THE 'OTAGO DAILY TIMES' AND PRINCE BISMARCK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 79, 31 October 1874, Page 5

THE ' OTAGO DAILY TIMES ' AND PRINCE BISMARCK.

At last there is one word — a little word — uttered as it were in an undertone, to be found in the ' Dai] j Times,' not altogether laudatory of Prince Bismabck's policy in reference to the Catholic Church. Our contemporary calls this powerful Minister " the champion of despotism," but, as it appears to us, in a deprecatory tone. Were, however, the picture reversed ; were Bismarck a German Catholic Chancellor, persecuting the Protestants of the new Empire, expelling their ministers, compelling their ecclesiastical students to attend the lectures of Catholic professors of theology, placing Catholic masters over the Protestant schools, immuring their superintendents in loathsome prisons as so nmny felons for refusing to abandon Protestantism, and confiscating their Church property, what would be the nature of the language of tne ' Daily Times ' ? How loud would, not be oui contemporary's denunciation of Popery ? How strong its language ? But as we have learned to be thankful for small mercies, we shall say no more on this head. Our object in calling attention to the subject is not to deliver a Jeremiade on the one-fideness of the ' Daily Times,' and its tender treatment of the greatest, though not the bloodiest, persecutor of the Catholic religion that Europe has seen for centuries ; but to correct a mistake as to a matter of fact into which our contemporary has fallen. What we mean will be made apparent by the following quotation from the ' Daily Times ' of last Saturday : — "This shows plainly.that the Chancellor " — Bismakck — " is taking very strong radical measures to establish his authority, and to strangle the Hoinan Church in the new Empire. That he will succeed we do not for a moment doubt, having regard to the relative strength and enlightenment of the hostile communions." Bismabck may succeed ;we doubt it, however. But should he succeed it will not be in consequence of the superior enlightenment of Protestautism in Germany. The ' Daily Times ' is clearly of opinion that this superior enlightenment of Protestautism, together with its superior strength will enable Prince Bismarck to strangle the Roman Church. But our contemporary, we regret to say, is laboring under a delusion. Protestantism has no superiority of enlightenment over Catholicity in Germany ; and had the writer in the ' Daily Times ' from

whom we quote, travelled through Germany, or read much about that country, he would have known that such is the ease. The truth is, the contrary is the fact. But as, mo doubt, the « Daily Times ' will not accept our testiniony on the point, we beg to refer our contemporaiy to Mr Lamg's work on Prussia, p.p., 155, aud 230-32 bpeaking of the Catholic population of the Ehenish and Westphalian provinces, this Scotch Protestant writer says: — -" This population is the very kernel of the Prussian .Kingdom— a concentrated population of from three to four millions — the most wealth/, commercial, and manufacturing, and the most enlightened on their riglis and wants of any, perhaps, in Germany.