Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 29 May 1919, Page 14

Current Topics

A Masonic Crime fw'.Sr -o; ■ ■ 1 u It a is - now ascertained ! that the ! assassination a of President • iPaes, the head of ? the Portuguese Government, was the result of ; Masonic plotting. The London Times is compelled to admit the truth, but it pathetically observes that violence begets violence and that the stern- measures of the President were met by? force. The Times does not insist on the important fact that the President was supporting a lawful Government against rebels arid that stern; measures were ! not only legal but necessary. Contrast’ this lame apology for murder with the horrified attitude of the mother of forgers and liars when Irish peasants, driven to fury, take the law into their own hands. President Paes was guilty of the crime of being just to the Catholic Church. That is at once sufficient explanation of the sympathy, hardly hidden, of certain sections of the press with his murderers. The one thing the sun never sets on in the British Dominions is bigotry and dishonesty of that sort. The Empire is so undermined by Masonry and Orangeism at present that Englishmen will have a hard task before them on the day they make up their minds to free their own country. British soldiers fight while the members of a Continental Secret Society and Jews reap the profits and make the laws of the land. Is it any wonder that we have a system of education which frankly aims at killing Christianity ? The army, as any of the returned men will tell you, is honeycombed with secret societies, and the “grip” is often a better claim for promotion than merit. A year ago a high authority said that merit, efficiency, honesty were' the greatest obstacles to a man’s progress in the N.Z. army. Could it be otherwise? Is it otherwise wherever Masonry and its influences get hold on the country ? The Politicians and their Tool A contemporary points out that the latest dodge of the P.P.A. is to split the Labor Party in the interests of the profiteers. It is clear to us that from the first the P.P.A. has been promoted and fostered by the incompetent political party which, to his own shame. Sir Joseph Ward saved from extermination by lending his talents to old and bitter opponents. In a country ridden by wowsers and bigots, as this Dominion is, any politician of the Nosworthy type can secure a number of votes by making outrageous and anti-Christian attacks on his fellows, provided the fellows be Catholics. Catholics and Irishmen stand for honesty and religion so frankly, that the ignorant fringe of the nondescript Churches that stands for nothing good on earth or in heaven , will support any man who is ready to pander to hatred. For three years the aim of the P.P.A. was to stir up the feeling of the rabble of- New Zealand against the Catholic Church, and a fitting leader and, spokesman was found in a man whom a returned soldier horsewhipped for vile calumnies concerning a dead sister. That this person still continues to speak in the South Island for the P.P.A. is sufficient evidence that only those who have abandoned self-respect and decency belong to that organisation, and that he is aided and abetted by certain parsons is proof of the degradation to which religion has fallen in certain Protestant Churches. The P.P.A. has done no harm to Catholics, and it never can. The Church is too big and too. great to be . affected in any way by the tactics of a hired mud-slinger and his backers, .. whose only achievement up to date has Been to draw forth the condemnation of every Protestant who loves truth and justice and abhors deceit and falsehood. The aim now is to get hold of as many laborers as possible with a view to splitting the Party and securing a victory .’ at the next elections for august Orange statesmen who have during the war protected and encouraged the schemers did all in their power to stir,up internal strife in New .Zealand. {3 when, unity ‘ was <, imperative.

These people called on Catholics to go and fight. Catholics did go and fight in numbers which put the wowsets to shame. J Whether the vile and : cowardly f detainer of the dead r will gain a ! following in Labor circles depends . exactly' on t ? the ' self-respect 11 of the , workers. If there be .alarge percentage of returned men among them they -are not likely to forget that when they were fighting in France the chief ‘ spokesman 1 1 of the P.P.A. was busy hex-e at home concocting filthy letters attacking the good name of a sister of one - of their comrades.

