Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 11 April 1912, Page 34

Notes

A New Cry 1 , ; We are all familiar (says the Sacred Heart Review) with the anti-Catholic controversialist who links rum with ‘ Romanism ’; but .a” new type has come to light in the west. This one declares in all seriousness that there is a very close connection between tobacco and ‘Romanism.’ His cry is Quit the use of nicotine and cease helping the Pope.’ So after ‘ Rum and Romanism ’ has outlived its usefulness we are to hear the cry ‘Pipes and Popery.’ " T May Girls Propose . , / " This happens to be leap year; but apart and independent of that interesting fact, an American priest is authority for the statement that a girl is within her rights in asking her sweetheart to marry her either during this year or any other year. Very Rev. F. A. O’Brien, rector of St. Augustine’s Church, Kalamazoo, Mich., recently declared, in the course of an address on marriage, that it was entirely proper for a girl to • ask for an engagement, and that it was wrong, for any young man to go with a girl, for any length of time without marriage in view.- ; -■ .. . ‘ * . ... ’ f . ’ Here are Father O’Brien’s exact words about leap year love affairs: ‘ It is not necessary to wait until leap year to ask a man what he intends doing. Such a question is in order in any year, or at any time. It is of great importance for both parties to know whether they are trifling or in earnest. Keeping company for fun is wrong. _ When a young man . is . too bashful ... or timid to propose, and a young woman realises his position, it would be a great act of kindness and charity, if not a duty on her part, to tell him what is expected. Indefinite action, or postponing -from time, to time, is disastrous to both parties. ■: No engagement holds under such circumstances. No man or woman has a right to ; trifle in this important matter. When one of the parties keep “putting it off,” let him or her be dismissed , without delay, not, however, without such remembrance as would prevent them from repeating their meanness. Long company keeping or engagements are -discountenanced by the Church. Waiting for better circumstances brings much bitterness. The home, to be lovable, should be built by two, not one. A wife should be a helper, not a guest. - Treasures are sought, not picked up by chance. Cursed be the .professional flirt of either sex. The same may be‘said of the professional beau, who dallies with the affection of as many as he can, without any serious intention. It is true, some people keep single to care for their aged parents. God will bless such, but they should keep from trifling, if they want that blessing. A clear understanding at the outset would settle many sorrows that come later.’ ■' V-.'/; ■ - / /■’ ■"'/■--• ■. - Mr. Belloc on the Social Question -- - . " Mr. Hilaire Belloc, though ra',, convinced : - antiSocialist, is a thorough-going advocate' of social reform ; and in his paper, • the Eye-Witness, he has a serious indictment of the social system as it exists in England to-day. ‘We have in this island,’ he says,' ‘about ten million families. Of this ten million, rather less than one million are paying income tax and rather more than one million would be paying it if it ' were", only levied. Some two to three millions—according to the standard you setare objects thrust down, by the vileness of a social system that is dying of its dirt; ; into' a condition far worse than - anything discoverable elsewhere in Christian Europe. Of these two (or three)- millions ; rather more than one million form the outcasts—the very lowest stratum: of: all, below which ; it is impossible : even for industrial- anarchy to reduce men; Why they choose to live is sufficiently - puzzling ; that we -permit

their’.condition is not, as with their immediately more fortunate fellows, a scandal—it is ’ rather a proof 'of final political incompetence. .. Between that, million ,at the top and'that two (or three) millions of refuse—its one million of the utterly lost—stands the bulk of . the: nation/. It includes /from six to seven million families earning a wage in the case of the vast majority grossly insufficient but fairly regular. It . includes thesmall traders, the casual laborers who in one . way and another balance the year it includes also most of the skilled artisans, the shopmen, the great organised trade unions (two million families), the clerks—most of them the lesser salaried men and pensioners. : ' *' ' ' *' •. - - ' ~• ■" -~ r L . ‘ If any statesman really desired the well-being: of this ill-ordered : mass of ten millions; if anyone with the opportunity really wished to raise the standard of the State and to redeem it, he would necessarily begin with the large margin of the helpless, and give them tolerable lives, feed their bodies and warm and house and clothe them into some semblance of citizenship. Our population breeds from its present elements in proportion to their poverty. Our wealthy clashes have - a birth rate far -lower than that of all rival countries except the United States. : Our comfortable classes have a birth rate lower by far than the birth rate in the corresponding class in France. Our increase is from the slums. The Potteries, the denser quarters of Liverpool and Manchester, the East End of London arc the nurseries of our future. Supposing, then, that you are sincerely aiming in any particular at the economic reform of the State it is necessarily with the three or two—debased millions that you are driven to begin; and, of these, with the lowest million - of all.’ ■Vy ' ■ -V ; . ’ I ■■ . '-. ' ' ’ •: -V . . " ’ •’ V •V**7 .-7 : -• Mr. Belloc, argues: that the Insurance Bill should have begun with the most necessitous. They were deliberately neglected, he says. He asks what would it cost to provide the hopeless with 7s 6d a week during certified illness, at least 30s when a child is born, and all the rest of the string of ‘ benefits.’ It would cost more than 4d and less than 5d a week for each person of over 16. Leave out bribes to unnecessary officials, leave out unbuilt and-very doubtful sanatoria, and that sum is ample. The broken million families are, say, two million of adults all told, allowing for the many isolated individuals on one side and the grown families on the other. Two million pounds a year saves them all in that regard. Take in the three million families which are the maximum in such a calculation—six million pounds a year will meet all that need. Why, the tea tax alone—which falls and is designed to fall mainly on the /poor--produces that six millions within a trifle