THE 'TABLET' AND THE PUBLIC.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 42, 14 February 1874, Page 8

THE 'TABLET' AND THE PUBLIC.

Auckland. Sic— The readers of the New Zealand Tablet and the Catholic people of New Zealand iv general ought to congratulate you that a New Year has seen the New Zealand Catholic organ iv so flourishing a ( condition, spite of tho many and grave difficulties with which you must have had to conteud. No one uuacquainted with the mysteries of public journalism can well form an idea of the arduous task you have undertaken in an attempt to found a Catholic newspaper here. j It was a bold thing to do, and whether you shall prosper or not, you at all events deserve the best thanks of the New Zealand Catholics. I They will be unthankful indeed if they do not make a strong and | united effort to support you in your labors to serve the glorious cause j of the church, which they know well is the cause of justice, morality, patriotism, ana education. Complaints are made that the Tablst reaches subscribers here very irregularly ; and others grumble that too much of your space is occupied with advertisements, which prevents your giving a greater amount of Catholic general news. But a generous Cacholic public should make allowances for the peculiar difficulties of your position. It remains with the Catholic people of New Zealand themselves, by liberal support with their purse and pen to make their organ what it ought to be and what they would wish to' see it. I hardly think that ac yet they have exerted themselves as they might have done to support you. The public spirit and religious intuitions of yourself and the proprietary of the Nkw Zealand Tablet, it is to be hoped, will be yet even bettor appreciated and rewarded than they have been. We are, comparatively speaking, but

a poor community, and we have many claims on our purse for religious purposes. Tet we are not so poor but we might support a good journal to represent us in the Parliament of the press. The honor and credit not only of the Catholic Church, but of every individual Catholic citizen in the colony, are in some measure identified with the Table r. Catholic members of Parliament do not devote themselves to the advancement of interests exclusively Catholic when they take part in the discussion and conduct of public affairs, and I should like much to see the Tablet one day advance to the position of a daily paper of a character resembling Sir John Grey's Dublin Fbeescan's Jottbkal. That is not a Catholic newspaper in the sectarian sense of of the term. Yet it does full justice to the Catholic people of Ireland, and to all their legitimate interests, and sever wounds their religious feelings. We Catholics should be equally tender to the interests and religious feelings of our Protestant fellow subjects in all our controversies and acts, for we must ever bear in mind that to the sense of justice and generons feelings of our Protestant friends in and out of the Legislature, the Catholic people of the United Kingdom mainly owe all their recent glorious triumphs over their powerful and bigotted enemies during the past 80 years. It will be the same here, and Catholics may " fraternise" with just men of all parties in many ways without violating any religious principle. Still, we must be careful never to sacrifice principle in attempting to become " all things to all men." There are Catholics, we all know, who, for the sake of popularity and power, and for other reasons best known to themselves and Gtod, are not faithful to their church, but the reverse. With such men a newspaper under Catholic direction could have no sympathy, and could advise no one to trust them. The Catholic who defrauds God and His church of their admitted due in any way, can never be trustworthy in any relation of life, public or private. He would be likely to defraud and deceive any one when he thought he could do so without detection and with impunity, however fair an exterior his conduct may exhibit to the world. If an honest man be the noblest work of God, a dishonest man must be the meanest of His creatures, whether the dishonesty be practised in defrauding God or men of what is admitted to be due to them. Let our Protestant friends understand us that they may know who is who. The ship that sails under false colors is a dargerous craft. Of all dishonest men alive, a dishonest Catholic must be the worst, and the least to be trusted either in his own community or outside of it. From the peculiar nature of the Catholic religion and its practices, the character of a Catholic for honesty towards God is, and must be pretty well known publicly by those of his own community. We cannot read each others hearts it is true, but the fair and natural inference is that the Catholic who often frequents the sacraments of his church is honest towards God and man j while he who seldom or never frequents them is anything but honest and pure in heart. For my part, I would rather trust any Pagan or Protestant than a Catholic who habitually sets the authority of his church at defiance. Catholics are a " peculiar people " and a marked community. The public have a special eye upon us, and are ever ready to mark our failings or inconsistencies, and triumph over them, and exaggerate or misrepresent them. We have special need, therefore, of a representative in the Parliament of the press here. Our representatives in the other Parliament are few, and possess but small influence in the Assembly of which they form a part — even when faithful. But a newspaper fairly devoted to Catholic as well as other interests, addresses a larger circle and may possess greater weight, provided it perform its duty with spirit and prudently. Not only are Catholics in the British Empire now emancipated from penal laws, but Protestants are emancipated from anti-Cutholic prejudices, in which they have so long been held bound. In neither case is the emancipation yet complete j but both these two kinds of emancipation are proceeding pari passu. They are advancing abreast of each other, and as the Catholic subjects of the Queen are becoming yearly more free, so Protestants are yearly becoming less prejudiced against us. The " schoolroaster" who, some half a century ago was sent abroad by Lord Brougham and others, has, no doubt had a good deal to do with this state of things so hopeful to the Catholic Church. After all, your contemporaries in Dunedin and the ' Bruce Herald ' may see from this that the Catholic Church has not so much reason to fear the Protestant schoolmaster, at least, when his power of evil is counteracted or held in check by Catholic influences. Constant dropping wears away the stone, and it will require the perpetual daily efforts of the press to wear down those prejudices of the Protestant public against Catholics which three centuries of misrepretentation and abuse have done so much to create ani strengthen. January, 1874.