Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 13 March 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

Catholic Federation Last week the delegates from all the provinces of New Zealand assembled in Dunedin for the meeting of the Federation. » The fickle weather of the south was at its best, and the visitors saw the picturesque city and the surrounding district under most favorable conditions. They were enthusiastic over the progress made here by the Church and marked by so many striking monuments in the shape of churches, schools, and hospices for young and old. They will take home with them pleasant memories of the drive round Dunedin and its suburbs, and, perhaps, understand always why southerners are so proud of the scenic beauties of their city, of the drive through native bush which circles about the hills, and of the glorious glimpses of landscape and seascape from the heights of Roslyn or Maori Hill. The Solemn High Mass on Wednesday morning was a fitting opening for the events of the Dominion meeting. The choir was strong in numbers and in quality, and the preacher by his eloquent words cooperated with ceremonies and music in making those present feel proud that they belonged to the fold of the Catholic Church. The public meeting on Thursday night was attended by a large and attentive audience, filling the parterre and galleries of His Majesty's Theatre. Non-Catholics who were present must have been impressed by the logical arguments in favor of our Catholic educational system and by the appeal made to all other members of Christian bodies to imitate us not only in maintaining religious schools but also in compelling the Government to exercise ordinary justice in its dealings with such schools. The addresses were an object lesson of the fact that we are content to go on minding our own business and that we interfere with nobody unless we are forced to do so in selfdefence. Dean Burke's address was a model of close reasoning, relieved here and there by a flash of Irish wit which told effectively; Father John O'Connell's forcible presentation of the Catholic claim for common justice was clear and convincing, and heard with intense interest by the audience; Mr. Reddington acquitted himself well and needs only experience to make him an effective lecturer; Mr. Poppelwell, in his usual lucid manner, put before his hearers the object, the aims, the scope, the methods of the Federation, and alluded briefly to some of the good work it had already accomplished. We recommend our readers to study the addresses, which will be published in the Tablet in due order.

r Soup Not the least striking part of Father O'Connell's address was his castigation of that narrow-minded body of Civil Servants who, shirking competition with private schools, recently went out of their way, with gross impertinence, to ask the Government to create a monopoly in their favor: a plain confession of their worthlessness for any man to read. What the Teachers' Executive did in regard to educational matters was already done down here in another sphere by teachers whose schools had been so thoroughly thrashed in open athletic competitions by our boys; Scheming of this kind always defeats its own purpose, and there could be no better. argument for the superiority of the private school in every department. We can beat the others at games, and we can at least hold our own with the bast of them in education ; beyond that we have what they have not— real foundation of true education, the real secret of the formation of Christian character. Now we wonder if it is as an effort to bolster up his staggering system that the Minister of Education makes his last brilliant proposal. He has thrown out a suggestion that in the future pupils attending _his schools will get a plate of soup ! That is reminiscent of what was done, in the land of our Minister's ancestors in bygone days. Does he forget that when the Irish people were starving and English soldiers carting away the

corn which could save them there came among the poor suffering women and children a gang of Pharisaical ladies and gentlemen who were ready to save the lives of whatever hungry, children would take, with the soup, a Protestant Bible. History repeats itself. Take an irreligious school, dear people of New Zealand, and your children can have a plate of soup.

