Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 5, 4 February 1925, Page 22

Current Topics

A Sinister Move Catholic papers from abroad see a sinister influence at work in the French Government on behalf of Caillanx. One paper tells us that the Masonic Government of Herriot is absolutely shameless, as bad as in the worst days of-Combos. That arch-scoundrel Caillaux, who did his best to sell France to Germany and who got off lightly with a few years exile, has been amnestied and publicly whitewashed by Herriot himself. According to the French Premier, Caillanx has never been guilty of treachery towards his country. Such a pronouncement from a man in such a position is positively dangerous, for Herriot will think nothing of doing as Caillanx did and with a clear conscience! Malvy, perhaps, was not such a rascal, but he deserved all he got. The Masonic Lodges have something up their sleeve. Caillaux served them well, and he is needed for future services. Herriot is probably not (clever enough and so Caillaux will take his succession. It is time a Cromwell of sorts, or a Mussolini appeared in la donee, France to pack out all the canaille of the Grand Orient, aprons, trowels and all.

A “ Popular ” Bible t ()tu Calcutta contemporary, the .Catholic Herald of India, shows scant respect for the dignity of those scholarly people who believe they were sent into the world for the specific purpose of tinkering with the Bible. From time to time in the history of the world, it says, men have thought that the Bible was not sufficiently open to the man-in-the-strect. Sour John Wyelif began, the so-called Beformers took it up, Royal Commissions, etc., have continued the tradition, and now we have come to the era of Harcourt, daymans, and Moffat who, not content with “ye Bybel in ye English tongue,” want a Bible in 'up-to-date lingo, doncherknow.” The older men made exegetical and theological slips, while the moderns not only keep the mistakes but add bad taste and worse style. No doubt tho Bible should be readable and even as understandable as possible, but the whole tendency reposes on a double fallacy. First, that an antiquated or elevated style repels the reader. On that principle we'd have to have half a dozen collateral versions, one for the don in sequipedalian vocables, another for the business man in terms of bulls and bears, one for the sportsman in horsey language, another for schoolboys with plenty of “rippings” and “rotter's,” sprinkled throughout its pages; yet another for flappers in heliotrope and organdie, and finally, one for the man in the gutter, a real Saxon edition. It is of universal experience that the books we revere are all written in a language above our daily talk. Shakspere and Tennyson we treasure and revere, while. Kipling and Jerome K. Jerome merely amuse n,s. The Bible is not meant to amuse. The second fallacy is that the open Bible is tho open door to Heaven. You might as well say the British Pharmacopoeia is an open door to health. Just try it on a sick man and jot down the result. The Bible is full

of “hard things” and needs not only an expert explanation but the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit. That is where* the Catholic Church comes in.

How the Blacks Enlisted V hen during the war the cables told us of the burning enthusiasm with which the blacks in Africa rushed to the colors for the purpose of wiping German Junkerdoni off the slate we were not a little sceptical about that self-,same enthusiasm. We felt that it was much too fervid to have been born outside Paris or London. However, according to the Home papers, a case has just been tried in the French Courts which throws a side-light upon the manner in which'the blacks were persuaded to fight for democracy and the rights of small nations. hi. Diagne, who sits in the French Chamber as one 1 of the deputies for Senegal, sued a pern Heal, Les Continents , for libelling him in an article which said that he had received illegal money rewards for recruiting black troops fo v the French Army during the. war. Lie won his case, but incidentally it was shown that prior to his taking up the work of recruiting in 1917 it. was conducted by atrocious methods of violence. “It was not recruiting, but a slave hunt,” said one witness. Villages were surrounded by armed forces, and the able-bodied men were marched off as prisoners to he sent to fight on the Yser and the Somme. It was deposed that early in 1917 the Governor of French West Africa asked for white troops for the work and for 45,000 bombs and hand grenades and feu 1 ’ bombing aeroplanes to help in the recruiting and to deal with possible revolts. A British Catholic paper says numbers of the black troops thus enslaved were mere savages, and that long before this trial there was evidence that many of them brought the methods of African savagery to the French battlefields. We believe the term “savage” to have a much wider application.

