IF FATHER MATHEW LIVED TODAY- W uld He Give The Pledge Against The Cinema?

From Our Own Correspondent Dunne.
This year the Lenten Ely, the daffodil—
That has not long to stay And dies on Easter Day- did not last even her due span, but was withered before the Easter sunshine fell on Ireland. The holidays were brilliant, but a harsh wind from the North blew incessantly, so that we missed the mild beauty of the Resurrection season at its best. The orchards are in premature flower, trees heaped with red and white, splendour: but the sunny days are followed by sharp frost at nights, that nip the blossom before it is set.
Drought has lasted almost since January, and growth is set back in the vast expanses that have been ploughed by sanguine farmers. It is a season of promise and denial, hope and disappointment — and hope that dawns again.
Tributes to the Dead
We kept Easter with the customary parades after Mass, and the breaking on the wind of We Flag which was flown first at another Easter time. There was a procession to the patriots' graves in Dublin: or rather, two processions, since we still are divided among ourselves by the presence of political prisoners in our jails in the south as well as in those of the north. It is hoped that one result of the London negotiations will be a general amnesty, now long overdue.
Writing on Sunday, with short holiday mails, I cannot report events in the provinces—in Cork and Belfast—this week. In Belfast, the police guarded the Catholic cemetery to prevent celebrations, but meanwhile the patriots had laid wreaths on the graves of the Protestant leaders of 1798, recalling the truth that the present rulers of the North are descended from men who were proudly Irish.
I must confine my Faster notes mainly to the Father Mathew Feis which was opened at the Capuchin Hall in Dublin: a festival of Irish music and dancing competitions at a spot which has a unique place in Irish history.
The Church Street Capuchins were the friends and comforters of the lighting men of Easter Week and afterwards. They maintain several -notable publications and have built up in the Father Mathew Hall a Catholic dramatic movement which counts for much. Sonic of our best players and producers got their training at Church Street, and are infusing, thus, the Catholic ideal into theatrical work and broadcasting.
Strong Words at the Feis
The speaker who opened the Feis on Sunday spoke of Father Mathew's amazing work for temperance when, a hundred years ago, he redeemed the nation from the curse of drunkenness, then rampant. What would the great Capuchin find to do today. when drink is conquered? " He would look forth on Ireland," the speaker said. " and find that a ten times more deadly vice was ratting the moral fibre and national character—the cinematograph, with its attendant jazz dances and cosmetic fashions, with which a people claiming to be Christian admire and imitate the most immoral classes. The cinema has wrought more havoc in Ireland in 20 years than the Penal Laws did in 200. Today, ten or twenty times as much time is spent in the cinema as in the church, the study-hall, or any other serious and decent place. and that in a capital city which is supposed not to he pagan.
" Is it possible." the speaker asked, "that our rising generation should go persistently to these indecent shows and emerge un scathed? Can we expect Ireland in the future m display that chastity of youth which was her glory in other days?" He gave examples of films recently shown throughout Ireland, with the seductive pretence that they dealt with historical characters, Napoleon, Washington, Nelson, yet in fact were immoral productions. These go out with " Passed by Censor " written across them, he said, " so that they are supposed to be harmless, although they are as nation-corrupting as the work for which pagan Rome banished Ovid, lest he undo She natural virtues on which the race depends for its survival. We would be better without any Censor, if we cannot have a serious censorship; for, if there were no censorship, people would be thrown upon their consciences and they would recognise the evil character of the things that now are protected.
"I would appeal also to the newspapers to refuse the unlucky money which comes from advertising the debased shows, and to obey the appeal of the Pope in his encyclical on the cinematograph, for specific moral criticism of films—a thing not yet done in Ireland, where films against which the Catholic Press in Rome gives warning are shown to old and young indiscriminately.
"Further,the speaker said, " let us note that the cinema wields an even greater
influence than the school. Our clerical Managership insists that teachers of schools shall be Christians. They would not admit a Jew, even a good Jew, to teach our Christian children. Yet we hand the whole youth of the land over to a trade largely run by Jews of a bad type. We ought to legislate for the control of the amusement trade by Christians, in order that young minds shall not be moulded by those alien to us in race and in faith.
"Pending these reforms, to grapple with the evil that is destroying national culture, and is sapping morality and preparing Ireland to become another Spain, I suggest that we do what Fr. Mathew would do institute a Total Abstinence pledge against the cinema, jazz, dances and cosmetics."
Protect the Children at Least !
Fr. Aloysius, O.M.Cap., who thanked the speaker, said he agreed with all that had been said, and appealed to the Government, since the censorship was so weak, to close the cinemas to children, save when films fit to be seen could be shown.
The main street of Dublin has another huge cinema, which was opened at Easter, happily without any public notability performing the ceremony. In that street, and round the corners of its tributaries, there now are no fewer than ten cinemas, with others within a quarter of a mile. All are crowded night after night. We can find room for hundreds of thousands of picturegoers, but not for church-goers. On Easter Sunday, when the Lord Mayor and Corporation attended Mass in state at the ProCathedral, hundreds of Dublin men could be seen leaning against the walls and railings outside—efulfilling their Sunday obligation by being within the precincts of the church, but not inside the building. Such is the contrast that strikes the eye and the mind.
What Does the Banking Commission Say ?
The Report of the Banking Commission has been signed and delivered to the Government, together with a minority report which challenges its conclusions.
The Report is said to have been described as a condemnation of the Government's policy; for it recommends a drastic reversal of economic measures—a cutting down of wage costs and general paring of the expensive social services. So, at least, it is stated: though the Report will not be available to the Press and public for some time.
A distinguished Holy Ghost Father, the Rev. H. Fahey, spoke strongly a few days ago on the advisorship of the Commission. which was foreign and, not to speak more plainly, un-Catholic. We need not expect the principles of the Encyclicals to govern this advice, he said.
Well, the sooner the full document is available the better, although the need for sumptuary measures to check the orgies of wasteful expenditure that result in the cinematograph as the principal industry in a capital city half full of slums. is obvious enough, without any Commission of experts. The headlong emigration which was described in last week's Cierstour HERALD is a symptom that we can interpret without the aid of any Jewish economist.
The Presidency
An official announcement fixes May 31 for the Presidential election. Nominations must be made by May 4. The Senate will hold its first meeting next week. We assume that these announcements indicate that the rulers of the nation now have a clear knowledge of the issue of the London negotiations and of the possibility of a noncontested election.
Alderman Alfie Byrne, Lord Mayor of Dublin, has said that he will not withdraw his candidature save for Mr. de Valera or Mr. Cosgrave—he will contest the office if any other candidate than either of these goes forward. I think that he would beat any other candidate : and so does he.