What Simpson Said We have assisted at many a Catholic Synod and at half a hundred conferences in our time, and though free discussion was allowed we do not remember one single case in which any speaker bothered , his head about the doings of his Protestant brethrenno, not even in Ireland, Where once an honest parson stood .'.on his feet and told his Primate that his ravings about Catholic bigotry were directly contrary to fact. ... On the other hand we find it hard to recall a case in which a Presbyterian Assembly has not gone out of its way to make unwarranted and uncharitable attacks on Catholics. There is no doubt that it would not be easy to find a more respectable and learned body than the Presbyterian ministers in general; but, as the old Irishman said, there are a few queer fellows in every crowd, and in this case the shape taken by the queerness is to attack people who take no more notice of the attacks as a rule than a cow does of the. flies on her horns. Reading casually the accounts of the proceedings at the Assembly recently held, as days went by we began to wonder if the record was going to be broken and not a single offensive word said about us. But the usual thing happened in the usual way. One fine day, when a Mr. Durward set the ball rolling, a certain Mr. Simpson, who was very uncertain of his facts, took the floor and went for us with head down and horns bristling. He told his appalled hearers an awful story about the bigoted ways of those horrible Gore Papists: a gory Gore story it was indeed. There was a picturesque detail about "second-hand" eggs; there were accusations about Popish plots to break up meetings and to prevent free speech ; there was a war cry for the Orange Lodge which helped the poor old Kaiser to his undoing a few years ago and there was a sort of subconscious suggestion that the right man in the right place for all good Presbyterians to follow was the hero of the filthy letters, the man publicly stigmatised as a cad by a magistrate and afterwards castigated'by members of Parliament, with as much effect as he had been in deed horsewhipped by the brother of a dead girl whose fair name he had attempted to blacken. It is not recorded how the Assembly received the manifestation of the symptoms of Simpson; but we can imagine the sheer disgust of all the honest men there on hearing such an outrageously silly and offensive rigmarole. We have made inquiries and have been assured that there was not a single word of truth in what Simpson said. And if more than our word were needed there is the fact that a respectable non-Catholic clergyman of Gore has written to protest against such malignant and baseless fabrications. Such a thing had to come, we suppose. There is something strange in a system which admits among scholarly and broadminded clergymen one who is capable of uttering such offensive and untruthful nonsense. It is no concern of ours how to explain it, but surely the responsible persons ought to look to it. It does them no credit; it is a stain on them all. And surely it : is time to recognise that the day is gone when .decent people can be gulled any longer by individuals who pretend that the work of a minister is to scarify Papists and curse the Pope with bell and book.. There are bigger things than that for the Churches to tackle. Some of them ought to take a leaf out of our book and confine themselves to the preaching of the Gosnel- Tn the meantime the Catholics of Gore ought to get out the band and welcome Mr. Simpson home after his effort; for there is no room for doubt that we have no better friends than people like himself and Elliott, and that latter-day apostle of culture, the mellifluous Earnshaw. The Catholic Federation ought send them a testimonial for services rendered.

The Decalogue Committee -A- circular has been forwarded to us by a correspondent, and as it is a new thing in the way of circulars it calls for some comment. It gives the following extract from a New York publication called the Danville Instructor: * - "In nearly every part of the Broad British Empire provision is made in the official syllabus issued by the various educational departments for the children to learn in school hours the Ten Commandments. Many of the State school authorities encourage the displaying of the laws on the walls of the schoolrooms. Our attention is called to this by a circular from Wellington, New Zealand, sent out by the 'Decalogue Committee,' urging that the laws of that State be made conformable with those of other parts of the Empire, and provision be made for the repetition or memorising of these in the school. They urge that ' a knowledge of these laws is in the interests of character-building and good citizenship, and is also an aid to good government. ' "

t - It then goes on to say that the children of the New Zealand State schools are not taught the Ten Commandments, which are the foundation of British laws, and it is urged that members of Parliament, in esse and. in posse, should be worried until they have copies, of the Ten Commandments supplied free to all schools. Now the first thing that occurs to us is to say that it is certainly a shameful state of affairs that our "system" does not include the Decalogue; but as _ things go in this country it is not a wonderful thing. The fact is that so many laws are made here with disregard for the Ten Commandments that our politicians could hardly afford to educate the children by grounding them on fundamental laws which would show them how wrong Parliament-made laws often are. There is no doubt that the children ought to be taught the Ten Commandments, and no less doubt that they ought to be taught those elementary truths of religion which supply the sanction of the Commandments in the minds and hearts of the young. But as it is clearly contrary to the principles of our legislators to do anything so sane and so right we beg to make another suggestion. It is this: 'the Ten Commandments ought to be framed and hung up prominently in both Houses of our Parliament and all members ought to be examined on them by a policeman every morning. A little reflection will show how badly this coaching is needed.l. They have in their blind groping made an idol of the State. 2. They have by banishing God from the schools undermined respect for His Holy Name. 3. They have encouraged atheism so as to make it a matter of indifference to many people whether or no they go to church on Sunday. 4. They have weakened the bonds of love and reverence between parents and children. 5. They have introduced Militarism and done violence to the life and liberty of the subject. .6. They have removed the fear of God and made the way easy for corruption. 7. They have taxed blood and been afraid to tax capital. 8. They have called on men to die. for small nations while being, bv their shameful silence, accessories to the murder of a small nation. 9. They have fostered unbelief and destroyed the foundations of social purity. 10. They have been more intent on holding their well-paid posts than on striving after justice. .. When Members of Parliament realise that the Ten Commandments are not a dead letter, and that they must be made in reality the foundation of law and order; when they act as if they believed that a knowledge of the Law of God is more necessary for children than posturing before a flag: when they begin to display some consciousness of the trust reposed in them, and of the obligations they are under to God, it may then be hoped that they will rise to the level expected of them by the Decalogue Committee. At present there is no sign that they care two pins whether children know the law of God or not.

