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A CATHOLIC WEEKLY
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NO !,855.
PERTH, SATURDAY. JANUARY 5, 1934
SIXTIETH YEAR.
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Father Martindale's Impressions of Us
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Our Habits, Our Morals and Our Beaches Father C. C. Martindale, S.J. whose writings are widely known, and who is a commentator with a keen judgment of men and things, in an interview given to a -West Australian- pressman at the Archbishop's Palace (luring last week after a swim at Scarborough, said many things that, coming from a much- travelled person of his keen intellect and understanding, form interesting reading matter.
Bcoks and Pornography. One point, however. Six years ago went into an ordinary stationer's shop to buy I forget what. Certainly I was astounded by the books exhibited in one section of the cases. You would have to hunt in London before you found such literature. I asked my companion, a returned soldier, if that was normal. But it appeared that he never read books of any kind, and regarded the entire oc cupation with horror and had to forgive me for writing them—so I got no further information off hip; but we retired for a glass of beer. it being very hot. It remains that porno graphy, especially if accesssible to the y oung, is bad, and it has recently been fiercely objected to by the Peruvian Board of Education. I
FATHER C. .....
MARTINDALE, S j
sum.....moispas......issmitesumsmisomosimossessit.
Father M;rtindale has been impressed by ?erth's beauty from the riverfront, bit the gasometer offends his eye. ": shall be glad to lose no opportunity here or in England of saying that it is a crime Perth has mminitted :gainst itself," he exclaimed. "The road from Fremantle to Perth, whic) has been broadened since I . was last lere and adorned with the beautiful golden university buildings, ends with what would be radiantly beasitiful e:cept for the gasometer, whi'sh rivets the eye on its hideousness. I thank God daily on waking on my t errace ahsve (pointing to his room at the Palace) that my hack is turned to eyelything except the river." " Visitors are always asked what t hey Thititc of a country's 'morals; wIlich I 'should think arc the last t hing he /should be asked about," he said. rzsVen visible public laxity ar gue terekness on the part of author bV, says nothing about the beha\a'rui; Qf the majority. Thus I dare sa ," Port Said is quite a respectable pls re in spite of the way you are Pfitered there. The only entertainme nts I hive been to in Perth have he( !n Imxin.,• and wrestling; there was a bit of 'language,' hut not one- twentieth of what I heard in *about 10 m i..•alites in an officers' club in another ' 'Despite sthe anguish of not being all :)wed tAlsmoke in Australian cineIn Ibut been to very few! ), co( uldn't sv there was the slightest d behaviour visible at any rate. Cinema advertisments here are vulga r, nideous, and promising all sorts of Ifilitt ss tliat will certainly not be fol . actually filmed, but they are that everywhere. (One reason ag. ai,nst the cinema is that it standarc li§es .the imagination and is bringThe whole world up on the same )d-----unrourishing fond, but T couldn't • exactly poisonous.)
Beaches and Beach Dress. "Some people are apt to utter cries against some of Your beaches at cer tain hours of the day. I haven't s wum off many of them, and when I did the topic didn't occur to me; so I noticed ( illy a number of healthy people whom I envied, and wished we had sun and water like that in England. I couldn't condemn beaches as such any more than motor cars as such. Both can he misused. The latter are our common necessity. The former your national good luck. Father Martindale spoke of a reac tion against moral laxity and the need for self -control. "It is, T think- certain that Europe (except where a revolution may be _going on, and largely because of it, as in Spain , there is marked reaction away from lewdness or laxity,- he said. "There are those who say the same for Australia. Naturally, I can't judge. One father of a large family told me he actually noted the difference between his older and Younger son. That would be good. For if Vouth lets itself vo slack and sensual, there is not much chance of its pulling up, and the race will be slack, and an easy victim. To sin is one thing: to have a sinful mind is another. The centre of grav ity of such things should be the body, not the mind. A man, in process of constructing his character, may be weak —self-control is an art, and most arts are slowly learned. But if there are no principles in the mind, nor courage in the will, in favour of self control, there will be no attempt at self - discipline, and that is an early end of self -respect, and indeed of respect for anyone else. That means an envineered de-valuation of humanity; a cheapening of the race, body and rnincl ; and, as T said. no future save defeat.