A Domestic Concern j.-omis With brazen audacity and with no sense of shame for the crimes of England the hired-press all over : the woi —including that part of it which pursues a dead chaplain to the grave with anti-Catholic spleen—attempted to persuade its readers that the Peace- Conference could not possibly-interfere in favor of Ireland " as her persecution was “a domestic concern” b> for England. In America the British spies went so far as to assert that the President had actually expressed this view himself—an assertion followed immediately by a denial from White House in which 1 the ; statement was branded as a malicious falsehood. - Orange and anti-Catholic effrontery, which during this' war have manifested to the nations the spectacle of Britain in the role of a tyrant while inviting men to fight for freedom, never stops at a malicious falsehood, d The descendants of “the scum of England and Scotland” are too intent on their own selfish ends and on hating Catholics to bother about such trifles as telling the truth ; and has not their official patron, Lloyd George, established an agency of lies over which the GermanOrange rebel Carson was given control-in the interests of truth of course ? However, another consideration will serve to illustrate the radical perversity and dishonesty of the gang of Brithuns who are deserving the gallows at the hands of an outraged British Democracy. Article 11 of the League of Nations reads: Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting the high contracting parties or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the League, and the high contracting parties 'reserve the right to take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. It-is hereby also declared and ay reed to he the friendly right of each of the high contracting 'parties ' r to draw attention of the Body of Delegates or of the Executive Council to any stances affecting international intercourse which threaten to disturb international peace or the (food understanding between nations upon which, peace depends. jo When the League agreed upon this clause it would almost seem as if the men who drafted it had in , mind the squirming Brithuns who want a monopoly of the right to persecute and plunder if they can make out that it ■is only in “domestic concerns” they exercise it. Here it is clearly laid down that the Powers have the right to interfere even in ■: “domestic concerns” for the sake of international peace and good understanding between nations. And even to the dense intelligence of a Lloyd George it ought to be obvious now that the lesson of American history is that the men who once threw off the yoke of British despotism will never rest while the land of the soldiers who played, the largest part in helping to win that victory is . ground * down as cruelly as ever .was. Russia, under the tyranny of the Czar. : In saying; this we are presuming - that English statesmen read history and .use their reason, r although we ; are; aware that facts tend ,to convince an impartial : observer. r that reason is above and beyond; them in all their doings. . . t * ~ ' • .'•ld din Extreme Labor Views

Extremes beget extremes. i The Plutocracy i has begotten the -Internationale. 1 If i .there are Labor views which are? dangerous and unsound it ids- only because! i , .-• .. . t-v- • ’ r * . - - - V*•

o.iiuau xuui vH v-.* ffnwuw ,u<-> y.rvjuaM acwi there are profiteers who f are unjust and ;J unscrupulous. Whatever said against Socialism let us never forget . that / it. has at its , root r a great, crying wrong, and that after'.. all it jis only , a blind, bitter [attempt to hit..back hard at its foes. .. The pity is . that Labor could not 1 be guided to hit . back; effectively and wisely, -in , a manner that would help itself and . injure, nobody. . Extremes seldom help anyone and as s a rule they hinder .others promiscuously. And the extreme measures .to which Labor is trending in many countries are unlikely to be for the ultimate benefit of the movement and are almost certain to cause great harm to-innocent people. What we all want {is . a remedy, i not an annihilation. We want a sound, safe form of government, but we do not want anarchy ; > and it is towards \ anarchy that extreme . Labor is moving nowadays. What we want is reconstruction, not destruction. The Internationale. is out for the latter and does not pause to discuss whether existing systems can .be improved or not. They stand for views which not- only humanity as a whole -but also sane Labor rejects as opposed to progress i and stability. They aim at * the abolition of rights- which would make the individual, subservient to the State and would introduce tyranny as bad if not worse .than that of Plutocracy. Sane Labor has its work cut out to keep apart from incompetent and unphilosophical anarchists who neither realise nor care whither they are going and who are deaf to all argument and reason. It is precisely from such persons that-sane Labor suffers most, and we have known even here its defeat at an election because of the thoughtless and foolish speech of an uneducated speaker who did not know what he meant himself. From such persons and their violent words Labor receives hard blows and no little injury. The common sense of the community is against violent talk and violent threats, and who shall blame it The Plutocracy certainly does not aim at human welfare, and as much may be said of the anarchical agitators on the fringe of Labor. What we all want is a via media in which all can meet with a reasonable hope of promoting the common good. The common weal should be the test. Whatever is opposed to it should be condemned by all, no matter of what party they are. And the root of true progress and welfare must always be a jealous safeguarding of the rights and liberties of individuals and of families—rights founded on the law of nature and on God’s charter to humanity . which no human power can abolish without disaster. Anarchy is as dangerous as Plutocracy, and the Servile State is as bad as either. Surely the good sense and the intelligence of communities ought to find a way out on which all can work together for the common good and for the well-being of their country. Somewhere between the injustice of the profiteers and the anarchy of the extremists lies a Golden Mean which should supply a meeting place for-- all classes With proper and just restrictions placed on the ’ rapacity of capitalists, with an honest effort on the part of Labor to develop instead of destroying human liberty class war ought to abate sufficiently for all to get breathing time enough to reflect on the fundamental principles of the eternal laws which all must observe if the world is to remain safe and-sane at all. Class needs the help of class instead of its enmity. Self-sacrifice is • demanded on both sides for the common 'good, and without self-sacrifice there can be but selfishness which is the radical cause of all social evils.; In a word education is the panacea. Our schools have led the world astray. Our politicians have !; taught children that there is no God and that His : law does not matter. Until that wrong is righted we shall have disorder and disaster, morally and socially. ’ And, here again, without a doubt the blame lies with 1 the place-hunters and the fawning figureheads who sell their souls for votes from an ignorant rabble.

