ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

New Zealand Tablet, 17 March 1921, Page 13

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

Gael.— We do not think the headlines of the Otago . D.Tf’s are set up by the patients in Seacliff. Internal evidence rather suggests the editor. P.L. (and others whom it may concern). — When you send in an item of news that you expect us to publish .please go to the trouble of preparing it for publication properly. Scraps of newspapers, notes in pencil, vague jottings with a request that the editor should fill in the blanks have henceforth no chance whatever of publication. If your notice is worth publishing it is worth your while attending to it properly. To do so is not our business. Again, some correspondents think th&t Lloyd George has declared stops, commas, semi-coloAs, and so forth, illegal; others keep them in a peppercastor and spread them liberally on their MS. To another class of offenders we wish to say that seventy times seven times have we told you that the editor has nothing to do with the business department and that he will be in no way responsible for business letters sent to him. J.F.—When we received your first letter we made the sort of remarks to those concerned that you probably expected us to make on your behalf. We are now pleased to see that • our breath was not wasted, and if you are content we also may say Paf/navimus etiam , et non due gloria. With reference to your last letter, we beg to say that it received the proper consideration in the proper quarter, as you desired. A Happy Easter to you, as Johnny Cummins said to the magistrate who fined him for smashing the railway gates. Subscriber.— You ought to get Political Economy , by C. Devas. «There is no sounder book. Others that you would find useful are Ryan’s Distributive ■Justice; Elder’s Socialism; Husslein’s Democratic Industry. If we followed our own inclination we would have many more articles than we have about such subjects. Unfortunately the number of our readers who take an intelligent interest in these problems is small. The Tablet has to try to meet the wishes of readers of all sorts —children and old people, sinners and saints. So that it would be vain to expect it to be exactly what any given individual would like it to be. Indeed, all newspapers are more or less in the nature of compromises.

J.L. —Don't worry about Cardinal Bourne’s opinions. If he bad uttered one word of protest when Lloyd George arrested Archbishop Mannix he might expect some consideration from Irish Catholics. Like every other Tory Catholic he is incapable of gratitude to the people who saved him from slavery and built his churches. Student. — have seen Luther’s Table Talk (Tischreden) in German but not in English. It is a very coarse book, but it is honest enough at times. For instance, he admits the failure of his so-called Reformation when he says: “The world grows worse . and worse and becomes more and more wicked every day. Men are now more-given to revenge, more avaricious, more devoid of mercy, less modest, and more incorrigible; in fine, more wicked than in the Papacy.” Other “reformers” bear this out. Bucer says . “The greater part of the v/v.**/. OCV J O . JLJ.IC gJL |JO/i u Ul tilt? people seem to have embraced the gospel [of the Reformation] only to shake off the yoke of discipline, etc., and to live at their pleasure enjoying • their lust and lawless appetite without control.” And, of. his own preachers, Calvin says: ’ “The ,pastors,. yes, the pastors themselves who mount the pulpit, . . . are at the present time the most shameful examples of waywardness and otheh vices.” How gratified these gentlemen would be had they lived to see a Council of Churches legislating concerning racings weights in New Zealand! s %I-