Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 22 September 1921, Page 14

Current Topics

Another Headline

On Monday morning the Otago Daily Times opened out with a headline telling its readers that de Valera had yielded—“DE VALERA YIELDS.” Mindful of the fact that a short time ago. the editor of the same paper told us that Sinn Fein had murdered three men in Belfast and that when we read the cable we found that they had been probably (and as was proved later they certainly were) murdered by Orangemen, we read the message, dated September 18, 11.5 p.m., only to find out that it was another case of Daily Times editorial genius falling over itself in its anxiety to win an 0.8. E. by its determination to be in at the death of a small nation. We found a letter which reminded Lloyd George that from the beginning of the negotiations de Valera acted and spoke as the President of the Irish Republic, laying down as essential the principle of .self-determination on which the Welshman recruited during the war. De Valera, like many other people, was surprised that Lloyd George should at this hour find as an obstacle to a conference facts which he was face to face with from the beginning. Without withdrawing his insistence on these facts, without failure to recognise himself for what he is, de Valera again asserts his readiness to enter into a conference for the sake of final peace, but in all his letter there is no sign of yielding where the principles enunciated from the beginning are concerned, and only a man who could tell the public that murders committed by Orangemen were Sinn Fein crimes could frame the headline, “DE VALERA YIELDS.” [The foregoing note was printed before we saw the reply of Mr. Lloyd George which reached Dunedin at noon_ on Monday. The British Prime Minister’s first two sentences are a clean knock-out for the Daily Times scribe. Lloyd George writes to de Valera: “I received your telegram. I observe that it does not modify the claim that your delegates should meet us as representatives of a sovereign independent State.” How anxious some people are that de Valera should yield!] Queries Is it because a Freemason or an Orangeman is mentally unfit that he is often treated lightly as a criminal ? Perhaps the Otago Daily Times editor could tell us if it was when Donegal was put in Southern Ireland that he received authority to locate Spike Island in Dublin ? Would he also inform us when the town of Millstreet became a metropolitan thoroughfare? How long after the war for small nations did it become unpatriotic to think that pledges made by the British Government ought to be kept ? Why was a Prussian scrap of paper a disgraceful thing, while it seems that British scraps of paper arouse no editorial wrath at all Since when did it become usual for “British gentlemen” to describe as “fanatics” and “idealists” people who object to being.told falsehoods by British Cabinet Ministers ? 0 What is the exact word to describe an editor who* attributes to one class of people the crimes committed by others? , Ratana Merely for the sake of argument let us put a case to the Anglicans who gave Ratana their blessing. If Ratana, consulted by a person who suffered from a malignant internal cancer, told him to go away and pray and he would be all right, and if in spite of prayer the cancer that might have been cured by operation killed the patient, would the Anglicans feel easy in their conscience? Would they advise a bad 'case of appendicitis to pray and not to worry about a doctor?

And would they do the same themselves? There is, it seems to us, abundant warranty in Scripture for the old saying: “God helps those who help themselves.” And whatever might be the effect of suggestion in nervous disorders we should certainly recommend patients to help themselves to expert medical advice. Miracles are not wrought every day, and while suggestion can cure some cases it cannot replace glass eyes and cork legs, “The Victim” There are pictures and pictures, just as there are good books and other books; and, like books again, the picture theatre has become a force for good or evil in the world of to-day. Too often one has to pronounce condemnation on the entertainments provided for the public by the directors of the cinematograph world, and it is a rare event when one can unreservedly recommend a picture to all comersor rather goers. We have had a few in many years that we found deserving of such recommendation. Fahiola was one; personally we think The Miracle was another and we have dim recollections of one or two more: so few out of all that follow one another in the merry-go-round of the weekly programmes ! x All things considered, we are pleased to communicate to our readers the good account we have had of a picture called The Victim. It has been produced in Wellington, where it met with universal approbation among the clergy and laity, and we hear, it is to be in Dunedin about the end of the first week of October. The subject being the secret of the Confessional and its inviolability, the picture ought to be interesting to allyea, even to the P.P.Asses who will have an opportunity of acquiring some knowledge without being called upon to exercise more intelligence than is possessed by the ordinary school-child. Respectable non-Catholics who desire to have the truth put before them will also find mental and moral enlightenment in the entertainment. Catholics ought to support it because it is a vindication of Catholic doctrine, as well as a testimony to the miraculous fact that the secret . committed to the confessor by the penitent was, is, and for ever shall be recognised as God’s secret which no priest could violate without incurring the most terrible penalties that the Church can inflict on her delinquent children. Support of a picture of this sort means encouragement to provide others equally wholesome, and goodness knows we want more of the kind.

