New Zealand And Article 219.

NEW ZEALAND AND ARTICLE 219 .

We lost no time last week in expressing our satisfaction at the decision at which Grand Lodge , on the advice of the Grand Registrar , arrived in regard to the petitions submitted to it bybrethren in New Zealand on the subject of the interpretation to

be placed on Article 219 . Book of Constitutions . VVe now heartily congratulate our New Zealand brethren on the result of the steps they have taken in order to obtain this decision . They have now been told authoritatively that the Article in question ,

as interpreted by the legal adviser of Grand Lodge , is not intended to apply to their case , because our Grand Lodge has declined to recognise the so-called Grand Lodge of New Zealand . Hence , though a majority of the members of any

lodge under the English Constitution may elect to join the ranks of the pseudo-Grand Lodge of New Zealand , the status of such lodge will not be affected , provided always that three or more of its members remain to carry on its duties .

This , we repeat , is in all respects satisfactory as regards our brethren in New Zealand , but here our feeling of satisfaction comes to a dead stop . VVe have no fault to lind with the result in their particular case , but the process of argument by

which it has been arrived at cannot be too strongly condemned . Moreover , there is this very important qualification to our sense of pleasure , namely , that the difficulty in which our Colonial brethren generally , or rather those of them who owe allegiance

to our Grand Lodge , have been placed by the advice which Grand Registrar tendered to the Colonial Board some while since , has not been summarily disposed of , but only evaded in this one instance . Grand Registrar , indeed , plainly gave

Grand Lodge to understand that he still held by his original interpretation of Article 219 ; that is to say , that he still considers the Article was not intended to apply to those cases in which a majority of the members retire from the lodge for the

purpose of transferring their allegiance to a local Grand Lodge which has been successfully established , and to which accordingly our Grand Lodge deems itself bound to accord recognition . Therefore it is evident that if , at any future time , in any other

Colony or Dependency of the British Crown which does not possess a Grand Lodge of its own , a movement is started for the purpose of establishing a local Grand Lodge , and that movement is successful—by which we mean that it succeeds in obtaining

the support of a preponderant majority of the lodges—as expressed by the members of such lodges either unanimously or by a majority of votes—the minority of any seceding lodge .

though it may be composed of three or more members , may appeal to Grand Lodge to protect the rights reserved to it under the aforesaid Article 219 , but its appeal will be in vain .

But , at the risk of repeating what we have said in former articles on this subject , let us , first of all , see what this Article 219 says , and what it does not say . It says in language the clearness and precision of which cannot be questioned : " Should the majority

of any Lodge determine to retire from it , the power of assembling remains with the rest of the members , but should the number of members remaining at any time be less than three , the warrant becomes extinct . " It says nothing about the

motives by which the majority is actuated in retiring . The majority may be a mere fortuitous concourse of members who are agreed on one point only , namely , to retire from the lodge .

Or the majority may be one and all influenced in their deter' mination to retire by disgust at finding themselves overborne b y the intrigues of a numerous minority ; or , because they no longer desire to remain under the Constitution which war-

New Zealand And Article 219.

ranted the lodge ; or , because they have made up their minds to take part in establishing a local Grand Lodge , because in their judgment the interests of the Craft locally will be better

promoted oy such a Grand Lodge . But though the motive , or motives , which influence the majority in retiring is ignored altogether in the Article— "Should the majority of any lodge determine to retire from it" are the words used — Grand

Registrar tells us , in effect , if not in words , that it is the motive that prompts the majority to retire which actuates him in his interpretation of the law , and determines him to advise Grand Lodge when and in what cases the minority may be allowed to

exercise the rights secured to them under Article 219 , and when they may not be allowed to exercise them . If the majority retires for private reasons—because they are going to leave the Colony ; to settle in some other part of the Colony than where the lodge

meets ; or from sheer disgust and with a determination to petition for a warrant for a new Lodge—in that case the ri ghts secured to the minority under Article 219 will be respected , and it will be at liberty to exercise those rights . If the majority retires

on public grounds in order to set up a local Grand Lodge and the movement proves a failure , because it is unable to secure such a preponderance of support in its behalf as will justify our Grand Lodge in recognising it—in that case also , the minority

will be permitted to exercise the ri ghts secured to it under Article 219 . But if the majority retires on public grounds in order to assist in forming a local Grand Lodge , and the movement is so successful that our Grand Lodge determines on

according it recognition , then Article 219 is inoperative , and the minority with the rights secured to it by law is swept away entirely , the one thing which remains to them , and of which no power on earth can deprive them , being the privilege of

retiring from the ranks of Freemasonry altogether , if they do not desire to become members of the local Grand Lodge and its private lodges . This is certainly a very convenient way of overcoming and evading this particular difficulty , but hitherto

we have assumed ( 1 ) that the meaning and intent of a law must be decided by what it says , not by what it does not say ; and ( 2 ) that a law is framed with a view * to its being applied generally , and not to particular cases or a particular class of

cases ; there being nothing , however , to prevent such cases from being specially excepted from its operation , if the framers of the law see fit to except them ; provided , of course , the exceptions are set forth in the law itself . Again , no one knows better than

the Grand Registrar that the question whether a law is applicable to a particular case or class of cases must be determined by what it says , not by what its framers intended it to say . VVe do not for a moment doubt that the Sub-Committee which

framed this law intended it should not be applicable to certain cases , but the law as it stands is general — absolutely and without reservation general . On these grounds , and , takinoour cue from the Grand Registrar ' s exposition of this law , we invite our readers to understand that the satisfaction we

expressed last week at the decision arrived at b y Grand Lodge in respect of Article 219 , though stated in absolutel y general terms and without any sort or kind of reservation , is applicable

only in so far as such decision affects our New Zealand brethren , who , for the present at all events , retain the privilege of acting in accordance with the laws of the Grand Lodge to which they owe allegiance .

Here we close our remarks for the present , but there are other points to which it may be our duty to refer on some future occasion .