تم
296
CORRESPONDENCE.
FRENCH STATE AND CHURCH.
TO THE Editor of THE DAILY PRESS.
St. Joseph Church.
Shanghai, October 13th, 1906. SIB,- A friend has put into my hand a typed copy of a communication which appears in your issue of 1st Sept. last. In the mixture of Buppressio Veri suggestio falsi and fierce unmeaning bitterness which the contribution in question contains it is somewhat difficult to clearly settle what it is precisely which your contributor proposes to establish.
From reading and re-reading said contribution one idea clearly emerges (whether it is your contributor's chief one or not I don't know) and it is:-"your contributor assigns as the adequate and exclusive cause of the recent legislation in France against the Church (I) the fact of the Pope's objection to Loubet's visit to the King of Italy, (2) the ordering 'two Bishops' withi republican sympathies to resign and repair to Rome for disciplinary purposes".
These two facts (alleged merely or real) can. not in any sense be the causes of the legislation in question, if the true causes can be sought and found in genuine facts anterior to the occurrence of either or both the alleged ones, These causes reduce to one viz., the intention of leading French Legislators to introduce measures with a view to Separation as it now exists. This intention is a fact and I shall now call witnesses,
The first witness is Waldeck Rousseau, who in a speech to the French Chamber, December 7th, 1899, opposed as Premier a motion for Separation only on the ground that the time had not yet come. Personally he declared him- self in favor of it. The religions bodies must first be dealt with etc., etc.
The next witness is Combes, who in the Senate, March 21st, 1903, declared himself and
|
|
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
Strange as it may seem to the ordinary Protestant the Pope is to-day fighting with far better justification and far greater modera. tion the very war that Chalmers and the other. founders of the Free Kirk waged in Scotland sixty years ago for the the "Crown rights of Christ." Such associations as the law proposes are intolerable and the Pope wisely refuses to con- sider any scheme for the modification. At the same time the Pope gives the French Government to understand that on certain terms an under- standing is possible. As we read the tncyclical it does not seem that the Papacy makes any impossible demands. All that the French State need do is to arrange with the Papacy for a concession to the French Church or a similar status to that which Mr. Gladstone allowed the Irish Church at the time of its disestablishment, On these terms it seems there may be peace in France; if they are refused the reponsibilities of the disturbance and sacrilege that may follow will rest solely on the Républic. Not the least melancholy feature in this unhappy story is the fact that English sympathy is generally on the anti-Christian side. As a fact the Pope is in every way the injured party and in this case the cause for which he is fighting is the cans of Christendom. The men who rule Frauce to-day make no concealment of their hatred and contempt for Christianity and its Founder.
Were Englishmen a little more logical they would see the absurdity of allowing an absolutely irrelevant fact to affect their judgment of the struggle between Church and State in Franco. There is no question here of differences between Anglicanism and Romanism or indeed between Romanism and Protestantism. The Pope in this matter is fighting the battle of Christendom.
1 shall have this ins rted in the Shanghai papers. I am,
Yours, etc.,
M.E. COLMAN, 8....
all his colleagues and the whole Republican THE JAPAN-AMERICAN TROUBLE.
party in favor of Separation, but the public mind must be prepared and the odium of Separation must not be allowed to attach to the party but must be cast on the Catholic clergy.
Does your contributor require any more conclusive evidence that he is wildly and absurdly wrong in his contention?
His implication that the Republican sym pathies of "Bishops ordered to Rome" had something to do with their trouble with the Pope is equally wildly and abanṛdly imaginary. Let him read in this connection the speech of M. Constans, Minister of the Interior, delivered in June, 1893, the letter of Leo XIII, 16th Feb., 1893, with whose policy that of the present Pope is in this matter in absolute accord and in perfect continuity.
For the sake of our common English language, that it is not a mere vehicle of brutalities, banalities, half-truths, suggestions of the low, but may be the noble expression of noble thoughts and convey a sympathy ax delicate and pure as any other language written or spoken, I will include in this letter (which I ask you to publish) an extract from the Saturday Review, August the 18th, which is at the same time a traversing of the whole position of your contributor and sets in their true Orientation the impertinences and irrelevancies of the same. "If speaking of the want of sympathy of English journalism generally with the Pope and criticisms often unjust of the same on the Pope's action, justification were needed for this papal action it would be found in these oriticisms upon it. When professing French Catholics insist on subservience in matters spiritual to an atheistic State it is time for a protest against their cowardice............ The En- cycliosl, the bravest thing in truth that bas come to France from the Vatican since the day when Pius XI hurled the “ciril constitution of the clergy in the faces of the men of the First Revolution should herald the dawn of a new
era for the annals of French Catholicism.........This conception of associa tions of lay-men for ecclesiastical purposes responsible to a Council of State and independ- ent of the Bishop is absolutely uncatholic. We have said that the principle of the associa- tion is uncatholic; no small proportion of Protestants would repudiate it as anti-Christian.
|
|
SERIOUS VIEW TAKEN IN TOKYO,
Telegrams to the Daily Press of October 27th said:
Conut Okuma, interviewed with regard to the exclusion of Japanese scholars from San Fran cisen schools, says that Japan cannot afford to tolerate such injustice from any nation what-
aver.
