Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 17 July 1913, Page 21

Current Topics

The Government and the Nelson System It. looks as if the Government were prepared to take"' not only a definite, but also a determined stand on the education question. Last week the Prime Minister intimated that the Government did not intend to introduce legislation this session enabling a referendum to be taken on the Bible in State Scnools League's proposals; and now we find the Cabinet taking a similar position in regard to a suggestion that the facilities for adopting what is known as the ' Nelson system ' should be extended. The Minister of Education, as we learn from the daily papers, replying to Mr. McCa.llum, on Thursday last, said that it was not. intended to introduce legislation empowering school committees to adopt the Nelson school scheme of reading in schools.' At present the final power of granting or withholding permission to re-arrange the school hours so as to . allow the adoption of the Nelson system rests with the Education Boards, who are, of course, elected by the members of the school committees.

Dr. Gibb and the Nelson Presbytery ' Shall I come to you with a rod V wrote the Apostle long ago to the Corinthians and in much the same strain writes the Rev. Dr. Gibb to the Nelson Presbytery, though he is not an Apostle, and happens to have no . jurisdiction whatever over the body which he chastises. The offence of the Nelson Presbytery—and, in particular, of the Rev. J. H. Mackenzie, Presbyterian" minister of Nelson—is that they have stood firm in opposition to the Bible in State Schools League's proposals, and this , notwithstanding that the Presbyterian Assembly has, to a greater or less degree, given in its formal adhesion to the proposed scheme. The Rev. Isaac Jolly, in the columns of the look, has had a heart to heart talk with Mr. Mackenzie over his deplorable lapse, but the Nelson minister has remained obdurate; whereupon the Rev. Dr. Gibb comes along to denounce the offender for flouting the authority of his Church. The nature of his philippic may be gathered from the reply which it has evoked from the Kirk Session of Mr. Mackenzie's church, in which, in the current issue of the Outlook, they ' protest against the unchristian attack of the Rev. Dr. Gibb.' We quote a portion of the Kirk Session's fetter: 'ln this week's Outlook Dr. Gibb says:—"l relate what I know when I say that there is a widespread feeling of indignation at the action of the Rev. J. H. MacKenzie, of Nelson." What is this but attempt at intimidation, with promise of persecution? Why are the other members of the Nelson Presbytery left out of the "indignation," and also Mr. Caughley, elder and Sunday school teacher, and Mr. J. Aitken, elder and Sunday school teacher? Doubtless, because Mr. MacKenzie is Clerk of Assembly, and draws a salary. For the salary he is expected to do the work of the clerkship, and, according to Dr. Gibb, and those who agree with him, he is also to sell his conscience and his convictions. ,If he thinks.the Assembly is making a blunder, he must not say so; if he believes that another form of Bible in Schools is better than the League's scheme, he must keep his opinions to himself, or he will discover what "indignation" means. . . . Our worthy and respected minister is quite able to defend his loyalty to the Assembly, both in what it has done, and what it has not done. We write to appeal to all in our Church who believe in religious liberty to let Dr. Gibb and his admirers understand that if there is to be persecution, they will know the reason why.' * Dr. Gibb as a stickler for Church authority is essaying a new and entirely unaccustomed role. It is not so very many years ago since this same reverend gentleman declared from a Dunedin pulpit that 'the doctrine of predestination, as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith, was revolting to his very soul '—thus defying, not only the New Zealand Assem-