Fablegrame and Gulls From our reading of .the day lies for the past week or so we have been more than ever convinced that some benevolent millionaire ought to found a home for doting journalists in New Zealand. We have so long passed the stage when people ceased to take the fablegrams of the infamous Harmsworth gang seriously that it would not be correct to say that the press deceives the people. Once it was officially admitted by the witless and humorless colleagues of that pushful Welsh politician, who surpasses Eroude as an imaginative artist and Pitt as a verbal contortionist, that a machine had been devised and highly financed for the express purpose of controlling news and issuing only what the greatest bunglers in the world deemed good for the inhabitants of the antipodes to read, there was an end to all efforts to find out the truth by following the press : it was ipso facto admitted that instead of being a medium for spreading reliable tidings, the press had been perverted into an instrument for fabricating fairy tales. After that was firmly established, most sensible persons gave up reading the paper at breakfast and ordered a supply of Penny Dreadfuls. Just as a tumbler or a juggler does not reach a high degree of perfection without considerable preparation, so the press required some time and much practice before it attained its present mastery of the' art of uttering drivel in the most staid manner. Consider whither we have arrived ! Monday's paper tells us that President Wilson declared at a dinner at White House that the press (as known to us) was right all the blessed time and that the persecution of Ireland and the policy of exterminating a nation was purely a domestic matter which the Brithuns should be allowed to conduct in their own insane fashion, just as New Zealand should be permitted to support two gorgeous tourists if that sort of thing appeals to it. Then it was discovered that President Wilson was receiving a deputation of Irishmen, come to lay before him the views of the great free population of his country, concerning the advisability of taking John Bull by the neck and kicking a conscience into him, or in some other suitable way administering punishment to the bully, and our fablegrams straightway told us that the first report was not true at all— if any sane person ever believed it was !' A few days brought evidences of a wonderful improvement in the imaginative quality of the news. A Penny Dreadful was snatched up and duly "swotted" by some Harmsworth journalist, and behold! an account of the escape of de Valera that might be utilised by any penny gaff play-writer was circulated throughout all the British Dominions. In the early days of the war one journalist used to take pages of the history of the English atrocities in Ireland under Cromwell and Elizabeth and give them to the public as the doings of the Hun in Belgium. And the English people and their fellow dupes overseas went wild when they were told that their German cousins were now doing what their ancestors used to do in the past. The Irish hack-writer who hit on that scheme had many a quiet laugh at the hypocrisy of the press and its readers. What a rollicking time the man who invented the yarn about de Valera's escape must have had ! And the material was all so stale and so old ! An impression of a key taken by some friend ; a pretty girl and an amorous sentry; a decoy motor speeding north, pursued by bloodhounds and panting warders; de Valera watching the chase himself from the window of the house across the way! And yet it took several days before it dawned on the gulls that the whole thing was a fabrication. Beyond the statement, on top of the columns, that a paper is published on such a day what else can one believe now You cannot rely on the time-table given for sailings of ships; only those who have been taken in by advertisements for universal panaceas realise that advertisement columns are a delusion and • a snare ; the anonymous letters speak for themselves ;■'. the editorial comments are according to the cables which are, in turn, according to Northcliffe. The consequence is that most people prefer Comic Cuts or Ally Sloper to the daylies. They arc right. > : ,