THE AUCKLAND EVENING STAR ON ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRACIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 50, 11 April 1874, Page 8

THE AUCKLAND EVENING STAR ON ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRACIES.

Hrbbwith 1 send you copy of a letter in the « Evening Star* con. taming an insinuation and something more against the loyalty 'of th» whole of the Quneu's Roman Catholic subjects throughout the British En \\ P f?* J}*l ar *t h ™' 7 ? U Wi " 8ee ' char S° d with bei »S -w5 in a plot to destroy the liberties and independence of England » and of course to subvert the authority of the Queen, and overturn the established Government of the country. It is difficult to suppose that the editor of the Auckland 'Star' belieres in the truth or ircn nrobability of any such accusation, and it is still more difficult to believe that he gave currency to it in his paper in good faith and from any creditable or respectable motive. Tho accusation is of a most extra vagant bind, and most mischievous in its tendency. It is calculated t« insult the feelings of Roman Catholics, and to turn their Protestant fellow-subjects against them The 'Star* possibly supposes that tho Catholics, being a comparatively small body, may be insulted with impunity. But comparatively fevr though we be, surely th» is no "a time to set Catholics and Protestants by the eara. The present prime minister of England has ju*t intimated that possibly ore lon . thl British Government may be forced to interfere in the affiirs of thl Continent. One-third of Her Majesty's army consists of Irish Romaft oi ' Sgidli S^ET tbey ever backward in meeting tlie euc ™» *v T i h l DU^°u°/u WelI 1 i nn S ton v , onno «» icl w the Ho U3O of Lords that though he mighty have been able to maintain Hie military reputation of England with the Protestant portion of the army alone he nivei cou d, without the aid of the CaHiolic portion of it. hare gained SSI brilluMt Tictones which had crowned him with the laurels he was To proud to wear. The Catholic portion of the Briii*!, armj is a 9 J!_^ and l brave now m it was under "The Duke," and the Catholic porSoa of the army if not more loyal than the great bo i, <rf Her Majesty's Gatholie subject, in all parts of the Empire are, whatever ineSuHSn, to the contrary may be thrown oat against them br suoh miscW make,, a. the* Evening Star.' One of the editors or proctor " of tUt papeiv a Mr Reid, i. a member of the Auckland Execu'iS Council. How ran the two Catholic members of that Council roeonSE it with their own sense of self reapect, or the reapeei due to t 1» Catholic body in general, to sit longer at the same Council board with tins Mr Reid who permits hi* paper to be made the medium of circulating such mischievous insulting, and exfrar agan t insinuates against them ? Certain portions of the Catholic subjects of the BrS Government have in former times been goaded into illegal and violet acts by insults and injuries from their enemies ; but they hare W™3 wjedom from experience, and their loyalty is not likely to be a™ fe shaken by such causes, least of all by anything slanderous or insult?™ which may appear against them in the nevrapaper, and such a no w. paper as the • Evening Star I believe such newspapers as the < Sri, > will not succeed m sowing distrust and M-will between the Cath V and Protestant subjects ot the Queen, try as they may, in the onuZ age i but their attempts to do so are not on that account the lew wicked. We live in troublesome times, and in what Mr Disraeli ill just described a. a "rapid age;" but come what nuy, in the wavY»f slow or rapid changes at home or abroad, I trust faithful Calhrtlil will ever show that they have learnt fro-n their relive, " to fear aZi and honor the Queen." To us ;< Kherry a,,d independence » are nofc less dear than to our Protestant fellow-subjects. * If we strive to advance the interests of our holy religion in En-land and elsowhere, and to secure justice to oursel res —both of which wa are now successfully deing, thank God -it v by open, legitimate and constitutional means we do so and by no others. When Archbishoo Man , nill g talk » ° f the Roioan Catholic clergy " subduing the Imperial race of England, his meaning is obvious. He mean, that they will do it by tho sword of the spirit, by free education by a free press and a free pulpit— and not by carnal weapons. Uaj it now como to thi? that the Protestant. Irish and English of the period are afraid of freedom in the press, dread it in tke schools and in the pulpit, at the

