Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 6, 11 February 1925, Page 47

Irish News

ME FRANCISCAN FATHERS—IRISH BISHOP ON EDUCATION— AND THE LEAGUE— TARIFFS-CHINA'S IRISH PIONEER MISSIONER.

The Franciscan Fathers of Merchant' Quay, Dublin, have been celebrating the seventh centenary of the coming of their Order to Ireland. It is a common tradition among the .friars that their earliest foundation was at Youghal, Cork County, in 1224. According to the same tradition it was St. Francis himself who turned his eyes toward Ireland. The first friar sent to Ireland was a Spaniard. Within one hundred years 32 friaries had been established, and the Order had already given bishops to ten different Irish sees. Numerous schools of learning were founded and the students, foremost among them John Duns Scotus, were making Ireland's name famous at the Universities of Oxford and Paris. During the next two centuries and up to the time of the monastic suppression the Order continued to grow, and finally numbered some eighty friaries. The friars themselves were between two and three thousand. Some of them frequented the schools of Cologne, Strasbourg, and Bologna. When the storm of the Protestant movement broke against the' Irish Church no community appeared better prepared to meet and withstand it than the followers of St. Francis. But ultimately the friaries were all suppressed and for nearly three hundred years the Order was subjected to spoliation, persecution, and death. Still the priests managed to minister to the spiritual wants of the Irish people. They transferred their houses of training and study to the Continent. Florence Conry founded their house at Louvain, Luke Wadding established St. Isidore's at Rome Patrick Fleming, afterwards to die a martyr, founded St. Ambrose's at Prague. Thither the friars resorted from every part of Ireland, the young to be trained, the old to guide and direct. In course of time these continental schools sent back missionaries to Ireland. The Franciscan link with the Irish people has continued to this day.

Most Rev. Dr. Fogarty, in discussing the educational outlook in an address after an entertainment in St. Flannan's College, Ennis, expressed strong views on the, subject of cigarette smoking by girls.

The change that had been made in the system of education in Ireland, his Lordship said, was a blessed and a splendid one. The old Intermediate system had simply turned boys into bundles of rules of syntax and things like that. A great deal of the nonsense from which they had suffered was due to the fact that the intellect of the people had not been properly formed. They were going back to the system of education which the Church had developed, nursed for hundreds of years, and found the correct one. Ho ventured to say that in ten or fifteen years a great improvement would be visible in the moral make-up of all the young boys and girls.

accounted, for example, for cigarette-smok-ing among girls. It caused'them to lose, unknowingly, their nice perception of what was correct.

Recently he had seen in a hotel two girls, who looked very nice young girls, until they pulled out silver cigarette cases, took a cigarette each, struck a match, and lighted it and started to smoke. That occurred in a public room and he was a witness of it. At dinner they put down their cigarettes when the soup came, but resumed their smoking as soon as the soup plates had been removed. Still they were probably considered two very nice young girls.

There was something wrong when nicely trained people of that kind failed to see how their action was unbecoming. Referring to the magnificent result of the appeal of Canon O'Kennedy for the college, his Lordship asked what would St. Flannan have thought of young girls smoking cigarettes in a. public room ? Unknown to themselves the people were drifting away from Catholic ideals, but he hoped that under the new system of education the Irish ship would be brought hack and safely moored again in the harbor of the Catholic Faith. Very Rev. Canon O'Kennedy said he hoped that the Ministry of Education would not allow a horde of inspectors to destroy what had been planned. Too many inspectors were the curse of education.

A strange and altogether unexpected move has been made by the British Government in challenging the right of the nations of the Commonwealth to have the Treaties made between them interpreted by the League of Nations. The Treaty concluded between Great Britain and Ireland on December 6, 1921, was registered on July 11 with the Secretariat of the League, and now Great Britain comes forward belatedly to question the right of Saorstat Eireann to register the international instrument at Geneva According to Mr. Austen Chamberlain's peculiar method of reasoning in regard ,to this very serious matter, "since the Covenant of the League- of Nations came into force his Majesty's Government has consistently taken the view that neither., it nor any conventions, concluded • under the auspices of the League are , intended to govern relations, inter se, of the various parts of the British Commonwealth..;' His Majesty's Government consider, therefore, that the' terms of Article 18 of the Covenant are not applicable to the Articles of Agreement' of December 6, 1921." Now here are the. terms in which the Article of . the Covenant 'is couched—- " Every Treaty, or, 'international agreement entered into •.hereafter by any member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat, and shall, as ! soon as possible, be published ; by it. No such Treaty or international agreement shall be binding until so registered." ) This language is clear and unambiguous, and there can be no question as to the interpretation that it pro-

One of the greatest curses of imperfect education was the effect it. had on girls. It

perly bears. Furthermore, Ireland is a member of the League, and her rights as such are equal to the rights of any other member. . The action now taken by the British Government is certain to be resented by Canada and other nations of the CommonWealth, whose rights, thus threatened in a vital way, we are confident will be vindicated by the Assembly of the League.

Speaking at a recent public meeting in South Dublin, Mr. E. Blythe uttered a warning against the slogan of protection for Ireland.

Protective tariffs, he said, on a most extended scale, are advocated by many enthusiasts in the Free State, well-meaning persons unburdened by any knowledge of political economy or economic facts. Against their dangerous theories Mr. Blythe uttered a. strong warning, a warning that possesses double force since he, judged by English standards, is not an orthodox Free-trader* They must bear in mind, he told his audience, that the Free State depended mainly on its agricultural resources, which could not be developed by a system of Protection. Unban industry might, indeed, be fostered for a time by exceptional legislation; but if, as the result of fiscal changes, the cost of living substantially increased, the prosperity of a few districts would have been purchased at the price of national impoverishment. Such considerations had led the Government which Mas not committed to Freetrade and believed that certain industries might be assisted without danger by the State —to proceed with slow and cautious steps, to resist the pressure of those who thought that Irish prosperity could be secured by restraining, with sufficient thoroughness, the normal flow of commerce.

- Information has been received at St. Columban's Seminary, Nebraska, U.S.A. (says the Irish Catholic), that Right Rev. Mgr. Edward J. Galvin, founder of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, has been named Prefect Apostolic of Han Yang, Hupeh, China, He lias been director of the missionary endeavors of the Society in the Prefecture for the past four years. Monsignor Galvin, a native of Ireland, spent the first few years of his ministry as a priest in the diocese of Brooklyn, and then went to China in 1912. After three years there he returned to America, and with the approval of several prominent members of the hierarchy, set about the organisation of the Missionary Society of St. Columban for missionary work among the Chinese. He recruited the first volunteers in this work from Ireland, and two seminaries have subsequently been established in that country. The first American house of the Society was opened in 1918, and there are now two seminaries in the United States—-St. Columbah's, Nebraska, and St Columban's Preparatory College at' Silver Creek, New York. . A house has also been . established in Melbourne, Australia, under the patronage of Archbishop Mannix. The Congregation of the Propaganda has recently asked the Society of St. Columban to undertake missionary work among the large Chinese population in the Kingdom of Siam.. i