Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 6, 8 February 1923, Page 18

Current Topics

The Fruits of Victory We won the war that was to make the world safe for democracy. We blew our trumpets and waved our flags and Mr. Parr made speeches. Soon it was evident that, although certain people did their neighbors in the Great War, the men who did their bit got nothing out of it. The bubble was burst. The lying rhetoric of journalists and politicians was exposed. Versailles which ought to have laid the foundations of peace was a hotbed for the seeds of new wars. The men who talked of hanging the Kaiser proved to be the worst enemies democracy ever had or ever will have, and since the day on which, having excluded God from their sessions, they sat down to their game of grab there has been nothing but confusion. It is now admitted and proved that it was from first to last a gigantic lie that Germany was the cause of the war, but, nevertheless, the punishments inflicted on her by the Versailles scoundrels continue to be exacted and to cause more and more trouble as time goes on. France still demands her pound of flesh to which she is not entitled, and it will not astonish anybody to find, one of these days, that France has caught a tartar. France is looking for trouble and trouble generally comes to those that seek after it. An un-Christian peace has hgd terrible results, and it may be that the worst is yet to come.

The Facisti Parlimentary government must have fallen to a low ebb in Italy to make it possible for one man to achieve such a triumph as was won by Mussolini. It is likely that his meteoric success has eclipsed everything in history. What Cromwell gained by murdering a king, what Napoleon achieved by the sword, this Italian, formerly a Socialist, won without striking a blow when he led his voluntary army into Pome and overthrew a weak Government which dared not face him. The Government went down before him as the walls of Jericho fell before the blast of the trumpets, and the King, in his wisdom, hailed the conqueror and assented to the inevitable as gracefully as he could. Mussolini’s power is as supreme as was that of Cromwell. In his speeches he makes that fact quite plain. His audacity and his masterfulness carried all before them. The Deputies realised that they were face to face with a strong man and they voted him whatever he asked for. He rules Italy as a dictator, backed by his 300,000 Facisti. He is a living proof of what a man of character can do with a solid and loyal body at his back. He has overthrown corrupt government and exterminated venal politicians and written in his deeds a warning that similar politicians in every country would do well to take heed of. What he had done other people can do, and no - doubt other people will imitate him when there is no other redress for their wrongs, and when warnings to fool-Ministers and place-hunters are fruitless. Although' there is in the new movement much that is opposed to true liberty, no doubt things will adjust themselves later. On the whole Mussolini has done well and has rooted out many abuses. He is not anti-clerical and he recognises the value of religion far better than a Massey or a Parr or a Dillon Bell. It is noteworthy that his paper was the staunchest supporter of Sinn Fein during ~the days of Ireland’s war with England, and he studied Sinn Fein methods to no small advantage. i

The Irish Senate The new Senate of Ireland includes sixty, members thirty of whom are nominated and the others elected. Distinguished Irishmen of all classes and creeds are found among, the sixty chosen by the President or by the voters, and, although at present, they are liable to be murdered or to have their homes burned down, in

time they will be found doing good service in the cause of the old land.

Dr. Sigerson was elected by the Senate of the Irish Free State at its first meeting on a recent Monday to the position of president of that body. , He is the father of the late Mrs, Dora Sigerson Shorter, the poetess, and has been a prominent figure in Dublin for over half a century. An eminent medical man (he is a professor of biology at University College), he has written a history of land tenures in Ireland as well as other valuable historical works.

The thirty members of the Senate who were elected by the Bail to make, with the the thirty nominated by President Cosgrave, the complete body include two women, Mrs. Stopford Green, the widow of the historian J. R. Green, and Mrs. Eileen Costello, a Gaelic scholar who lived at one time in London. There are thus now four women senators. Amongst other notable names is that of Colonel Moore (brother of George Moore), at one time colonel commandant of the Connaught Rangers and later the military chief of the Irish Volunteers. One of the exploits of the “Black-and-Tans” was to take Colonel Moore about with them on an armored car in case they were fired upon.

Sir John"' Purser Griffith was at one time engineer to the Dublin Port and Harbor Board, and was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1919-20. He was born at Holyhead, where his father was a Congregational minister, Mr. James Douglas v one of the framers of the Irish Constitution and a leading member of the Society of Friends in Ireland," and Mr. E. McLysaght (better known in England as Edward Lysaght, the poet and novelist) are also members. As might have been expected, owing to the P.R. system of election used in the Dail voting “interests” are prominently represented, as in the cases of the chairman of the Irish Farmers’ Union and the Irish secretary of the Railway Clerks’ Association. Farming generally forms a strong element.

