PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 August 1919, Page 8

PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

ADDRESS BY AUCKLAND VBtiANISEI?. An address on the aims of the Protestant Political Association was given at the Good Templar Mall last night by Mr. W. D. Moore, secretary of the Auckland group of the I'.l'.A. and organiser for tin? North Island. The chair was taken by Mr. li. C. Hughes, chairman of the local branch of the association. There was a small attendance.

Mr. Moore prefaced his address by stating that lie intended to speak more of the political aspect of the work of the Protestant Political Association rather than the religious aspect, and he refuted the idea thnt the P.P.A. was a body of bigots. The association believed in freedom in religious matters. The objection the association had to the Roman Catholic Ohurch was that as well as being a religious body it was also a political organisation. He referred to the Pope's declaration of neutrality in connection with the war, which, he said, was proof that the Church was a poetical body, and that the Pope was a political sovereign as well as a religious leader. It was stated that attached to its political activity there was an eagerness for domination. That was self-evident; and when that was so it was time for those who did not agree with them to combine for their own protection. That, the speaker said, explained the coming into being of the P.P.A. The. speaker pointed out that long before the P.P.A. was formed the Roman Catholic Federation was im existence, and made 110 secret of its intention to influence the votes of its members in favor of those who would ! support the claims of the Federation. | If the one organisation existed, then the I other had an equal right to exist. After referring to the ban oil certain literature, which, he claimed, should be withdrawn, ! the speaker dealt with the educational } ambitions of the Roman Ohurch. and said 1 that Protestants must see that thev did not pay for Catholic education, if the education provided by the State did not suit them. Tie pointed out, that the children who were taught in Roman Catholic schools were not taught as were the children who were taught in the Protestant. and State schools. As an evidence of this he rcfererd to the conditions in Ireland, Where sedition and revolution were rampant. This, he said, was due to Roman Catholic, education. He did not want Roman Catholic, history taught in the Dominion that would make a generation of citizens less loyal than they were at present. The association was determined not to have the Government spending public money to assist any sort of education other than that provided by ,the State. Mr. Moore said that Roman Catholic education was actually being subsidised. Roman Catholic children were actually carried on the railways past any number of State schools to a particular Miool of their own denomination, but if a Protestant child wished to go beyond the nearest State school the parents had to pay. The same thing applied to nuns and State school teacher*, and if that wan not subsidising lie did not know what it was.

The speaker next dealt forcefully with the Xe Temere decree, and said that Protestants should insist that a law should be enacted that would make it impossible for a priest to interfere with the activities of the State. Mr. Moore's concluding remarks were addressed to the general influence of the Roman Catholic Church at. the present time, which, he sa>d, was a disturbing revolutionary force. Ireland was (be ulcer of the Empire to-day, and its Sinn Feinnism and sedition, were the product of Roman Catlioli-i intrigue. Ireland was urging separation from (lie TCnipire, and in Canada and Australia Irish Roman Catholics were also engngcil in republican propaganda work. He referred to the Australian shipping strike, and quoted the names of the hulf-dozen men who were at the bottom of it, four of whom were known to bo Roman Catholics and the ,-.ther two bore names of strong Irish Roman Catholic flavor. The onlv bulwark of Protestantism, declared the speaker, in the world to-day was the British Empire, and he urged Protestants everywhere to combine for the protection of their faith and to see that men were sent to Parliament to Represent them who would protect their interests. (Applause.)

At the conclusion of the address the speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.