November 28, 1904.]
THE POLITICAL ASPECTS OF
RELIGION.
(Daily Press, 22nd November.) It is a curious illustration of the difference in the manner in which the more political side of religion is coming to be viewed at the commencement of n new century that two controversies, nominally religious, should in the European countries have deeply exercised peoples with so little else in common as the French and Scotch. Although seemingly distinct, the two ques- tions have yet a good deal in com.on, in that both are subjects not of doctrine, but;
of the relations of Church and State, and
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
.387
itself was dear, however much it had lost its existed between Russia and England. original reason for existence, held out and Those strained relations were, it is well to claimed the entire property of the church. remember, in no way of England's seeking, The claim was disallowed on its merits by but were brought about absolutely by the Scottish Courts of Law, but was ap- Russian bombast and ill faith. Ever since pealed to the House of Lords as the highest Russia commenced to cast a covetous eye on legal authority. It, taking only into con- Manchuria her conduct has been one succes- sideration the wording of the origiunt bond,sion of lying and ill faith; the more was forced to declare the secession illegal, despicable that it was entirely gratuitous. with the curious result that some five han. With such a nation there is no possibility dred congregations, on a question, not of of entering into alliances which will only doctrine but of momentary expediency, were bind one and be jeeringly discarded by the adjudged to have no legal position what other when it suits her purpose, with the ever. In fact the church of France and insulting remark :-" Fool that you were to that of Scotland, in the face of the expressed trust me!" So much for Lord LANSDOWNE'S desire of the majority, and on grounds trust in that ignis fatuus of weak-kneed this it is that renders both subjects of far entirely irrespective of faith or doctrine, statesmen -a Russian understanding. The wider interest than such questions usually find themselves left out in the cold. The ridiculousness-for no other word can so excite outside the pale of ordinary doc'rinal main lesson to be learnt, even from a fitly express the situation-is emphasised discussion. Too generally it has perhaps merely secular point of view, is the by the fact that all the while that this been assumed that the French, or at least extreme inalvisability of seeking by too silly palaver is going on Russia bus the male portion of the inhabitants of narrow formularies to bind futurity irres been actually flaunting in the face of the France, are irreligious, yet it is perhaps the pective of changing times and changing British Minister who makes the unseemly most wholesome sign of the real progress conditions. In both cases the sympathies prop sal her intention of invading India. that France under the Third Republic has of all the world may be said to be enlisted Here at least she makes no concealinent,
made that nowhere has any question of for both sides. The feelings of the House
but actually holds he intention out as a religion entered the present controversy. of Lords in giving effect to the narrowe-t threat when the Ambassador at St. Peters- The French people, awake to the importance view of the original act on which the United burg has anything more unpleasant than of education, have not for some time been Presbyterian Church of Scotland bad form- usual to deliver himself of. satisfied that the rising generation has been ed itself was, it may be safely affirmed, on receiving a sufficiently practic grounding the side of the losing cause. The sympathies as compared with their neighbours, and that of by far the majority of the French people in consequence the industries of France are
are probably in favour of the Religious suffering in comparison. This has been Orders, against which they yet by con- a subject of complaint, and has been repre- siderable majorities find themselves com- sented as such to the religious corporations pelled to decide. Religion undoubtedly who have hitherto been entrusted with the suffers in both cases, but the fault lay with education of the masses. Had those bodies each losing party in seeking to bind its been wise enough to take these complaints successors in all succeeding ages by for- into consideration the mass of the popula-mula the full force of which it was not in tion, with the exception of that extreme class whose hatred to religion as such is sempiternal, were certainly better pleased that their children should be brought up in the tenets of a religion under which France has grown great and respected. Unfortu- nately, under the impression that there is some occult antagonism between religion aud scientific knowledge, the religious orders, mainly inspired from without, refused to listen to these well-founded complaints, and
more unfortunately still made them a source of opposition to the rule of the State, so that the difference, from being a mere con- flict of opinion, was raised to one of political conflict. In Scotland, on the other hand, where people had bad in former centuries well grounded subjects of complaint that the State had endeavoured to interfere with liberty of conscience, a similar grievance had alienated from the State a large section of the more religious, and, undeterred by what at times amounted to persecution, they raised an enormous sum of money to be enabled to celebrate in peace and quiet. ness those rites which conscience would not permit them to offer under State patronage. A portion of the seceders, not wholly satisfied that the repudiation of State inter- ference went far enough, formed a seces- sion from this second body, nud drew up ".
