The Empire and the Vatican.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 246, 16 November 1903, Page 3

The Empire and the Vatican.

A correspondent signing himself "An Imperialist Catholic, ' in tho course of a long letter to Hie Times, on the Empire and the Vatican urges direct diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican as a great and lasting benefit to tho Empire- There '/eing millions of Roman Catholics within the British Empire, he shows that the Pope must exorcise over this factor a very great moral influence. " The facts exist," he says, " whether \j-e like them or not. It is tha business of statesmanship to make the best of them in the interests of the State." The writer goes on to ask : " Why should we be more prudish than the other nonCatholic States, which utilise without scruple this great conservative force as a check upon the -lacobin and particularist tendencies of the local populations and priesthood in certain portions of their dominions ? Compare the attitude of the Church in Russian Poland, for example, and in Ireland, and the consequences to a Protestant State, which has Catholic subjects, of working with and through Rome, and of ' boycotting ' her, become apparent. Prussia-Ger-many does not give her half as much liberty as we do, yet by co-oparation with lier the Government of William 11. converts the local hierarchy in disaffected districts into a bulwark of the State, while we suffer it too often to become the tool of our declared enemies." He shows what advantage diplomatic relations with the Vatican have proved to Russia, Prussia, and America. "Is it common sense that we should refuse to do what all these Governments, so widely different in their eharacttr and aims, but all of them so jealous of encroachments on the prerogatives of the State, have done with manifest advantage to themselves, and that we should leave Kome to rely for information as to thp greater part of pur Empire oh the local Bishops, who, in many peaces, are recruited from classes which are notoriously disaffected ?" After Saying that ho does not advocate the policy as a Roman Catholic, but because it affects the political interests of the Empire, the writer concludes'; "I do not believe that any public man with tho interests of a statesman, be his religious opinions what they might, would say that I was wrong, nor do I consider that the sober Protestant sentiment of the country would bo in the slightest degree perturbejl il p'ropdsal" wcip adopted."