T. A. 4AMES, Stock and Share Broker, West
"A book I recently read---'Australia's Backyards'—says that in the North there is an approach to native (or halt -caste) labour, such that white women need do no work. Result, their morals go west. I've never been there, and know no one to ask if that is true. But it is true in South Al rica, where, I confess, the high level of the ground and rarified air may add to the difficulty, though I doubt it. For if North Australia is largely hot and damp for half the Year, that is just as bad. It remains that idleness due to your work being done for next to no wages by a population you look down on, is quite certain to rot away self respect and all the rest of it. The author anyway, had for long lived there, and was Australian, and was far from setting up to be a saint himself. I hold, then, that to disregard the tendency towards real tough per sonal self -control in sexual matters, is to be out of the current towards precisely that so noticeable in the younger generations of several countries, England included. The sight of a :quandered generation has decided stir%.-ivors to go on surviving, and to take Austere means towards donig so." A University Mission. An echo of the
criticism
directed
1w some parliamentarians against the
grant for education in this State and the financing of the free university, has apparently been heard by Father Mar tindale. -It is alleged," he exclaimed, -that :ti,):1,;:s spent on university or even other education in Western Australia is deprecated. Perhaps it is thought that the enormous sum left to make .possible the beginning of ysur university buildings is suffiThough, in proportion as uni cient. versity education is 'free,' it is difficult to see how anything ever coulel suffice. For no one wants a university to be, as too often in Latin coon' tries, a mere machine for getting degrees and not even a place where dif ferent categories of students can get a technical and departmental instruc tion. A university should fit a man in all ways for being a citizen of the world. It cannot do that if he so much as remains within its walls—it should have many travel- scholarships and should he 'universal' enough to prepare their winners to profit by them. I do not know that Rhodes scholars always do profit by their stay in Oxford; in fact, T know they don't in many cases. Either they are too definitely of their own nationality to like or make use of Oxford; or the" are fascinated by it, wish to remain abroad, or cease to fit in when they -return home. Snell has notably been the case with South Africans. Australians and New Zealanders and a
Australian Chambers, 104 sat. George's Terr.
Tel. B2873.
minority (I judge) from the United We States have done much better. like them, from the start; they end by liking us; those whom I've known. personally return and make good citizens. unswollen as to head, open in heart, and helpful in hand.
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"But an essential element in a suc cessful university is the proper pay ment of those who teach in it. And I am sure that much of that teaching should be tutorial. Thus in Oxford we had a weekly essay, which involved a week's hard research; You read it to your toter either alone or with not more than one other piesent. This might take 20 minutes; 40 were left for extremely personal discussion. Th. I, was far more useful than tire though these were necesc• while you paid nothing tures, your tutor's fee 11 • servedly, for it -work f ir him indepe! ' Probably no lians could afford t That settles it. ing is worth haviug, :a the fullest sense, it must. be . 1 for by someone; if not by ti's student, then by some benefactor Or 'founder: and. in the last resort. by the State. I sa:. 'the last resort.' for, if the State pays, it will soon enough claim to c.)ritro: ciniversitY teaching, which is the quick death of intellectual independence. In South Africa the State once tried ts appoint university profesors. The universities at once saw that this meant political appointments; the State wan ted a 'one way mental traf fic' such as should suit its convenience. The universities revolted, and defeat'--ed this plan, even at the cost of money. That was about 1930, things may have changed since then:" A keen observer, Father Martindale had a Nvord to say Australian, of abroad and at home. "No one should generalise about a whole nation at a time." he said, "therefore I say merely that one sort of Australian has a nan-,e for boasting, rather as one sort of Englishman has the name of being supercilious, or stiff. If boasting is a half -unconscious way of defending what you love dearly, like your home. \yell, it is understandable and no one minds after a bit. But if it is due to complacency, and the complacency is due to lack of comparisons or adequate standards of judgment. then it would be tedious to listen to and very ii harm fv1 to the compla(lil t her ile c ould never improve, which we all r eed to do. God knows. The West Australian University buildings would have been impossible a generation ago, and imply travel cinilinrisnn, judgment and good selection; in short, they are very beautiful. Hence th( work done within them not only de s erves but seems likely to get, from an open- eyed community, all due help. assume that those who teach in them are themselves, if possible, tra velled mcri, and not like the young men and women who, no less in England than in Australia, do arrive there raw • demanding to de leveloped. bet ter balanced."
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