He is trusting, however, that President Roosevelt, will intervene and relieve the tension. Baron Kaneko as President of the America's Friend Society has cabled to President Roose- velt deploring the prejudice which has led to the expulsion of Japanese scholars from schools in the Westeru States, and trusting that the President will adopt prompt measures for the sake of justice and humanity.
[Recently, Mr. Uchida, Japanese Consul. General at New York, who is now in Tokyo, delivered an interesting speech at an ordinary meeting of the Oriental Economic Society on the commercial relations between Japan and America Nothing could be more vital, said Mr. Uchida, to the prosperity of Japan, than the trade with America. Raw silk, tea and of Japan's export commodities, would be dealt a matting, which formed the most important lines heary blow by economic depression in America, and it behoved the Japanese to direct continue i and careful attention to the economic condition in that country. It seems desirable, therefore, that Japan should also devote careful attention to the consideration of taking less seriously. Sao Fraucisco is not the Ameri
pin pricks" can nation. The world has had enough of war for the present.
CHINO-ITALIAN COMMERCIAL
TREATY.
AN ABORTIVE COMMISSION.
A Daily Press telegram dated Shanghai, October 25th said :
The Italisa Commissioners have definitely broken off negotiations with regard to the pro- posed Commercial Treaty between Italy and China, on the grounds that China is unwilling to make the slightest return for Italy's accep. tance of article 8 of the Mackay Treaty.
(October 29, 1906.
EXCHANGE.
BOME RUDIMENTAL EXPLANATIONS.
You quite understand why dearer silver should mesa a more valuable dollar, do you"? The Broker smiled. “But you want me to explain why there should be differences of exchange when you tura a sovereign iato you, or into franes, which you have noticed is the case. The Lady nodded.
"You are right in thinking yen and francs have standard values, just as the sovereign has. The secret of their differing values in the exchange list is this-bat did you ever send anyone a pre-eat?"
Somewhat surprised, the Lady said: "Of
course I have.“
•
11
Weil, suppose you sent me a shilling tie by post, what would that present cost you?"
“A sh-Ah: I see. One and a penny, of course".
1
Exactly. Now we have a clue to the secret. If you owe one pound to a London shop, you cannot discharge your debt here without paying a little more than you really owe, Exchange differences represent the little more. Suppos: Importer A. in Hongkong owes Exportar B. in London
£100, and that Importer C. in London owes Exporter D.
in Canton C100—.
The Lady was by no means dull.
**
11
How delightfully simple," she interrupted. Then C. could pay B., both in London, and A. could pay the man at Canton. But then (thoughtfully) "there would not be any of that little more to pay.'
++
Correct, so far; but now suppose it is too much trouble for the London men to meet per- sonally, or the Hongkong man doesn't happen to be thinking of a trip to Cauton. They would pay somebody the little more to do it for them. To send the actual money would cost freight and insurance, and while travelling about, it would not be earning interest. So exchange bills are sent instead, and that is where the Banks come in. You know that a dollar is of no use to you unless you spend it, don't you? Well, a bill, like a banknote, is of no use till cashed, strictly speaking; but as it happens, it is.
You can buy them. Suppose A. didn't owe B. that £100 just then, bat happened to do so a mouth or two later, and met a man who had seud. He would ask that min for the bill, a bili for £100 which he had no occasion to
and the man, having no use for it, would let him have it for £100. But suppose the man with the 100 bill had another friend about to seal £100 to London. He would not know which friend to give it to. Both needed it, and bo u begaá to make him bids for it. Do you follow me? Then he would give it to the one who bid most That is supply and demand, as we call it. There are so many people sending money back and forward that selling money is quite a business in itself."
"Then that explains why the Banks take care of your money without charging you anything”,
said the Lady,
Charging you! Why, they pay you for let ing them take care of it. They send it back and forward, you see, in the form of these bills. If when you want it, yours happens to be travelling, they give you somebody else's ".
The Lady looked rather shocked. supposing no London people happen to owe "Oh, it's all right. Nobody loses. Well, now.
Hongkong people anything, and it is all the other way, you can see that Hongkong would want a great many bills. They would have to pay more, just as at an auction when many ladies want a thing the auctioneer gets a bigger price for it. Just now there is very little money in Hongkong to send away, so the Banks will soll you
outside money for fewer dollars than before,” How nice of them.
There's a lot more, but I'm not good at explaining, I'm afraid. For instance, when everybody wants to buy bills, they may get so dear that it becomes chospor after all to send the actual cash, paying the ship to carry it. Then bills get cheaper—that is, your dollar is 'high'.
Why then, they must have been sending loads of real money away in ships lately, "said the Lady.
† I shouldn't wonder, "said the Broker. “ I've seen very little about for some time. Ah! Here's your husband. Good morning"./
7.
Page 20Page 21