“ Below the Standard ” Under the above caption the Catholic Times discusses the standard of living endured by the bulk of the laboring classes in England and if figures can be said to speak, those marshalled by our contemporary certainly declare that to be a “free-born Englishman” has its drawbacks. It is estimated that £3 10s per week is the lowest upon which an average English family can live reasonably with thrift and without luxury. Professor A. M. Carr Saunders is quoted as saying that the household budget totalled up to 62s 4d per week for a family of five. In this estimate he allowed 26s 3d for the week’s food, an average of 3s 9d per day, or 9d per person per day. Taking his low figure of Ss XOd for rent, the two items account for 35s Id. ~ For clothing he allowed 11s 3d per week, representing £7 3s per annum for the man’s working and other clothes. Turning to the other side of the picture, our contemporary goes to the Morning Post, a journal not entirely saturated with Eolshev-

ism, for statistics of the excess profits paid by the public for certain foods: On Bread £52,000,000 On Meat ... ... 78,000,000 On Milk 45,000,000 Total £175,000,000 In the course of its articles the Post quotes Sir Charles Fielding, late Director of Food Production, on the subject of milk. Sir Charles estimates that with milk at 8d per quart the consumer pays: Per annum To the Farmers (at per quart) ... £53,000,000 To the Railway Companies (at id per quart) 3,500,000 To the Town Dairy Distributors (at 4d per quart) 56,500,000

It should he remembered that £175,000,000, to quote the Morning Post, “is over and above what is paid to the farmers and railways, the miller, the baker, and the butcher and allies, after allowing not only for their cost, but also for 10 per cent, profit throughout.” The Catholic Times , commenting on the conditions, says that with unemployed numbering over a million, one wonders how many homes are facing the winter with despair in their hearts and a reduced vitality. It is a reproach to our common Christianity that so many thousands of our fellow-crea-tures are underfed and a still greater number scandalously housed. Both politicians and property owners consider themselves entitled to ignore Christian guidance in exercising political and economic power. Modern Governments consider themselves entitled to expect or to coerce the clergy to agree with them. What Christian Church outside the Catholic protests against the secularisation of political, social, and economic life ? Advertising New Zealand

The other day the local papers informed us that the new Publicity board set up by the New Zealand Government is to launch out in a programme of intensive advertising. The United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, India, and the United States are to be decorated with picture posters displaying the beauties and advantages of New Zealand. That is just as it should be; but we hope that this new board will not permit its zeal to outride truth to the end that humble folk will be persuaded to leave their own country in the belief that all New Zealand workmen live in ten-roomed houses, each one of which is on its own ten-acre plot, which in turn is divided into compartments for the orchard, the poultry run, the stock paddock, the stables, and the garage. We have a vivid recollection of an address on New Zealand delivered in 1922 in London before the Royal Society of Arts by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Thomas Bilbe Robinson. Colonel the Hon. Sir James Allen, K.C.8., High Commissioner for New Zealand, presided, and he sat looking his audience fair in the eye whilst the lecturer told how this fair land was calling from the Antipodes for immigrants and de-

scribed the shower of gold that would fall into the laps of those who were bold enough to try their fortunes in the Southern Seas. To clinch his argument he said “the rivers are so full of fish that it was no unusual sight to see the wild pigs catching and eating them.” When the gallant Lieut-Col. sat ./- down, the Chairman essayed to try his hand at painting the lily white. Trout up to 371bs could be caught with rod and line. Kingfish ran up to 801bs, and Sir James asked his audience to close their eyes and imagine the sport an 801 b fish would give an angler on the road and line. The next advertiser was the Hon. A. M. Myers, member of the New Zealand Ministry, 1915-19. According to this gentleman, unemployment was unknown in New Zealand. Free access to land was given to people of comparatively small means. Failure in N.Z. was next to impossible, or words to that effect. We have no wish to hear New Zealand cried clown, hut Ave hope that in the hurricane of international advertising about to commence the Publicity board will neither overlook nor submerge the statement of the Government Statistician that “in New Zealand one person in every seven is living in conditions which at the worst are distinctly dangerous and at the best are unfavorable to the maintenance of a proper standard of health and decency.” There is an old proverb which counsels ns to tell the truth and shame the devil. Let us hope that the Publicity board will paste that proverb on its office Avail, and that when it is designing picture posters it will look at it often ami ponder it deeply.

51 The Guild System Socialists who have been disillusioned as to the Utopia, proposed for them by German dreamers now and then turn their attention to the past and ask themselves if the revival of the ancient guilds would help to solve their problems and free them from the dangers of the Servile State, into which all the victories won by Labor seem to be leading the worker by the pathway of compromise. As Mr. Belloc points out in his famous book, when united action and persistent agitation win for the men better hours, better homes, better wages, and better treatment, the result seems invariably to be a loss of economic and political independence which, did they but realise it, is not made up for by their material victories. The point is precisely there: their gains are material, and their losses are on a higher plane. The old guilds certainly gave men independence and dignity, and it is not astonishing that thinkers should turn towards them when they realise how they are losing these priceless things in the grasp of the modern Servile State, which is the State of the present day. No doubt the guilds originally sprang from the need men felt of uniting their forces to defend their interests. There were guilds of a sort in pagan times, but it was under the influence ; ,of Christianity that the medieval guilds acquired their power and their beneficent in- - - In truly Christian times each guild had its own patron saint and its chaplain • ' and its religious aspects, just as Hibernians have in our time. And all the workings of

the guild were inspired and quickened by Christian faith arid by Christian charity. When men talk of what the guilds did and of the chances of reviving them, it is important to remember that fact; and to consider that in our time, when States are frankly atheistic, and when religion means nothing for the masses, to revive the guilds would he but to bring back the lifeless skeletons of the ancient institutions. Moreover, the men of the ancient guilds were not, as the men are to-day, always insisting on their rights, for they also recognised their duties, and religion moved them to fulfil them conscientiously