The Poor Journalists The writer of even a penny-dreadful regards with lordly contempt the journalist. In his own estimation the former is an artist whilg the latter is a penny-a-liner, a hack, or a slave. There is a common idea that journalists turn out words at lightening speed while writers of fiction are as careful over every syllable as Michael Angelo was with his chisel. The following extract from an exchange may help to disillusion some of our readers:

There has just come out, in Heinemann’s very handsome new Vailima Edition of all that Stevenson wrote, the Strange Case of Dr. Jehyll and Mr. Hyde, always the most read of his books and the only story of his in which he felt, as he worked, that every character was alive and had only got to be. reported, not invented, from page to page. And here, in a prefatory note, is his widow confirming what has always been said— Stevenson wrote the whole 30,000 words of the first draft of the story in three days, and then burnt what he had written and wrote a new version, of the same length, in another three days. A mere journalist shudders to think of such a rate of production. Ten thousand words, Stevenson’s daily task for that week, is continuous manual labor, if nothing more, for ten hours. It is as if one journalist were to write in one day every word on this page of the Manchester Guardian, and then keep it up for another five. days. Journalism knows no such feats. Hers is a sober world, unvisited by such hustlers.

Rumor speaks of journalists who can dictate cornucopiously, but was there ever one who dictated a daily newspaper page every day for a week ? And Stevenson did not dictate. He did not even reserve such leisure for pure thought as might be gained by leaving the coolie work with the paper . and ■ ink to another. He wrote every word, like Anthony Trollope, who used to turn out chronicles of Barchester, morning after morning, at the rate of 250 words to each quarter of an hour. After writing some thousands Trollope used to knock off and go to repose himself during the heat of the day at a Government" office where he was em-

ployed. But for this siesta from ten to four he would probably have rivalled “R.L.S.” in daily output. We do not know Sir Walter Scott’s rate of production; in his day there was not a county cricket championship to make us all passionate statisticians; but Lockhart says enough to indicate that, when money was tight, Scott was a flyer after the order of Sheridan. Look, again, at our contemporary authors of bound masterpieces. Cast up the number of words turned out in a year, to be bound in cloth, octavo, by each of our most popular novelists. Divide this by the number of days in a year, less Sundays and a proper allowance for holidays, and the daily yield is almost as easily ascertained as the speed, per minute, of pigeons racing home to Oldham from Rouen. If the results could then be tactfully compared with the daily labors of eminent journalists, we fear it might be found that all the prize milch cows came from the branch of the profession of letters which is so warmly praised for lack of fluency. Why it should be so is another and a darker question. Perhaps because the hard-bitten journalist knows that behind a thousand harmless-looking villa fronts there are daily couched, from cock-crow onwards, “Veritas,” “Forty Years’ Subscriber,” “Chapter and Verse,” “Pro Bono Publico,” and a whole dragonsome fauna of other informers ready to spring, letter-to-editor in hand, upon ©very wrong date, false quotation, or other human frailty of the writer’s current hand. This chills the craftsman’s fine fire, breeds self-distrust, and sets him toying with standard works of reference at seasons when the writer of “serious literature” can let himself loose in the blue without serious danger of being publicly corrected. The Irish Governor-General The Manchester Guardian of December 15, announces the reception by the Dail of Mr. T. M. Healy, Governor General for Ireland. The members received him standing, and he said, after reading the King’s message: “To-day, in the name and with the authority of the people of Saorstat Eireann, you enter into the fullness of your partnership in liberty with the nations co-operating in co-equal membership in a great Commonwealth of free peoples. I meet you on this momentous day with sentiments of the deepest emotion, charged by his Majesty to associate myself as his representative with the task which, after many years of hard-pressed claim, becomes yours alone and unquestioned, by the effect of the Treaty mad© just a year ago between Great Britain and Ireland and subsequently ratified —the task of governing this State, of making the laws under which you are to live, and of administering those laws for the happiness and well-being of all your fellow-citizens.

