The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1917. THE POSTAL INQUIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1917. THE POSTAL INQUIRY.

The report of the Commissioner (Mr. | H. W. Bishop, S.M.), into the clrnrge made by the Rev. Howard Elliott against officers at the Auckland post office, in suppressing or detaining correspondence addressed to P.O. Box 5)12 at Auckland, and the non-delivery of circulars relative to a meeting to be held by the' Protestant Political Association, completely exonerates the officers concerned, and tho generality of the public will be' quite content with the verdict. It would serve no useful purpose to enter into the details of the matter which was real-, ly a charge that while circulars and pamphlets emanating from Roman Catholic sources wc-ro free from interference by the Censor, those of Protestant origin were held up. It is this sectarian aspect of the question that chiefly calls fotf comment. In the concluding portion of his rep—t the commissioner stated:— 'To juy mind, it is most deploruble that at this particular time, when our Empire is at deadly grips with an unscrupulous enemy, and our soldiers are doing their noble part to uphold ouv interests, irrespective of creed or country, that a crusade—for it is nothing else—should be entered upon to attack a, church, the members of' which must be deeply pained at, and who will certainly resent, the language that is being hurled at them by such men as Mr. Elliott, who claims to represent a very numerous organisation. . . lam fain to believe that there are few ministers of religion who would have thought of concocting such abominable and disgusting accusations against members of a Christian church as are contained in three of the letters, unless he were so saturated with sectarian bitterness that he lost ;all sense of propriety." 'Mr. Herdman (Attorney General), in defending the report in the House, took much the same view. He justified somt* of the restrictions placed upon the operations of the Vigilance Committee in disseminating literature which tended to provoke a violent sectarian 'squabble, and in his view no religious organisation had any right in the present war crisis to precipitate sectarian controversies.lt was probably straining the point when , he argued that such controversial litera- i ture was likely to cause so much irri- i tation as to render it difficult for the Government to carry on military opera- • tions. The .point at issue, however, is J this: If controversial sectarian literature j is harmful at the present time, should. 1 not the embargo be placed on all such ■ publications, whether Protestant, Roman ' Catholic, or Nonconformist? There can \ be no question that it is extremely undesirable to allow bitter sectarian feel- r ings to be inflamed by controversy at a ' time when above all others there should * be a burying of the hatchet in order to ' D attain to united and whole-hearted ser- 1 vice in the cause of the Empire. Few if ? any broad-minded members of the com- J, munity will find fault with the verdict 2 cf the Commissioner. The Postal De- 1 partment is by no means immune from * faults but its virtues far outweigh its failings, and tiie full confidence of the ; public will certainly remain in tho in- s tegrity and honor of tho postal staff v as a whole. The charges were threshed out and proved to be unfounded, but \

there are always those who re/use to lie convinced on matters pertaining to church differences. The most that can be claimed is that in repressing sectarian literature and controversies durina war time, all parties should be treatod alike, without fear or favor. It is not clear that this nrincinle has bsen strict-

]y adopted, and in future the Government will be bound to carry it out rigorously. Of course, the point crops up as to where fair comment ends and controversy begins, but there is 110 real difficulty in coming to a common sense decision thereon. In these days of religious tolerance and freedom it is an outrage on tho very name of religion to allow Sectarian differences to interfere in any way with public life and the affairs of the country. So long as tho censorship is impartially carried out that is all the public require, and the question of a man's particular religious faith is no concern of his neighbors, nor should it be considered in reference to employment. It is tolerance and unity that are of the utmost importance just now. and it will he politic to let the Rev. ■Elliott charges severely alone now that the inquiry has ended so satisfactorily. As Mr. Witty very properly remarked, "there is too much religion in New Zealand and too little Christianity."