Religion the Mainspring Without religion it is impossible for men to regain the honest, unselfish outlook of the ancient workers. What hope is there of persuading the average worker of our time that it is verging on usury to seek for profit beyond what -is sufficient to maintain a man and his family in the decent affluence which befits their station in life, whatever ; t may he!-' That, which is the standard mi by Leo XIIT, is precisely the condition with which the men of medieval times' were content. They regarded usury and the seeking after hoarded wealth as something wrong and sinful. Christianity taught the rich that they were lint trustees and that they had certain binding obligations towards their poor neighbors— a matter which troubles the consciences of but few capitalists of outday. In the old regime to overreach one’s neighbor in dealing was dishonest. It is still the same, but unhallowed custom lias made it a respectable sort of robbery. ■ In the old days the cost of production and the maintenance of the producer were the factors which determined price: to-day price is determined by an estimation of how much can be extracted from the pockets of the buyers. We know of an instance in which a New Zealand lady went into a drapery establishment and asked the price of a fur coat. She was told that it was eightv guineas. As she turned away the vendor came down to sixty-five, and finally to fifty. In this case, which is a type of many others, there was, in plain words, an attempt to rob that customer of thirty, guineas. And yet the proprietor of the establishment held his head high, and would resent being called what he was at heart—a thief. Against such sharp dealing the old guilds made a determined stand. They had heavy .fines which they imposed on any guildsmen who tried to “have” customers by such fraudulent} practices. All misrepresentation of the value of goods, all falsification, all efforts at passing all shoddy as the real thing were heavily punished. The old worker took a pride in Ins work and did not try to extort unjust gains from his customers. Compare that state of things with what obtains commonly now, and ask yourself what hope there is af making the guilds what they once were 2 Medieval Methods Mr. Maynard, in a very enlightening article in the Catholic World, thus tells its tow prices were fixed in medieval years; “In the early days of the crafts the ensiomer would engage the artificer to do a

certain piece of work, paying him not by the day or the hour, but for the completed article, for which the customer would supply the material. Thus a man who wanted a coat would take his cloth to the tailor and bargain for the finished article, or the wood to the carpenter who would undertake to supply a table. Later, with the development of trade, craftsmen made coats or tables, as they had time, for prospective customers, thus maintaining a regular supply of work. They began to employ journeymen and indentured apprentices. For the work done the bill would be made out somewhat as follows;

Journey or prentices time (charged at actual cost). Plus Master's time (at a. higher rate but not more than double). Cost of material and incidental charges. No profit was made on the material, except when there was some small amount to cover the time spent in purchase, and there was no profit on the labor of the journeyman. To have charged such would have seemed usurious to the master. .Perhaps the spirit of the crafts may best lie described in the words of a proclamation issued during the reign of Edward Ilf: ‘That so no knavery, false workmanship, or deceit shall be found in any manner in the said mysteries, for the honor of the good folks of the said mysteries and for the common profit of the people.’ ” [Mysteries Jiere mean guilds.] The guilds grew powerful, and their strict regulations and their sterling honesty kept them powerful. Mr. Maynard describes how they worked, thus; “If to the world at large the guilds brought the certainty of a failprice and honest workmanship and to its members protection against the dangers of external competition and internal roguery, the result was based upon and attained by the principle of mastership within the guild. A boy was apprenticed to a craft for seven, three, or two years, according to the craft and the stage in its history, and became, on the expiration of his indenture, a journeyman, which he only remained until, by habits of industry and thrift or the fortunate chance of marriage with his master’s daughter, he could set up as a master himself. The relationship of the master to both apprentice and journeyman was that of a father to his family. This status was not permanent because their normal expectation was that, when the legal bond of the apprentice had expired and capital and experience were acquired, they too would gain their independence and the full freedom of the guild. The modern workman’s economic philosophy is bounded by tolerable and secure employment and the wages envelope on Saturday; to the medieval workman wages marked but a stage towards frugal and honorable independence.’ The Reformation plundered the guilds and the monasteries, and out of the “fat of sacrilege” grew capitalism, and religion died. Not until the old Christian spirit which was killed is revived will the guilds be what Huy ‘ once were in Europe. Both given the knock-out by “NO-RUB-BING” Laundry Help—hard work and disease bacteria concealed in soiled clothing.