SECTARIANISM IN POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1920, Page 11

SECTARIANISM IN POLITICS.

Some of our contemporaries are very outspoken in their condemnation of the intrusion of militant sectarianism into local politics. The Wellington Post, in an editorial on the defeat of Sir Joseph Ward, has this to say:—"The Protestant Political Association is taking credit to itself for having contributed to the defeat of the Liberal leader. As the same organisation included Sir James Allen among the objects of its attack, it may also 'be entitled to some share of whatever credit is available for the serious reduction of his majority. That the two leaders thus attacked belong to opposite camps is at least proof of the political impartiality of their assailants. It is also proof that long, faithful, and efficient public service offers no protection against the bigotry which is prepared to subordinate every other public consideration to the claims of a single narrow and comparatively trivial issue. To none of our civilian's was New Zealand or the Empire more indebted than to Mr. Massey, Sir Joseph Ward, and Sir James Allen for services rendered during the war, and of none has it more urgent need during the period of reconstruction. Yet two of the three have been attacked on a narrow and petty sectarian issue, and aided by the fact that national and Imperial service had left them but little time for local affairs the attack has succeeded in one case, and come uncomfortably near to success in the other. It is to be hoped that the good sense of a tolerant and broadminded community will assert itself against such misguided and mischievous tactics." The Auckland Star in an article dealing with the Christmas spirit and its implications is even more emphatic: ''ln our midst we have among the manifestations of the Christian spirit, something that woudl have delighted the artistic and sceptical soul of that master of irony, Anatole France. We Slave an organisation that in the name of Protestantism works to prevent any member of a great Christian Church from entering or from remaining in political life. The moving spirit in this organisation, himself a minister of Christ,' exults at the success of the movement in secular elections, and especially a't 'the great triumph of Protestantism in Awarua.' In a moment of expansion there has been revealed what has long been suspected. The aim of this movement, which attaches itself ts a section of the Christian communion, is to deny full political opportunity to any member of a great ancient and world-wide Christian Church. The adherents of that Church number 14 per cent, of the country's population, (but this organisation would shut out the whole of this community from Parliament. It admits now that it has deliberately worked to drive from public life a statesman of thirty years' service. Why? Simply because'he is a Roman Catholic!"

The Christchurch Press ridicules the claims which Mr. Howard Elliott recently made. It says this deductions as to "Protestant" influence in political affairs are as absurd as they are mischievous. Our contemporary sums up the situation thus: ''The 'extent of Protestant influence' on the polling neither the P.P.A. nor anybody else knows exactly, or even roughly, but everybody with a grain of commonsense knows that it was not much. It may, perhaps, have made Sir Joseph Ward's minority a little larger than it would otherwise have been, and it may have been in some degree responsible' for the smallness of Sir James Alien's majority. But we are perfectly certain that comparatively few people were so unprincipled as to use the polling booth for the purpose of indulging their religious prejudices. As Hie Press has always maintained, the existence of a few bigots and religious we lots does not impair the fact that to an overwhelming majority of the electors the religions views of the candidates they choose for their favor do not matter a straw. Nor should they matter at all. ft is intolerable that the victory for Eeform, which was simply a victory for sane progress, should bo represented as a victory for sectarianism. Perhaps it is natural that the

organiser of the P.P.A. should be anxious to advertise his organisation, but it is just as natural that honest folk should refuse to accept his reading of a result, that would have been the same if the P.P.A. had never existed. ... No doubt, some enemies of the Reform Party will seek to make capital out of the absurd remarks of the P.P.A. organiser, but few people can be unaware that the Reform Party is not associated in any way with any sectarian organisation. The effect which the introduction of sectarian bigotry into politics may have upon the Reform Party, or any other party, however, is of far less importance than the evil effect, it would have upon our social and political life generally, and anyone who seeks to exploit sectarian feeling is an enemy ol the national gocw 1 "

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