separation from the Establishment and their rejection of all thef rights and emoluments they derived from the

State, giving up churches, schools, and manses rather than submit to., dictation and interference in spiritual mattejrs from the civil power. The position is almost precisely parallel to that in which the- Head of the Catholic Church is • placed to-day, yet the descendants" of the Disruption are as dumb- as an ox or even^openly rejoice at his discomfiture. - -

■ * ' '*■?""' , . - ■ . Nor is it owing, to lack of opportunity tljat there has ' been- no public expression of Pfotestant sympathy with tlie French- Catholics in- the glaring injustice that • has been inflicted on them and in^the diabolic attack that has been made on the freedom of religious worship. In - England .and America many meetings,'- .of protest— open to. non-Catholics— have been held ; " and a masterly paper on the' situation by Cardinal Gibbons, published in all the American journals, concluded with the following touching appeal^— . I am getting to be'^an old man, and J think I know my countrymen. They love fair play, they love liberty ; they love to see humane dealings of man with man. And the late years have shown how" cordially they hate injustice, tyranny, and ~ inhumanity : and yet 'France had treated her noblest citizens with, injustice and inhumanity ; America,, which has sympathy for the oppressed of , all nations, has raised no protest nor , uttered a word of sympathy. If I believed that;, my,' countrymen would knowingly see a great and' beneficenfeorrganisation unjustly deprived of its property .and of continued usefulness ; would knowingly see "-tens of thousands of honest men and. noble women robbed of -their just income and means of support ; would knowingly see hundreds oE thousands and even several mililions of ■ people brutally wounded in what they hold dearest and most sacred ; would knowingly see a majority in the French Chamber utterly disregard and trample upon-the -rights of the minority, and the rights. ot millions of their countrymen, in - the name- of liberty ; would knowingly see tens of thousands of men and -women, who" happen to be priests',and nuns, turned out of their homes for no crime but that of loving God and serving their neighbors—l say, if my .countrymen can see and recognise all this injustice and" tyranny and .cruelty, and . refuse gpnuine sympathy to those who suffer by them because of their religious belief; • then I -will - leave life without that faith in American love of justice and ~ liberty and humanity which has been my comfort and support and hope during -a long career. There is a note of deep- pathos in this plea of America's venerable prelate,, but, with only the most insignificant exceptions, press and pulpit have been completely silent. In this matter Protestantism has missed a,high and noble opportunity, and'hns been palpably and glaringly false to the Christian principles it professes to uphold.

The • Devil's Own' ■ In one way and another the gentlemen of the wig • and - gown have bulked somewhat largely In the public .eye during- the past few weeks. To begin with, interest was aroused by the announcement made some time ago that the Government were seriously considering the question-of creating King's Counsel in this Colony, and now it is intimated that the innovation has been finally decided ..on and that regulations will shortly be gazetted in connection with -the proposal. The. Chief Justice must concur in all the appointments, and it is provided that, except when acting for the Crown, his ' Majesty's Counsel shall not appear in the Supreme Court .or the Court 'of "Appeal, unless a junior from oufside his own office should appear with him ; _ nor in any inferior court, unless ..upon special retainer, and a fee "of at le.ast ten guineas. The fee for the patent of appointment is five guineas. Counsel are allowed t<Tappear~ against the Crown in a cage in which his Majesty's Counsel has been dispensed with,, but in all such cases a special license must be obtained the fee. for which is. one guinea, which will of course be charged to the client.. The appointment is for life, but in case of disgraceful conduct the . letters patent may ,be revoked. In England — and the same arrangement will presumably obtain in New Zea-

