Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 13 October 1921, Page 14

Current Topics

■v u ■ .■.-■■ v Merrie England All is' now well with Merrie England these days. Wo are told by one writer that the approach to London is through a river of dead ships. Another complains that largo business firms have lost millions in one year. A third mourns the vanished . hopes of commercial supremacy for which many people believe the war was waged. The Manchester Guardian said last July: "Last month's foreign trade returns are the worst this year. May's figures were worse than April's, and April's than those of March. The whole falling off might be naturally attributed to the cumulative effect of the mining stoppage, but there is more in it than that."' Alas! there is. There is this in it: Lloyd George and his Yiddish masters have ruined the Empire. The man whose agility as a- twister aroused the wonder of Lansing, the disgust of Keynes, the contempt of Clemenceau, has done his work well, and Merrie England is broken and bankrupt and old John Cow is the sad man of Europe to-day. As a>further proof of what he has done to England take this extract from the Times: "The shipbuilding industry is in a deplorable condition. According to Lloyd's Register the amount of merchant tonnage under construction at the end of June was 3,530,047 tons. This shows a reduction of about 269,000 tons as compared with the total at the end of March. • From these figures it might be inferred that the industry is still enjoying a burst of activity: but unfortunately that is not the case. One-third of the total represents the vessels on which work has been suspended in consequence of the decline in the demand for tonnage, the joiners' strike, and the coal dispute. . . . The condition of the shipping and ship-build-ing is a trustworthy guide to the degree of Britain's prosperity. So long as ships are rusting at the quays and the demand for new tonnage is small, the state of national finance cannot be satisfactory." Sick and Sad John Cow is sick and sad. His crimes are weighing heavy on him—not oh his conscience but on his purse. His breach of faith with small nations, his after-war atrocities are coming home to roost now. The Manchester Guardian again says: "It is no exaggeration to say that the British Empire was never in greater danger than it is to-day. The war has left us in very much the position in which the last great war left Austria. She was an empire with great possessions: ruling over diverse races; on guard everywhere, as the great standing conservative interest, against change and the disturbing spirit of freedom. Nobody can study her history without thinking of Seneca's saying that great possessions are a great servitude. ' . . We are acting like the Government that brought about 1 the American demand for independence by the way in which it handled a demand for something much less. Faced with a demand from Ireland that required all om; resources of. judgment and statesmanship, we first allowed a whole' year to pass without any serious discussion or proposal, and then alter exasperating passion by coercion, we offered her something that seemed illiberal even to Unionists like Lord Donoughmore. . . We have now to "recognise that this policy has failed, and that it has failed in two capital respects. Tt has failed in the sense that Ireland is at this moment as grossly misgoverned as any country in Europe, and it has failed in the sense that her misgovernment is a powerful and growing •menace to our safety. The sort of Ireland that we are .producing will be iiwt as much a danger if she is formally nart of the Empire, as she could be if she were outside it We have now to try the other method. ?on» r S ei b i S r° ry , gIVeS US an excellent, example. In 100.7 Mr. Balfour's Government drew up a Constitu-