bly, but the historical standards of the whole Presbyterian Church. Most people will sympathise with th« reverend doctor in this outspoken . utterance; but one would hardly expect, from the same source, a ! homily on the duty of obedience to church authority. The « Unity ' Congress Fiasco V. The Labor ' Unity Congress which opened at Wei-. lington on July 1, has at r last concluded its sittings. Four hundred delegates attended; and in point of - numbers it was, beyond question,- the largest Labor conference ever held in the'; Dominion. The gathering was supposed to be 1 representative of practically all sections of the Labor world; and its"object was to endorse, with such modifications of detail as might be deemed necessary, a ' basis of unity' which had been circulated amongst the various unions, and to consolidate all the Labor bodies in ; the Dominion' into one grand united organisation which should, in the near future, carry all before it. Broadly 1 speaking, there were two sections contending for supremacy in the world of Labor organisation in this country—the Federation of Labor, representing the extreme, syndicalist, revolutionary element, and the United Labor Party, representing the moderate, law-abiding, evolutionary section of the Labor. movement. Both parties had pitched their expectations • high in regard to the ' Unity' Congress. The organ of the Federation of Labor—-the Mdoriland Worker — rhapsodised over the possibilities opened up by the adoption—at a preliminary conference held in Januaryof the '. basis" of unity ' before referred to: 'The signal triumph represented in the acceptance of Industrial Unionism, not only in form of organisation, but in principles, can only be acclaimed as the gift„ of the gods. ... In other words, there is One Big Union— we have preached, what we have wished, what we were ready to fight and die for." The members of the United Labor Party were almost equally elated at the sure prospectas they . considered— accomplishing the long-desired consummation of unity in the ranks of Labor. ' The solidarity of Labor,' wrote Mr. W. T. Mills, the National Organiser of the Party, ' demands the consolidation of the Labor organisations. To expect unity among the workers and to maintain at the same time opposing organisations composed of workers is absurd. There is substantial agreement among the workers of New Zealand in a large number of matters which sorely need to be undertaken. Those who are thus united in their convictions, if united in A action would be absolutely resistless both in the field £ of industrial and of political activity. The one thJMj|« essential to the triumph of Labor is the unity ofLgjjl This conference will mark the end of fadß controversy in the Labor movement, and ' will ■ the beginning of the speedy- triumph of Labor jfl country.' S The actual outcome of the Congress furnibH strange commentary on these predictions. It is aflj that the ' Red Feds ' — the members of the FededH of Labor are —packed the Congress and stirH discussion by persistently and unscrupulously 'closuringH important resolutions. Whatever were the means ployed, the fact is unmistakablethat the Federation " dominated the Congress, and : succeeded in getting their characteristic- principles—industrial unionism, the general strike, etc.,definitely endorsed. The result—considering that this was -a Unity Congress—somewhat surprising. The delegates of the Amalgamated Society of Railway. Servantsrepresenting 8000 members a very early stage of the proceedings withdrew from the gathering. More or less representative Labor leaders as the Hon. G. Fowlds, Mr. D. McLaren, M.P., and others—Wrote intimating that they could have no connection with the new party. Fifty-five Of the delegatesled by the Hon. J. T. Paul—met at the close of the Congress and decided to withdraw their adhesion to the new organisation and to continue the old ' United Labor Party.' The net result of the Congress was thus to make confusion worse confounded. The Congress had met to achieve unity, and it achieved —chaos, Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the

proceedings was the volte face executed by Mr. W. T. Mills, of, Milwaukee, who - had been imported, at a high remuneration, for the express purpose of welding Labor into one solid, united body on constitutional and law-abiding lines. In -pursuance of this design he had established what called the United ; Labor Party... The Federation of Labor —through its organ, the Maoriland Worker —had described the Mills organisation as 'a Yankee fake.' Mr. Mills, not to be outdone in politeness, had described ■ the Federationists as 7 ' semi-Anarchists;' Yet at the Congress Mr. Mills gave himself over, body and soul, to the Federation faction, and even called for cheers when their victory was assured. He was subsequently appointed one of the paid organisers for the new party. Truly, for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain ' the heathen Chinee is not in it with some of our American importations. . ■{■■->. ■'■; * : The lesson of this Unity ' Congress for reasonable intelligent, law-abiding Laborites, wno wish to work for the betterment of working-class conditions along legitimate lines, is unmistakable. Oil and water cannot mix; and it is neither possible nor desirable that there should be anything approaching a fusion between constitutional Labor and the apostles of lawlessness and revolution. The moderate party have made an honest and earnest effort to bring about unity and they have failed. If this ' Unity ' Congress fiasco has finally brought home to them the lesson that, for reasonable men, the* Federation of Labor is an impossible proposition, their experience, disagreeable as it has been, will have,been very well worthwhile. Sapping the Foundations At the present moment two movements are in operation, over widely extended areas, which threaten in a gravely serious degree to undermine the very foundations of civilised society. ' The first movement shows itself in the abandonment of 1 the time-honored principle of respect; for law and order, and in the unhesitating resort to violence as a kind of short cut or royal road to the redress of "every possible sort of grievance, real or imaginary. It is well exemplified in the recent doings of the British suffragettes.. It is about seven years since the modern sutiragette movement was inaugurated in England by the establishment of the W.S.P.U. —the Women's Social and Political Union-with Mrs. Pankhurst, widow of Dr. Pankhurst, and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, wife of a wealthy barrister, its leading spirits. The W.S.P.U. was established HB|carry on a ' militant' movement, as distinguished El the constitutional movement which has been so ■ led by Mrs. Fawcett. At first the ' militancy ' was to interrupting and interjecting at political Hngs. Then attempts were made to forcibly enter rry on a ' militant' movement, as distinguished the constitutional movement which has been so led by Mrs. Fawcett. At first the ' militancy ' was led to interrupting and interjecting at political ngs. Then attempts were made to forcibly enter louse of Commons with a view to presenting in Hbn a petition on the subject of the suffrage ; and about B same period the practice was adopted of throwing HRnes through the windows of the residences of Cabinet Htinisters, the stones being wrapped in paper on which Jwere written the words, 'Votes for Women.' A little over two years ago a grand coup was planned. The call was —secretly, of course the women of the W.S.P.U. to come out in their thousands on a given day for a window-smashing campaign in London. The idea was that there would be such a vast army of participants that arrest would be quite impossible, and it was conceived that the destruction would be on such