The Australian Catholic Truth Society The Executive of this zealous society are making a rally in order to increase its membership and to make it more efficient. One may become a member for the small sum of five shillings yearly. The object of the society is to promote the spread of Catholic doctrine and to combat by timely and useful publications the attacks against the Church. Co-operation in this campaign is most laudable, and we are sure the clergy will do all in their power to secure large numbers of new members. At a cost of a little more than one penny a week a large membership can effect great good, and nobody will ever miss the few shillings a year to help on the good work. The society has already published numerous pamphlets on religious, scientific, literary, and social subjects, and the amount of good it can do in future depends to a large extent on the co-operation of our people and on their* response to the present drive. We trust that a new membership of at least five thousand will be found in New Zealand. Five times as many ought to be forthcoming in Australia with no great effort. Such support would enable the society to do in the future even ten times more good than it has done in the past. We feel that this laudable enterprise need only be mentioned to secure for it the aid it merits. •- * • -•••; v-i University Luminaries . It was a great French doctor who said that his faith was as simple and as strong as that of a Breton peasant, and added that if he knew more it would be even as simple 1 and strong as - that" of a Breton peasant

woman. In the same strain, Bacon said that while a little knowledge leads men away from God, deep learning leads them to Him. These thoughts occur to one under whose notice it has been brought that certain young medical students, who could hardly pass a CivilService Examination, assume superior airs with regard to religion almost as soon as they have their elementary text-books placed in their hands. They verify Bacon’s hard saying about the evil of a little knowledge; for, as their professors know well, little indeed is their learning. The airs and graces of Clarence-from-the-Cow-country are often a source of much amusement to citizens of Dunedin, but to contemplate how ignorance and arrogance mislead the poor little things is in no . way amusing. One medical student who forgot before he began his professional studies more than most of the others will ever learn attributes their attitude to lack of brains and to weakness of character. With pride and delight they accept the ignoble teaching that they are descended from the ape, while the destructive criticism of their theories by masters such as Windle remain as much a mystery to them as if they were written in Sanscrit. Whatever else one may think of them, their existence confirms us in the opinion we have long held that a real course of Christian Apologetics in our secondary schools would be a great help to young boys and girls who are destined to plunge into a materialistic environment in which at present many of them sink to rise no more. Mere knowledge of the text of the catechism is good and necessary ; knowledge of the New Testament is excellent ; but something more is required. Our Politicians The more one reflects on the average inaninity and ignorance of our politicians the more one wonders why the country stands them. Why should men who are regarded in their own towns as failures be selected to represent the people in Parliament? Why should professional men' who are at the lowest level be entrusted with the task of legislating for the Dominion ? The low standard in this country impressed Lord Bryce so forcibly that he said hard things about us in his recent work; but no man can deny that he was even mild in his criticisms. At the present time, lack of principle, incapacity for clear thinking, servile obedience to the bosses, seem to be the only qualifications required in a Member of Parliament. We have for Prime Minister a person who was regarded as the least considerable and important among the Dominion Premiers. We have all around us obvious proofs of his incapability. And, ignorant and uneducated though he be, he shines like a star among the majority of the Cabinet Ministers with whom he has surrounded himself. Two agencies keep him in power: a press that is the last word in servility and unreliability; and an organisation of bigots, led by a person who was horsewhipped by a returned soldier for vile calumnies against his dead sister. On such foundations the Massey Government rests, and the people do not seem to realise what it means to them. The Government, such as it is, is the tool of the capitalists who dictate the policy, of what is called the Reform Party. The public are the dupes of press and politicians. And between them all poor New Zealand is in a sorry plight indeed. From some points of view it is a consolation that things are going to become so much worse than even the blind will see later on. What’has Mr. Massey’s last tour cost the people of this Dominion? Sir Robert Stout Again v -New Zealand’s statesmen ought never be allowed out of this country. At home a hireling press protects them from ridicule as far as it can, if not at all times with success. But when they get away where the press is less considerate their hopeless incapacity speedily becomes , manifest to the world, which otherwise would know nothing of them except when a writer like Lord Bryce tells humanity what a poor, ignorant, ill-man-nered lot they are at best. A paragraph in the Christchurch Press tells us that our venerable Chief Justice

