CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1922, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

CATHOLIC FEDERATION. (To the Editor.) Sir, —My previous letter having been subjected to a good deal of criticism, and, as a whole, in a more friendly spirit than I dared expect, I take up my pen once more and for the last time. The Catholic Federation appears to have caused a lot of trouble in the minds of our good friends the Protestants. Their trouble is quite uncalled -for, and unnecessary. The Federation was originally started to combat the bible reading in schools movement, which, rightly or wrongly, the Catholics thought would interfere with their own teaching to their children. That movement appears to have died away, and naturally the Catholic Federation died also of inanition. It is now as dead as Julius Ceasar. Let us hope no one will try and resurrect it. Another fallacy is that the Catholic priest directs his congregation how to vote. I ; have only once heard politics mentionI ed in church, and the congregation took such umbrage that every man got up and walked out. The Roman Catholic Church is not the Irish Catholic Church. Yet most people out here think the Church is essentially and wholly Irish, and persist in confounding the Church with the Irish imbroglio. More Catholics fought on the side of the Allies in the late war than all the other denominations put together. Everybody knows the South of Ireland is Catholic and the North Protestant. There are three hundred million Catholics in the world who acknowledge the Pope as their spiritual head, and of this huge number there are only a small percentage of Irish. I should not be esurprised to find out that there are more Catholics in England than in Ireland. The Catholic Church is the most conservative body in the world; what therefore can be the reason, unless a •foolish one, of the Protestant Political Association trying to drive them to vote in opposition to them and incidentally against their own inclination? However, my principal reason for writing this letter is this: We are now faced with stormy times. Men are beginning to ask each other: Why should we work for the “other fellow,” the mortgagees and co. A great unrest is in the air, and it behoves Catholics and Protestants alike to bury the hatchet and join hands as loyal citizens should and strive to pass such laws as will meet the difficult problems at present confronting us. Otherwise, rest assured the Extremists (who are far more numerous than people imagine) will acquire control and destroy us.—l am, AN OLD COLONIAL. Midhirst, April 24.