RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 111, 18 August 1910, Page 7

RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.

To the Editor, I Sir,—ln your leader this morning yH make the statement —"there is no intH erance more unchristian than reliigioH intolerance, because it lays down for the guidance of people who conscientiously adopt them." There nothing in this statement to which fair-minded man oan object, but for illustration or example of why wander off to France or Spain, you have equally forcible instances home without leaving, our own The test of good government safeguarding the rights of minorities. no unimportant section of the ity cannot conscientiously adopt laid down for them, and because cannot violate the dictates of they are forced to pay annually a penalty, amounting to something sixty thousand per annum. Here, Editor, is a case of intolerance of a •cularly offensive nature, a blot upoii legislation, in this fair land, be the home of freedom, and how do we find it condemned in the The rights, the conscientious of a not insignificant portion of the pulation are ignored, trampled a majority which prides itself upon the champion of liberty, civil and gious. ■ An -editor who can. condone spoliation, confiscation and cruelty tised by .the atheistic and irreligious vernment of France towards French jects, whose only offence was and is religion, must be steeped' in and bigotry or almost totally of the history, of the persecution lentlessly waged'' against throughout the length and France by its so-called rulers. there is a rift in the cloud, and authority are beginning to recognise stable government cannot rest on tice or oil blasphemy against the High. In reference to matters in upon which you profess to be so posted, it is patent that the justice are not fairly balanced as different political parties. were permitted to hold a mass and harangue their supporters hindrance, but when the .Catholics tempted to muster and' show strength and ventilate their military are called' into action meeting prohibited. 'How like the system of tactics resorted to against' Nationalists in Ireland a few years ago by k Government loud in its profession ofl justice and liberty!—l am, etc., > LIBERTY. [We have no desire to sitart or itentify ourselves with a controversy on "natters religious. We would but ask read--ers to peruse the article in question and see if they can find justification for "Liberty's" strictures or adduce from it the meaning imported into it by our correspondent. We cannot. The letter, to our mind, furnishes a striking instance of the "intolerance" the writer himself I so vigorously denounces. —Ed.]' I