land—the. King's Counsels' robes are of silk instead of the ordinary alpaca ' stuff ' of which the junior's gown is made ; and 'taking silk . thus the common phrase signifying that an ' outer ' .or ordinary barrister has become a K.C. From a purely .financial point of view— a point that is generally supposed to have some weight with the fraternity — ' taking silk. ' is often a very doubtful advantage to a professional career". By a usage of the profession ,a K.C. is prohibited- from taking a good deal*of minor, though often extremely lucrative, business which fell to his share as a junior, and thus - ' silk,' though it may be a stepping stone to" the topnotcheirst, occasionally proves a .dead loss, to the second rate men. So far as the introduction of the system into Colony is concerned all that need be said is thatthe proposal has been received without enthusiasm, that' it isTiot in very marked conformity to colonial democratic ideals, and that the coming of, the K.C. means dearer law for the people — a consummation devoutly to - be deplored. A much more commendable' method of improving the status of the profession was that" adopted by theN.Z. University Senate at its annual meeting held recently in Christch/urch. In the course of the proceedings Mr. Cohen moved — ' That the Senate respectfully requests the Minister of Justice to bring in a Bill next session of Parliament 'to v i - e"peal " The Law Practitioners Act Amendment Act, -1898," ' and- the motion was carried. As is generally known, only barristers, are allowed to plead in the Supreme Courts of the Colony, and prior to the Act of 1898 a solicitor could only become a barrister on passing the Bachelor of Laws. or an 'equivalent examination. The Amendment Act of 1898 abolished this requirement and provided that any solicitor, afterhaving .been ins practice for, five years >as a solicitor,^ might, upon application and without further examination, c be registered as a barrister. The result was that a number of men who had managed by dint of hard plodding to scrape through their solicitor's exam, but who had not had the courage to so much as face the more searching barrister's examination, at once made, application for admission and were duly enrolled as barristers of the Supreme Court. The obvious tendency of • this legislation was to put a premium upon laziness and ,to lower, not only the dignity and status, but the actual efficiency of the profession. Candidates in law are not now required to serve any term of apprenticeship whatever, and in view of this fact and of the very* weighty in'terestsi with which members of the jJrofession' are charged it is only fair to the public that the test for admission should be reasonably exacting 'and effective. The repeal of the Amendment Act of 1898, as suggested in the motion adopted by the University Senate, would bring about a return to. the" old state of things, and future candidates for admission as barristers would be required to pass an examination that would adequately test their legal knowledge' and attainments. The- proposal has been publicly supported by some of the examiners in law and by , representative members of the profession, and as it has been officially endorsed by the Attorney-General (Dr. Findlay) it may be safely taken for granted that the Act in question will be repealed within the year. A third circumstance which has helped to centre public attention on - the legal profession of late is the two painful eases of misappropriation of trust funds which, have recently come before the courts. It is customary with us to banter members of the profession on the length of -their bills and to rally them on their genius for promoting litigation. ' A lawyer,' says Mr. Dooley,' ' gets ye into throubte by makin' , the . laws and gets ye . out iy throuble be bustin' thim. :Some lawyers only know the holes in the law that makes it as aiscy f'r -a millionaire to keep out iv. the pinitinchry as f'r a needle to eivbher the camel's eye. Lawyers a*e iv'rywhere, even on the Binch,

be havens. They are in the Ligislaohur© seem' that the laws are badly punctuated and in the coorts seein 1 that they're thurly punctured.. They* are in congress makin' the laws and the flaws in. the law's.' This" fairly represents, as we have, said, the sort of badinage that is commonly"^indulged in "regarding the 'devil's own', but "beiow 7 all this the public have "a deep-seated in the honor, and honesty of the profession — a confidence, we are" bound' to say, that is lor the most, "part "entirely deserved. It” is just because the vast majority of the- -profession are scrupulously honorable that the unscrupulous members have so liUle difficulty' in finding victims. The revelations in the two cases above, referred to have set the papers clamoring for legislation to . protect the public. In both cases the offences had extended over a number of years, ami in the Christohurch case the accused deliberately declared* that TThe defalcations could never have been carried out had it not been for the facility offered by the present inadequate provisions of the law as to - solicitors trust accounts.' lie did not, however, indicate in what way the law, should, be amended. It has been suggested that frequent audit of.. solicitors' books by a. public auditor would 'meet the case, but in our judgment ."this would be cumbrous, expensive, and ineffective. The Law Society does what it .can — by striking the -offender off the rolls^rto .mitigate the evil, but it can only act after, the offence has been discovered and, the mischief has been done. So far as we can see the trouble ~is one which cannot be fully met by legislation and the only effective remedy is that which the public have in their own hands. Let" then!" be scrupulously careful .in all their dealings with their, solicitor ; let them not, as „is often done, hand over funds for investment! without getting so much as a scrap of paper in acknowledgment ; let them insist on frequqnt statements of the position of their accounts ; in a let them put aside sentiment and proceed onthe strictest business lines in all their transactions, and they will both safeguard their own interests and protect an ancient and. honorable profession' from . a stdgma which it cannot* itself avert, but which it as- - suredly does not deserve. ->-*• The Bible-in-schools— and after - . The other day a deputation — the strongest and weightiest which the Protestant bodies could gather to-gether-r-waited on jtfoe Premier of Victoria with- the .object of inducing him. to' grant an executive referendum on the q-uestion- oif introducing. Scripture lessons into v the State schools, the proposed "-referendum to toe held presumably at -the same time as the coming general election. Mr._ Bent" very properly refused to assume the responsibility of granting such a request ; but as the ' general elections take place in- two. or three months' time the matter will be brought before the new Parlia- ' m^nt, when there .is every possibility of, another legislative referendum being agreed to. If Catholic' claims •were fully satisfied, the action taken 'by the- ~ Protes- . taut bodies on the subject of religious-instruction ;would of 'course be of no particular interest or concern* to. Catholics, but to tax r Catholics for the support of the public schools>"and then -to introduce religious instruc-, tion without making financial provision for Catholic schools would be a horse of quite another- color. That such action would greatly aggravate and intensify the injustice inflicted on Catholics is freely recognised, notonly by ourselves, but by. the great body of- unprejudiced non-Catholics. This point is stated with such clearness, and the inevitable ultimate effect of such lop-sided legislation is brought out with such, fulness and candor in a recent leading article in the . Melbourne ' Argus ' that the excerpt well deserves to be placed on permanent record. -- • • *If the denominations which are asking for the lessons (says our contemporary) obtain in , the State