has once more distinguished himself in the only way that distinction seems attainable by him. Surrounded by an admiring R.P.A. audience he opened his mouth in hopeless competition with Balaam’s ass and*told the rationalists several things concerning private schools in New Zealand which we regret to-have to say did not go far to show that a New Zealand Chief Justice has even an elementary notion of what truth means. The Churches, according to Sir Robert, are stumbling-blocks in the way of education out here at the Antipodes. The Churches have failed to make good with their schools, he says. Private secondary schools seldom win scholarships, and Catholic private schools win none at all! Now we never had the remotest suspicion that our Chief Justice was distinguished as a man of law, and we imagine that few people in the Dominion ever had. But we used to think that he was a harmless,respectable old gentleman who, although terribly prone to putting his foot in it, had a considerable respect for the truth. If Sir Robert is reported correctly we must come to the conclusion, that he has lost his senses or else that he is capable of saying deliberately what he knows to be a falsehood. Even in Sir Robert we cannot imagine crass ignorance of the fact that Catholic schools are well able to hold their own with any in the Dominion, just as Catholic boys are able to beat in open competition all the public schools, or nearly all of them, year after year in games and athletics. Take what view one likes of the matter the conclusion is not flattering to our touring statesman: either he is a very ignorant man who after a long lifetime knows nothing about the state of education in New Zealand, or else he is unprincipled enough to juggle with truth to curry favor with his hearers. In no sense can it be said that our Chief Justice-is any credit to the Dominion. But in that he is on a level with the rest of New Zealand’s statesmen and P.P.Ass. nominees; When Sir Robert comes back we trust the Catholic Federation will attend charitably to the education of this ancient humorist whom we have long regarded rather as a chief joker than as a Chief Justice. ' i ' Irish History Competition Owing to various circumstances our Irish History -Competition has been unduly postponed this year, but as the matter is important we must not allow it to lapse. Hence we have great pleasure in publishing the following letter which sets forth the questions to be answered and fixes the date by which the papers are to be sent in : • IRISH HISTORY EXAMINATIONS. - “To the Editor, Sir,ln order to keep up interest in the study of Irish History/ which was never perhaps more necessary than at the present time, I am willing to undertake the judging of the papers in conjunction with Father O’Donnell of Gore. We suggest the following questions for the Sixth Standard and upwards’: 1. Write what you know about the flight of the Earls, its causes and consequences. 2. Give an account of the Siege of Dunboy and the retreat of O’Sullivan Beare. 3. Write a short description of Grattan’s Parliament and of the events of 1782. For pupils in classes lower than the Sixth Standard : 1. Describe the Siege of Limerick, the Treaty and its violation. 2. Enumerate some of the Penal Laws. 3. Give a short account of the Rebellion of ’9B. N.B.—Teachers are asked to select the three papers they consider best in each division* and to send them to the Tablet Office before November 15. “I am etc., # . “James O’Neill, “Waikiwi, September 14.” ' On the occasion of our last competitions the response was very encouraging as far as numbers went. The only fault we had to find was that in many cases

there was such similarity between papers coming from the same school that it seemed there must have been undue help given by the teachers. We trust that on this occasion the papers sent in will represent the unaided efforts of the pupils. All we ask of the teachers is that they encourage them to compete and that they read the papers and send us what they adjudge to be the best three papers in each of the two divisions. Three book prizes will be given. for each division. Father James O'Neill has provided for prizes for the senior division, and we will see that the juniors shall also have their books. After the results are made known we hope to publish the best paper in each class. On the last occasion the prizes were won by pupils in different parts of the Dominion, the winners coming from Invercargill, Dunedin, Alexandra, and Dannevirke. Those who were successful then are eagerly looking forward to winning more prizes, but with a fair field and no favor there is no reason why every young reader of The Story of Ireland should not have a good chance. Remember that each paper must be signed with the name and address of the competitor and that it must be headed "Senior Division" or "Junior Division" according to the Standard of the pupil.