rule forbidding in still stronger language any possible State dependence, whilst at the same time retaining on all doctriual points a similarity of faith. As time went on the Government practically abandoned all claim to interference in the working of the Established Church, and the great majority of the second secession, seeing no further occasion to protest against a condi- tion of affairs no longer existing, and there being no practical difference of doctrine or tradition, as hard-headed Scotchmen decided to amalgamate and leave out the formula of protestation which formed the only diffe rence between the two. But twenty-four isolated clergymen to whom the protest in
a position to foresee.
THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN IMPASSE.
(Daily Press, 23rd November.) In the absence of any special information, of which our Government has of late been remarkably reticent, it is not very easy to understand the drift of recent arrangements with Russia, nor to comprehend what is to be the outcome of Russia's unprovoked outrage in the North Sea. Reasoning from Lord LANSDOWNE's utterances at the Lord
Mayor's Banquet on the 9th instant, France has been exerting her influence to bring about some reasonable settlement, and seeing that our Government declined in the first instance, when it had an unchallenged ground for active steps, to carry matt rs to their legitimate issue, it had logically when statements were put forward by the opposite side which if on investigation proved capable of proof, to submit to have the issue tried by the general practice of nations. It is, however, after so many instances of ill faith have been within the last few months brought home to Russia, not seemly that our Foreign Minister should continue to asseverate his belief in Russia's rond inten tions; and that before entering into further negotiations he did not insist on some more
tangible security than the mere word of the
Russian Foreign Office. That the Russian Government did not actually know before. hand Admiral RZHDESTVENSKY's intentions is of course readily to be believed, but if his action were in contumacy of orders, that is only one reason the stronger why such a truculent and incapable officer should have beeu prevented, if necessary by muzzling, or other methods which even he could not fail to unders and, from having the opportunity of committing further outrages. We have no reason whatever to doubt the good faith of France, and quite appreciate the motives which have suggested themselves to her to bring about better relations than have lately
At the same time, and herein lies the shamefacedness of the situation, the British Minister has been talking bravely of the rights of neutrals, and thereby impaled
himself on the horns of a dilemma.
At the
time when Russia's comparatively mild outrage in the Red Sea was the only difficul- ty to face, and when a declaration that the vessels of the Volunteer Fleet which had passed the Dardanelles under the assurance that they were merchant ships cou'd not immediately afterwards, without having entered a Russian port, take on themselves the status of commissioned warships, and would be treated as pirates should they interfere with British commerce, would at once have cleared the atmosphere, and ruised no unsettled questions of contraband
and neutral rights at this time we pointed out the unwis lom of permitting these out- side issues to be imported into a very simple affair, where there was no doubt at all attaching. That Russia would in pursuance to raise the issue was so certain that the of her ordinary every-day methods attempt diplomat who advised his Government to parley by the very fact proved his unfit- ness for the service. We do not hint that the Ambassador or any British Plenipoten- tiary was fatuous enough to have given any such advice, and the responsibility must be thrown on the head of the Home Govern- ment of permitting an already sufficiently complicatel position to be still further complicated by the importation of the rev discussion on contraband. having posed as a naval Power, and being always ready to take advantage of any wind, had no traditions of neutral or belli- gerent rights to either maintain or oppose, and came into the cise with an absolutely free hand; not so England, who had in-
Russia never
herited a fixed policy of maintaining to the
utmost the rights both of belligerents and neutrals. To uphold both these doctrines at the same time would under the best of circumstances be difficult, if not impossible, and had the Minister fully recognised this
he would have been careful to confine him- self to less erudite but more practical issues. The effects of this vacillating policy, or better named no-policy, are be coming painfully evident. At the begin. ning of the war we determined ourselves, and used our influence and strained every
nerve to prevent any breach of those well-
recognised international rules which forbid neutral Power to shelter or render any
a