THE FRANKLIN ELECTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 55, 16 May 1874, Page 9

THE FRANKLIN ELECTION.

MR STAFFORD AT NELSON.

Mb Teottpb has been defeated ; but he was supported by 120 electors a most respectable number, and under all tue circumstances much greater than could hava been expected. His successful competitor, Mr May, only polled 180. It is believed by many t'mt the Catholics, if they hud only united themselves moderately, cuuli have secured Mr Troupe's return, in concert with those Protestants who are advocates for what Mr Disraeli calls " faith and freedom. The Catholics of Franklin not only made no united effort to support him, but they, it is reported, did what was much worse-— some of them at leust. They sought to cast suspicion on the purity of his motives in coming forward to advocate their claims to justice iv matters educational This was most ungracious conduct on their part. Surely every man is entitled to have credit ior good intentions hi hia words and acts till the contrary be proved against him.

Mr Stafford, I notice, is also being suspected of courting the Catholic vote, because he has the courage to advocate the claims of Catholics to justice, and to support the cause of faith and freedom, like Mr Troupe, in all schools of whatever religious denomination. Mr Stafford has the ability to see, and the honesty to declare that a purely secular education is a myth ; a thing which in piactice does HCt and cannot exist. Every Government secular school like every other school, is, and must be, to a certain extent, " denominational." The " secularists" are a denomination ; and one which many be'ieve to be of a very unsafe — a very dangerous kind. Not only Catholics, but Protestants think so. The secularist system is founded on fraud and deception, inasmuch as it pretends to exclude all religious ideas and principle* fr>m the school,— while it does nothing of tho kind. Rplijdon of some kind is taught directly or indirectly in every Government secular school in this colony. Whatever that religion may be, it is net the Cstliol c religion, — perhaps often not even the Christian religion. In Otago it may be the Presbyterian creed. A sy^em of Government education which is thus based on false pretences, can never issue in any good, in a moral or religious sense, — however profitable in a worldly scn^e it may be to many. We si c plainly now that Catholics are not fighting for faith and freedom single handed. They have able Protestant allies, who are equally with themselves alive to *he injustice and rlancer of that •' purely secular " system of public education, so-called, such as the secularists wish to force on all without distinction Tmly we live in a rapid age; but the progress is not alwars in the right direction. The infidel revolutionists or despots who now fill the Cabinets of Princes and the various parliaments of Northern Europe, would fain get possession of the school-room too, so that the mind of the next genera + ion may be imbued with their "liberal ' notion*. This last is a calamity which Catholics and religious and consistent Protean nts mu^t do their utmost to avert. Tl ey will sucteed, for Goil and His Church are with them. Many secularists may he honest and mistaken friends of Christianity ; yet for all that, the secularising party in the State generally is the deadly enemy of reTo.ted religion, at d of religious and civil liberty. Its enmity is more •specially directed against the Cathol'c religion and all who profess it. By a sort ol instinct they know that the Catholic Church is the great bulwark of Christianity, ami the most powerful enemy of all despots : tie besr defender ol the weak against the strong. 'lhe Auckland 'Cros*,' while representing the Catholics as opposed to all "progress" is forced to admit that the Catholic school in Nelson is full of Protestant pupils, and Mr Stafford tells the world that next to the Nelson College, the best school in that province for secular^education is St. Mary's Catholic school. Yet the Auckland 'Cross/ and i he Protestant Press of this colony generally, have set their face aguinst any Government aid being given to Catholics or Othei religious schools. What arc we to think of such conduct on the part of the Protestant Press? Can we believe them either honest or aonsistent friends- of Christianity ? They are playing, as it seems to me, into the Lands of those infidel philosophers i.nd revolutionists, who, i.s Archbishop Manning lately remarked, are not now to be found m ihe st. eels, but in high places, and in professors' chairs, and editorial chairs too