polling-booth and in Parliament, became Catholics are so successfully •Tailing themselves of such freedom. Is it now a crime in Catholics to avail themselves of a freedom which had so long been monopolised by their Protestant neighbours ? The Protestant press are for ever declaiming on the advantages of liberty and constitutional government ; but the moment Catholics come to be able fully to participate in these advantages and to act accordingly, than we are denounced as " conspiring against the laws and institutions, the liberty and independence of the country," and a hue and cry is raised against vs — witness the article in the ' Evening Star ' I now send you, and which may be tupposed to be an echo of the Home press. The English Protestant mind was long possessed with the idea that France was the " natural enemy n of England, and writers such as tho ' Evening Star ' and his contributors, labored hard to keep alive and intensify that most mischievous feeling. But such a diabolical sentiment is happily a thing of the past. England, the most Protestant of States, has long been on the most cordia' and friendly terms with France, the leader of Catholic Europe ; and they are likely to continue united for ever. In the same way Protestants and Catholics have long been represented as hereditary enemies, at least under the English Crown. But that notion too, in spite of the efforts of many ill disposed men to keep it up, is fast dying out. In the eyes of some men, of whom the ' Evening Star ' it possibly the representative, the greatest fault which the British Legislature can commit, is to do full justice to the Catholic ; and the greatest offence of which the Catholic can be guilty, is to ■hew a devoted loyalty to the Protestant British Government. When a few unwary or misguided or infuriated Catholics can be seduced bf artful men into trea«onable plots or conspiracies, great is the joy of thi ir enemies. Witness the pretended Gunpowder Plot, in James I's time, which some Protestants, and those well informed historians too, firmW believe was the work of the King's Ministry themselves ; a plot laid "by them to entrap unwpry Catholics, and afford a pretext for persecuting the whole Catholic body still more. This Plot could never ha^e been carried out of rourse •, the Ministry having the wires in their owe hand, they could stop it and pounce on the " conspirators " when they chose. Be thai: as it may, certain it is the great body of the Catholics of the period had no more connection with it than the man in the moon, but abhorred it as much as the Protestants. The first respectable Catholic who name to the knowledge of it, Lord Montague, immediately disclosed it to Government. There is moreover strong rt-apon to suspect that the anonymous letter he received about it came (rom emissaries of the Ministry, and was written by them to entrap him into the plot, or afford a pretext to accuse him of • guilty knowledge of it, since no Catholic of character and position was connected with it. The mi n who were engaged in that plot, about thirteen in i. umber, were only nominally Catholics, like many in our day. The dtholic subject* of Qiven Victoria at this time, are stupid enough to refuse tn engage in real plots against Government ; their enemies, therefore, like the writers i:a the Auckland ' Evening Star,' are kind enough to impute imaginary plots to us, to terrify our Protestant neighbour*. Mauv men ail m it, and none more readily than the most eminent Protestant historians and statesmen, that the Catholics under the British Crowii have, in past days, suffered most cruel wrongs, from Government — nronus more than sufficient to drive the best disposed and most loyal subjects into most furious rebellions. Bur of late years they have received a large, if not a full, measure of justice, and are ill the way of receiving their full rights at home and in the colo nies. They would do well, therefore, as far as possible, to forget past wrongs, and to remember that to forgive injuries and to pray for those who inflicted them i« the especial duty of every faithful Catholic ; and that more particularly when the author of the wrong shors a dis position to acknowledge his fault, and to make suitable reparation, as the British Government has long been doing in regard to us. We ' are not now as we once we c, placed in the painful position of being ' obliged cither to apostatise from our creed, or to surrender our rights as freemen. Bismarck is fast driving the Catholics of United Germany to that cruel alternative ; and, strange to say, a portion — but happily only a portion— of the Protestant Press and people of England, applaud him for the wicked act Surely these meo can haidly be honest or sincere in their Joud professions of respect for liberty and the rights of conscience. On the contrary, they must be the most agregious hypocrites. The independent and honest, and consistent portion of tho Protestant Press of England have expressed themselves as strongly ngainat Bismarck's ecclesiastical policy as any Catholic could do. This shews thut the tide is fairly turning in Protestant England 'generally ngainst Bismarck and tho German Catholics. The of which will be a great accession of popularity and consequent to the Catholic cause throughout the whole extent of the British Empire. No wonder, then, that our enemies are at their wits end how to excite a prejudice against us in the Protestant mind, and get up imaginary "P. .pish plota" for that end. If few Protestants read the Tablet, the so-cul'od R. C Protestant "leaders of public opinion" —or some cf them, it appears, do so, and are not always pleased with its contents They found it necessary to put in a word or two "on the other side." So much the better. If they would only abuse ai*d slander ub a little moro, all tho better for us, aud we should thank them for tho favor.