schools such a modicum of reli'giousi teaching as contents them, the grievance of the Roman Catholics will be greatly intensified. They, will say, " Things were bad enough, for us before.; you have now made, them much" worse. You should not attempt to force us to accept a sysftem "to which on" conscientious grounds we p.re strongly opposed ; so, since you have . made, a change that . drives .us further away from your schools, you should, in justice, give us a separate grant, so that we may educate our. children according to the demands, of our .own faith." The refusal to do this would give the Roman Catholics a cry which in time wotild become irresistible. They would assert that they were oppressed for conscience's sake, and, ultimately, the p£o- . pie as a. whole would be compelled to yield their point. ~~ 'No community living under free political institutions could absolutely shut its ears to the plea of those who consider themselves downtrodden Ultimately, therefore, a tundaunental reorganisation of the educational system would have to be made, and the Roman Catholic claims would have to be conceded. So long as no change is made in the secular principle, no demand for a separate grant will be listened to 'by Parliament, and properly so, too ; but once break down the Act, and a great stride will have been taken towards reintroducing^ denominational ism. Probably the leaders of- the Protestant Churches who desire the introduction of Scrip- , ture teaching do not see the full effect of their proposal from this point of view. If, however, thei, Roman Catholics obtained a separate grant, the State would be found to be subsidising the teaching " of doctrines of their Church iro their schools, but — their Church' and \ their Church only would be so favored. No other denomination would have religious teaching in such full measure at the State expense. In the State schools generally the religious instruction would be of a nondescript character—neither Church of England, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, or Baptist — since, in order to agree upon some form of lessons, those denominations would "nave to give up the specific doctrines in which they differ from each other. The outlook, therefore, is very unpromising, and it is not merely to be feared — indeed, it seems certain — that we shall, be forced back to denominationalism (from which we thought we had escaped in the early seventies), with this difference, that the Roman Catholics will be stronger than ever.' * Home Economics ' . A very ambitious scheme to scope with the perennial problem of women's housework has recently been broached in Ghris.tchur.ch, and is now in a fair way to be carried into effect. Mr. John Studholme, a Canterbury philanthropist, having been impressed with the great value of the . established course of Home Economics in the American Universities, offered to the Board of Governors of Canterbury College to pay £200 a year if the authorities would find the remaining £400 required to pay the salary- of a Lady Professor of Domestic Science. The authorities accepted the offer, Miss Crilchrist of the University of Tennessee • is to be communicated with, and the new chartr of Home Economics will be a reality within the year. The course of study will^ comprise all that pertains to the home, such as : • The proper- feedirig of infants, the proper kinds and cmantities of foods for different ages and seasons, and the ', composition and cost .of foods, the durability," making, cutting, "sewing, mending . and washing of clothes, the bandaging of wounds, and " first-aid, the warmth, ventilation, lighting, plumbing, and everything connected ' with the health, beauty and cleanliness of the house.' We have not much sympathy with the modern craze for' rushing all our girls, without • discrimin!atic|n, through secondary schools and university, holding that it is the almost certain prelude to overwork and'nervbus break-down and that, as they afterwards usually

settle down to married li-fe, it is at best very largely a waste of time. We think that there was a vast

amount of hard common sense in the American humororist's ,idea , when he said : * If- Billings understands human hatur, and he thinks he duz, thare aint nothing that a_. true woman Juvs more than the .hole of a man's harte ; and, in order tv git this, she. haz got tv kno less than he duz, or . mailc him tfiinik so. I haven't enny doubt that you could eddicate wummin so muchly that they wouldn't kno enny more about getting dinner than sum ministers ov the Gospil kno about preaching, and while ' they ' might translate

one oy .Virgil's ecklogues tv .a spot, they couldn't., translate a baby out ov a kradle, without, letting it cum apart.'. If, however, the higher education of, women must come it is at least desirable that it should come, as the new scheme proposes, on practical lines and in a direction that will be of some service to them in after life.