a grand scale that even the conservative British public would be impressed with the necessity of immediately granting the women's demand. Instead of thousands, however, only a few scores of women responded to tie summons-; and the ring-leaders were easily arrested. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, one of the most gifted women in the movement, at once perceiving that if resort was to be had to physical force in this contest the women must of necessity be beaten, withdrew from membership in the W.S.P.U. Since then the 'militants' have been led by Mrs. Pankhurst and her two daughters; and we have had a melancholy record of violence in all conceivable phases, from the /destruction of valuable

pictures and rare orchids to attacks on pillar-boxes, the burning of churches and other historic buildings, , inter-. ference with trains, and the use, of bombs, even to the point of endangering human life. The leaders of this movement are able and educated women, but they have lost their mental and moral balance. For the present, hysteria has marked them for her own. It is bad enough when" the spirit of lawlessness breaks out amongst the lower strata of humanity; when the impulse to violence comes from above, from those whom we have been accustomed to look upon as the pillars and props of the social and moral order, the situation is doubly serious. How quickly the contagion spreads may be gathered from the rapid growth of the doctrine and practice of sabotage, and from the industrial anarchy which has, during the past week, been rampant on the Rand. & ."" *;:'" ■■■: ■:>--'■- ■-' -.- ;.,'■-. ■'.

The other subversive movement is represented by the widespread and growing abandonment of the principles of common morality, and by the all too frequent return to Worse than pagan practices and ideas. It is exemplified in the state of things disclosed a week ago by the police raid on the Melbourne cafes—society ladies, prominent citizens, ■ and women of the demi monde, drinking, smoking, gambling, and consorting together in an orgie of vice and ' pleasure.' The account of the conduct of a number of French women at a great French race meeting latelythe Auteuil Prix de Gras—is an illustration of the same movement; when, as our dailies told us, the majority of the bodices seen did not reach far above the waist, and when a number of women wore absolutely transparent lace skirts disclosing the fact that petticoats had been dispensed with and that beneath the dress the garment worn was theatrical/ tights ! And our Melbourne cafes, bad as they are, are only a poor, pale copy of similar infamous dens in such cities as London, Paris, and New York. Here is a picture of an up-to-date New York ' cabaret,' given by a woman writer, Mary Gilmore Carter, in the New York Freeman's Journal of recent date: ' And now the audiences just emerged from our opera and playhouses, from concert and "movie" halls, must sate gluttonously upon the superfluous sweets and insidious liqueurs of entertainment presented by the "cabaret," an imported feature of restaurant life now indispensable for sustained popularity, and success in New York's dazzling white-light district! And what a feature, judged from the viewpoint of the special attractions it offers! "Turkey-trots" that strike the lowest round of the Terpsichorean ladder, beneath which yawns the eternal grave of immortal souls. Double entendre chansons, no longer echoing from the riotous yet idealistic Latin Quarter, but from the veriest depths of the social sewers, the spiritual slaughter-houses, the moral morgues of Paris, with whose infamy Hades itself rests content; "tango dances," suggestive, immodest even to the incredible degree of shameless public impurity,importations from the Argentine's garish "plaissances," barbaric, beastly, openly reeking with the fires ■and dementia of the accursed, maddened revels of hell.'. * It is a lurid picture, but it is not a new picture in the history of the world. It is the picture of a people from whom God has withdrawn His restraining grace—such a picture as was given long ago by St. Paul, with painful detail, in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans: ' And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense.' It is the picture of a boat left to float with the current and to be carried over the precipice. Into this young country, with its small a*nd scattered population, the .grosser evils above described have not yet come; but come they will, unless we are on our guard. Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of liberty, but of moral health and of civic and national salvation. We are fore-warned : let us see to it that we are fore-armed.