“You have adopted a Constitution for this State, and in framing that Constitution, while you have in careful observance of your Treaty obligations conformed to those modes of constitutional expression and form which are common to your partner nations and a characterestic feature of their association in the Commonwealth of nations, you have had no other fetter on the exercise of a single-minded and whole-hearted determination to create for your country such machinery of government as seemed to you most calculated to serve her best interests most efficiently, “You have just devised a Constitution under which the most patriotic yearnings for the re-creation of the national life and identity of our country in language and thought, in literature and art, for her progress along secure lines of social and economic development, for her assurance in prosperity, happiness and contentment, are offered the utmost free play. You have been encouraged in your work by the support of your fellow-countrymen and women, who have testified in no uncertain manner their approval of and confidence in your efforts for the nation. ' : THE HOSTILE MINORITY. ' % : “Unhappily, a small number who have not yet bowed to the will of the majority have engaged in hostile operations against you, and have spread ruin broadcast in an attempt to impose their will upon the

majority by means of , terror arid destruction. While failing utterly in their attempt to upset the Treaty so solemnly arrived at, and to involve our country in a renewed strife with Great Britain, these unhappy people have succeeded in striking deadly blows both at the economic prosperity : and the political unity of Ireland, and thousands of persons have suffered individual hardships through their actions. " “The problem of unemployment, so pressing in many countries to-day was certain to have been of smaller dimensions in Ireland than in almost any other country, but it has been enhanced to an incalculable extent by the fury of destruction and attempted disorganisation which is the' manner of war now being waged upon the people. It must be your first and most urgent care to bring this. disorder to a speedy end, so that you may be free to devote your best efforts to the solution of the social and economic problems it has created or aggravated. In the meantime my Ministers' are giving their best attention to the working out of schemes for dealing with the [unemployment] problem, which they hope to have, ready to submit to your active consideration so soon as the circumstances will allow of their being put into operation.” ...... After alluding to the constitution of the Boundary Commission, Mr, Healy outlined prospective legislation. One of the earliest measures, he said, would be an electoral bill to implement the franchise enactments of the Constitution. A committee would be set up immediately to examine the question of the establishment of a judicial system, and a bill for the establishment of an Irish Judiciary would be submitted. Other measures to be introduced would provide for a permanent civil police in the form of the present civic guard, and the provision of a national defence force in time of peace. Another matter of national importance which was engaging the attention of the Ministry was that of provision for the completion of land purchase. “It is my earnest prayer that the labors upon which you are now entering may be blessed and bear great fruit for our country,” Mr Healy concluded

Ecclesiastical and Educational Statistics The Catholic Directory (Ordo ) for 1923 supplies the following interesting ecclesiastical and educational statistics in respect to New Zealand: ARCHDIOCESE OF WELLINGTON. Number of districts, 45; churches, 127; priests (regular), 54, (secular) 47; total 101. Religious brothers, 30; nuns, 513; colleges, 2; hoarding and high schools, 18; primary schools, 55; orphanages, 4; inmates, 432; homes for incurable, 2; inmates, 140; creche, 1; inmates, 30. Total number of children receiving Catholic education in the archdiocese, 8483; total Catholic population of the archdiocese (census 1916), 55,437 (exclusive of Maoris); Maori Catholic population, 2071. . DIOCESE OF AUCKLAND. Parishes, 49; diocesan ' clergy, 49 Fathers of St. Joseph’s Missionary Society, 22; religious brothers, 18; sisters, 320; schools (boarding) for boys, 1; for girls, 16; superior and primary day schools, 39; teachers, 169; orphanages, 2; home for poor, 1; hospital and convalescent home, 1. Total number of children receiving Catholic education, about 6000. Total Catholic population of the diocese (census 1916) about 40,000 \ Catholic Maoris about 3000. DIOCESE OF CHRISTCHURCH. Number of districts, 21; churches, 63 priests, 50 (secular 22, regular 28) religious brothers, 11 nuns, 296 boarding and high schools, 8; primary schools, 29; Magdalen Asylum, 1; industrial and preservation schools, 1; orphanage, 1; Nazareth House, 1; girls’ hostels, 2. Number of Catholics in the diocese, 30,000. - "" Districts, 24 churches, 71 stations, 45; secular priests, 40; religious brothers, 9; nuns, 222 boarding schools (girls), 6; boarding school for boys, 1; superior day schools, 6; primary schools, 23; ecclesiastical seminary, 1; orphanages, 2; home for the aged poor, 1; .children in Catholic schools, 3163 Catholic population of diocese, 24,500. ’ ; ,