tion for the Transvaal. Mr. Lyttelton, the Colonial Minister, described it in language very much like the language Mr„ Lloyd George has used about, his scheme for Ireland. ' Although not prepared at present to give lull self-government to the colony, they wish to concede the utmost liberty compatible with safety and with the stability of the Administration.' This scheme had no attractions for the Boers. Fortunately next year Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman came into power, and he gave full self-government to. both colonies. Mr. Balfour criticised that policy in a speech which, again, resembles* closely the speeches in which the Prime Minister criticises the idea of giving Ireland Dominion status. . . England has saved herself in Canada and in South Africa by the boldness which our Ministers think too dangerous in Ireland. It is significant that Lord Donoughmore was supported yesterday by Lord Buxton, just home from South Africa, and byLord Bryce, who knows more about the history of empires than any other man in public life. We see in Ireland the results of fear. To-morrow they will be worse. Sooner or later they will be fatal." An Imperial Earthquake In a long article on the Conference of the Premiers, in the London Nation, a person who noticed the immense amount of piffle cabled * out here concerning the doings and sayings and gestures of Lord Limavaddy cannot help being impressed by the fact that the man' counts for precisely nothing in England—and nothing is about twice as much as he counts for in New Zealand among people, know his capacity. However, there are Prime Ministers who do count, even if our William of Orange be not of them. For one', General Smuts, and for another, Mr. Meighen count, and the report gives us.an idea that the smug Imperialists who invited the Dominion big-wigs to their tea-party got the shock of their lives when they found that Mr. Massey was the only puppet to dance when they called the tune; for even Hughes did not keep time all the time. A few quotations from the article mentioned will throw some light on the matter: "At the Conference of 1917 there was passed an important constitutional resolution which recognised the right of the Dominions to be fully consulted when matters of foreign policy affecting their real interests were to be decided. When the thorny and delicate question of the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance came up for settlement, Mr. Meighen, backed by General Smuts, boldly sought to give effect to the spirit of this resolution, and the' result was consternation in the inner closets of the Foreign Office."' The secret diplomatists of Merrie England had' their own private reasons for renewing the Alliance, and they expected no opposition from their guests.. .Indeed, Mr. Massey who changed his tactics since 1917 is not mentioned as having a mind of his own on the subject. But Smuts and Meighen had, and hence the tears shed by the Downing Street gentlemen who in a panic at the prospect of a breach of diplomatic unity with the Dominions— or such of them as had sent real live men to represent them—had recourse to Galloper Smith whose record during the davs when he rose from being a pestilential rebel to a shady place on the woolsack gave them hope that he would find a way out of the impasse for them. He did, and the world laughed' when it was announced that the Alliance which was so* necessary for renewal'did not require renewal at all.' Here is another passage which tells how the wind blows. Note, again, that although Hughes is regarded'as worth mention our Orangeman is still left out as worthless: "Some of the shrewder Imperialists' make keen and anxious notation of the growing tendency of the Dominions to take their own line in many vital matters. They know that Mr. Hughes is neither politically nor physically immortal, that Mr. Meighen's successor is likely to be even less pliable than he has proved, and that General Smuts will never be replaced bv an ardent Imperialist. . '. There has been nothing more farcical than the efforts, of the British governing classes to assume for themselves a monopoly of : affection for the Dominions." \ ;."•. ■<<■■.

**. - Now we differ from the view expressed in the last sentence quoted. For instance the columns cabled out 1 -"' here and published by our day-lies about the statesmanship of the Orangeman are certainly more farcical than anything that happened in England. It is also more farcical that a million and a quarter of human beings, 'some of whom have the use of reason, should send Mr. Massey to represent them even at a dog show. But however that may be, it is certain that, except for P.P. A. governed, wowser-ridden, nag-flapping New Zealand, with' her uneducated and ill-mannered members of Parliament (see, Lord Bryce's book), the Dominions have given the secret diplomatists and the Brithuns to understand that for Canadians Canada is first, that for South Africans South Africa is first, even if New Zealand is considered a pawn to be- moved at will in any game that England may take on at the will of her Anglo-Yiddish statesmen. Why does not Mr. Statham try to organise a real New Zealand Party and to get young blood behind him instead of playing with the Black Pamphlet person ? Carsonia in Trouble When the King of England appealed to Ireland for peace, and when a truce was arranged the Sinn Feiners kept the peace but the Orangemen had so little respect for the request of the King that they set themselves to kill, beat, and burn out of house and home their Catholic neighbors. It was not loyal on their part, butthat does not astonish anybody who knows what Orange loyalty means. Not even for the sake of the King could ten armed Orangemen resist the temptation of killing an unarmed Catholic man or woman. Now when we consider that the Orangemen had been en- • gaged in their campaign of arson and massacre for about twelve months perhaps it was u reason able for the King to ask them to be good boys simply because he asked it. Could not the Orangemen point to the fact that they had been armed by the British Government and that as the same Government had disarmed a Catholic minority, it must surely have been the will of the British Government that the Orangemen should use the arms they got to kill the Catholics who were not allowed to have arms. What nonsense, the Orangemen might say, ' it is for the King to expect us to act differently from the manner in which the Government which represents him expects us to act. So they went on killing and burning and beating, just as they had done with the connivance of the British Government for the past year. The British Government is very anxious about the rights of Orange minorities, but it apparently thinks the murder of Catholic minorities at the hands of the same Orangemen only good sport. It has during all the time that the Orangemen attacked defenceless Catholics taken no effective or serious step for the prevention of murder. It is morally guilty of the massacre of the women and children of Belfast. The Government of England did hot move but the Sinn Fein Government did. It may have suited the Lloyd George people to see poor Catholics assassinated by Orangemen but it did not suit Sinn Fein. It was thus that the I.R.A. took ? a hand in the game, and it was thus that the Orange savages received a little payment in kino 1 for what they . had done to the Nationalists. Sinn Fein once more proved its ability to protect life where the British Government only provecl its readiness to see Catholic lives lost; and what our day-lies call Sinn Fein gun-, menotherwise, the I.R.A.—moved into Belfast and proceeded to defend the women and children who "were at the mercy of merciless savages. They did this" so - well that we soon had Prime Minister" Craig crying aloud for military protection. He could not govern ..his little corner he did not try to govern it as long as only Catholics were assassinated; but when Catholics hit back and Orangemen began to fall Craifif begged the - soldiers to come in and make peace' in Carsonia. It really seems that the Orangemen went too far this time ■'. it .seems that Lloyd George went too far in his con- ,; nivance at their crimes. Sinn*Fein took the matter up i in'earnest and gave the followers of Carson more, than |:> they bargained"'for. The King Billians tried to drive I the 'Catholics out, now it is not unlikely that matters

