LIBERTY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 106, 8 May 1875, Page 9

LIBERTY.

(To Editor ' New Zealand .Herald ' per favor of Tablet.) In concert with Mr. Gladstone you— [Who? Not the Tablet surely]— are, I see, trying to persuade the public that the Pope, by the Vatican degrees, aims a deadly blow at the liberty of the Press, and wishes to suppress even liberty of speech— nay, to crush liberty in every possible form Were your representations correct, we Catholics would certainly stand m a very humiliating position, and would be slaves indeed Liberty is a fine word, and a fine thing too. and Catholics prize it as much as others. But there are different kinds of liberty There is a legitimate and wholesome liberty, and there is a liberty neither wholesome nor legitimate. It is against this latter, I presume, that the Vatican decrees are directed. It would be a suicidal policy in the Vatican to suppress the fair and legitimate liberty of the Press. A really true and well principled Press is, as I take it the best ally of the Catholic Church in all countries. It is certainly so in England and the colonies, But why should the Pope interfere to check tho liberty of the Press in any way by its spiritual authority ? Cannot the civil law restrain the licentiousness of the Press when necessary ? Unfortunately it cannot. Daily experience proves that the Press in the hands of certain parties can do an incredible, an immeasurable amount of mischief to society to religion and morality in such a way that no human law can prevent it. In such circumstances it behoves a spiritual power to interpose whether obeyed or not. There are men so perverse that neither a human nor divine authority will restrain them. But that is no good reason why both temporal and spiritual authorities should not do their duty and try to restrain them from evil. The liberty of speech stands on the same footing as the liberty of the Press and is equally capable of abuse or perversion ,- and so with intellectual liberty. Why should the Vatican seek to destroy free thought in an absolute and unjustified sense ? It is free thought which is leading so many good and learned men into the Catholic Church in our day, and keeping them there too. The Pope is the ruler of free men, not of slaves. But unlimited free thought is dangerous Even Mr. Froude says it is, and it almost invariably leads to a rejection of all revealed religion — a consummation even Protestants must devoutly wish should be averted. The limits allowed to Catholics for free thought is amply sufficient for safe progress in every branch of knowledge; and the foundations of many important modem arts and sciences have been laid by Catholics If Protestants have built on these foundations bo much to their honor. — A.B.

"Quick Transit."— This is the problem tliat vexes the city of Hew York. All means proposed fail in practice. The last one is the most astounding one of all. It is for a moving sidewalk, to be propelled like an endless chain, by stationary engines, placed at tlie distance of a mile or half a mile apart. As the sidewalk on one side of the street moves in one direction, that on the other side moves in the opposite direction. The rate of speed suggested varies from Bto 10 and as high as 15 miles an hour. And this plan is now being seriously discussed in the Albany Legislature, on a motion to grant a charter to a Movable Sidewalk Company, to operate on certain thoroughfares in TS&w York city. The working model is said to be the most convincing as to the practicability of the scheme. Speer is the inventor, and the invention is named " Speer's Travelling Sidewalk." — ' Sac. Union '