The Italian i “Popular Party Vre ; ; -msyiWxH ewe Some weeks . ago ? the Liberal' and V anti-Catholic Italian papers were rejoicing for;some?reason over their own announcement that a Catholic Party*, loyal in

perfect adhesion |to the State and independent of: all ecclesiastical authority, ha,d -been formed. As usual the canard was cabled across .. the...., world and even reached us out here. In the issue of La Civiltd Gattolica for February 15, we find an article • setting forth the truth that lies at; the foundation of this exaggeration.- As, far back as 1896, among, a section iof i young Italians a movement, was -visible; which' was the remote origin ,of the recent rumor. •In that year it was stated in- Milan that > Catholic 'public social 1 activity ought to aim'd at the conquest ?of political power. -cAw young journalist jof j great promise in those days more than once . told us of his dreams in this directiondreams, alas, that had a termination that none of us could then foresee, in his ;case. The movement met with opposition, yet under its extreme views lay a germ; of sound policy inasmuch as it aimed at uniting Catholic forces in a way that would enable them to do, effective work for the salvation of society. A combination of effort on the part of all lovers of good order , and morality was eminently desirable to restore public life and to renew the force of the principles of Christian civilisation in Italy. The need for this was felt by all thoughtful meneven by liberals and anti-clericals who loved Italy. After the revolutionary, troubles of 1904 Pius X. saw it so clearly that for the security of the public order he. consented to allow Catholics, under certain conditions, -to take an active part in politics, from which they had withheld so far as a protest against the usurpation of the . Government. One of the conditions laid down by the Pope was that no formal Catholic Party should be formed, either within or out of Parliament, so that no deputy could come forward as the representative of the Catholics, and much less as the spokesman of the clergy. Accordingly, Catholics voted for whatever candidate they judged likely to support order and morality, even when the candidate was known to be opposed to them in other ways. The Pope’s permission was a provisional measure, suggested by conditions which were changeable. The conditions, as a matter of fact, changed for the worse both before and since the war : the danger of anarchical, revolution became more imminent throughout the whole nation. The permission given after 1904 was restricted and conditioned by ecclesiastical authority. For various reasons this particular dispensation did not seem any longer to meet the case, so aggravated had the social evils become; nor was it deemed wise that even so indirectly as by such remote intervention the ecclesiastical authorities should seem to participate in politics. The Vatican will not- be bound up in any way with any party. Catholics who are elected will strive for the maintenance of good order, but they will not do so as a Catholic Party in any sense. They are members of a Popular Party, which aims sincerely at promoting the welfare of Italy, but as a Catholic Party they have no mandate and no standing. This new Popular Party has already given proof in its programme that it is not and cannot be a Catholic Party. The Civiltd Cattolica points out that while it affirms the “liberty and independence of the Church,” it omits all mention of the ministry and jurisdiction according to the triple power of teaching, governing, and sanctifying communicated to the Church by Christ. The omission is notable because the modern atheist States oppose the Church precisely in the application of this power, and put obstacles in the way of its exercise of legislative, executive, and punitive functions. The Popular Party did not submit its programme to ecclesiastical supervision, and it puts forward more than one point about which Catholics will freely exercise their good judgment. ; The Giviltd Gdttolica states, clearly that Catholics as. such assume no’responsibility for the new party,' and that 1 whoso joins it does so at his own risk. It will be time enough to express approval or the contrary when the Popular Party has come forth :: and'tried its mettle in the political arena.