will result in the expulsion of the Orangemen them-, selves. It seems the only thing possible to do with the miscreants at whose hands even women and children are not safe ; and we have read a statement made by one who knows- what he is saying to the effect that unless the savages behave better not a stick or a stone ' will be left standing in Belfast. What a counter-blow that would be for the burning of Cork by the forces of the Crown ! And it is going to happen if Lloyd George does not keep his pledges to Ireland arid if the Orangemen do not conduct themselves as human beings. Note once more that our disreputable day-lies which . never told us anything about the murders and burnings done by the Orangemen now make what capital they can out of the fact that Sinn Fein has gone into the Orange fortress and is whipping the "scum of the earth" to a belter frame of mind. Sin e a thahhairt iloibh. Japanese Civilisation The British Lords of creation think there are no peoples under the sun equal to them. Before Prussianism was ever denounced by our hypocritical daily papers Lord Rosebery and the Editor of the Tim en used to win the approval of true jingoes by preaching the necessity of doing such criminal things as imprinting on the rest of the world the stamp of British kitltui" and bf killing a small nation by a policy of frightfulness, jit is our opinion that the greater fright-fulness of the two would be to force what Brithuns call their civilisation even on a savage race. It is bad enough that Britain murders Irish men and women ; but it would be still worse if they ever were able to murder Celtic civilisation to make way for what they call British civilisation. Give us that of the Maoris, or of the Red Indians, or even of the Turks, but save us from the shame and the hypocrisy and the impurity and the greed and the treachery of the Yiddish-Anglo Empire of to- • day. It is consoling to think that it is only in places that are content to have Ministers of Education of the calibre of a Parr, or Premiers like the sample supplied by Limavaddy that could ever succumb to British ideals. New Zealand, poisoned and drugged by years of lying politicians and lying pressmen is an easy victim, but the other countries that fell for short or long time under the British spell , are asserting themselves. Canada, with her French Catholic traditions is kicking against the yoke of the , Orangemen and the Jews : South Africa was never so pleased with Smuts as when.he returned home and told his people how glad he was to shake from his feet the dust of dirty London; Ireland stands erect to-day, speaking her own language and living her own life in spite of the persecution of centuries. Japan is another country that was for a time threatened with innocula- . tion by the British plague-carriers, but Japan has asserted her superiority and clung to her native ideals. Lafcadio Hearn tells us in his own beautiful style of the superiority of Japan to the England of his youth : "The Japanese man of the people—the skilled laborer able to underbid without effort any Western artisan in the same line of industry—remains happily independent of shoemakers and tailors. His feet are good to look at, his body is healthy, and his heart is free. If he desire to travel he can get ready for a journey in five minutes. . . On ten dollarsX.he can travel for a year without work, or he can travel simply on his ability to work, or he can travel as a pilgrim. You may reply that any savage, can do the same thing. Yes, but any civilised man cannot; and the Japanese has been a highly civilised man for at least a thousand years. . . Your Japanese tramp takes his hot bath: i daily, if he has a fraction of a cent to pay for it, or his cold bath if he has not. In his little bundle there are combs, toothpicks, razors, toothbrushes. He never allows himself to be unpleasant. Reaching his destination • he can transform himself into a visitor of very novel manners, and faultless though simple attire. .' .. The absence of any huge signs of the really huge things that Japan has done bears -witness to the very peculiar, way in which her civilisation has been working. . . The vast rice crop . is,-raised upon millions of tiny, tiny

farms,* the silk crop, in millions of small, poor 'homes the tea crop, on countless little patches of soil. If you visit Kyoto to order something from one of the greatest porcelain makers in the world, one whose products are known better in London and, in Paris than even in Japan, you will find the factory to be a wooden cottage in which 7 no American farmer would live. The greatest maker of cloisonne vases, who may ask you two hundred dollars for something five inches high, produces his miracles behind a two-story frame dwelling consisting of perhaps six rooms. The best girdles of silk made in Japan, and famous throughout the Empire, are woven in a house that cost scarcely five hundred dollars. The work is of course hand-woved. ” Protestantism killed such wonderful arts in England and would kill them everywhere if it could. But they still survive and the killer is growing very feeble. We know what the Japanese visitors at Versailles thought of Massey, Hughes and Co. But if they had seen our Bill make his gesture!