CARDINAL LOGUE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 11

CARDINAL LOGUE

AMERICAN METHODS OF INTERVIEWING One portion of the American press (says the ' Bendigo Independent ', Victoria) is corrupt. Another portion is merely sensational and mischievous, whilst a third portion combines the three vices of corruptness, sensationalism, and mischief. We do not know with what class of American journal the reporter was connected who interviewed Cardinal Archbishop Logue, the Catholic Primate of Ireland. As the Cardinal would not have paid money to the journal for publishing the interview, as company promoters, speculators in theatrical enterprises, and nobodies wishing to get into ' society ' frequently do when dealing with corrupt newspapers, the inference is that the paper in question belongs to the sensational and mischievous class. Probably no one was more astonished than himself when he read the report of the alleged interview. Possibly no interview whatever took place. It is not necessary that the literary individuals who are detailed for this work should see and speak with the people they profess to interview. He is a poor sort of New York ' interviewer ' who, when told what a man's name, nationality, and business or profession is, cannot throw together a column or two from his own imagination and pass it off as the opinions of the person whose, name he has taken such liberties with. If the aggrieved party resents it, he has no redress. The newspaper will not publish a disclaimer, and he cannot get one published in other journals, because one paper cannot have its space taken up with matters which are beyond the knowledge of its own readers. Usually the ' interviewed ' people enjoy the performances of the journalistic artists who undertake the work. For 'interviewing ' has long since become one of the fine arts in the great republic. We have seen in these ' interviews' quite modest and ordinary Australians elevated to the dignity of great men, and have seen the individuals on whom such ephemeral greatness was passed exhibiting copies of the interviewing paper to their friends and all laughing together. Humor rather than mischief was the predominant feature in such cases. But when a prelate of Cardinal Logue's position and reputation is taken in hand by one of these interviewers, and he is made to attack the British Empire, and Ireland itself as part of the Empire as well as Irish who are settled in British countries beyond seas, the irresponsible impudence of American journalism is graphically illustrated. The Yankee interviewer made the hitherto politic and courteous Cardinal talk like a low-class spread-eagling politician of the last generation. . . 'He saw signs,' the Cardinal is said to have said, ' of Great Britain's certain dissolution. The colonies were restive. Australia to-day is practically independent, and the trend every moment is more and more in the direction of absolute rebellion. New Zealand is indifferent, and Canada is legislating! in a manner showing her desire to conduct her business in her own way. The fires of rebellion have been lighted in India, and men and women are being hanged for daring to advocate the neverdying doctrine of freedom. 1 Cardinal Logue could have never given voice to such nonsense. His position compels him to be possessed of accurate information when he speaks on political matters. ' But the interviewing New York journalist is bound by no such restrictions, hence we have his absurdly imaginative picture of men and women being hanged in India, and ,of Australia

• - - 'trending every moment to absolute -rebellion. 1 It is too ridiculous to require a serious denial. True it is that Britain's great , colonies are all practically independent. It is with the full consent and wish of the mother country that they are sol So far from interfering with colonial- military and naval development, Great Britain is doing- all it can to inspire and encourage the big and progressive over-sea colonies, states, and federations under the flag to make a serious commencement., with their own defences. She is doing this in order that the whole Empire may be the more secure from outside aggression. Of internal discontent with the suzerainty of England there is In -Aus" tralia the fear is not that the British Parliament is likely to encroach on ' out self-governing institutions, but* that because of the crushing and increasing growth of the cost of maintaining the navy an intimation may at an early date be conveyed to the Commonwealth that it must henceforth be prepared to spend a crown or a half-sovereign on naval defence where hitherto it spent a shilling. What, therefore, has Australia to rebel against ? It would be curious, indeed, to find an English-speaking community rebelling against its own defence. But the theme is too ridiculous to be further pursued. A . Yankee sensational journalist has been occupying himself by resurrecting the ' effete England ' notion, and has used Cardinal Logue as his mouth-piece. The local politics of England and Ireland are of comparatively little interest to Australian-born and educated people, but, in a general sense, enough is known of the Irish Primate to guarantee that lie would not in New York utter thoughts and sentiments which he has never yet done in Dublin.