BRITISH AND GERMAN IMPERTINENCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 190, 17 November 1876, Page 13

BRITISH AND GERMAN IMPERTINENCE.

It appeors from recent telegrams that the Spanish Government lias warned Protestants in Madrid against making any public demon stratum of aii anti-Catholic nature. This we tal.e to be kindness on tb e p«M|of the government, for such demonstrations made in the midst of anfeiteneely Catholic y opulace could only end in disturbance of a more or less grave kind. It was just such actions on tho part of the Protestant preachers that brought on the ncent troubles in Mexico ai.d xn other parts of South America. Not content with beinc allowed to piactice their religion quietly, to huild their churches and schools, they must go out of their way to insult and abuse the Catholic clergy and religious, to misrepresent Catholic teaching in the eros«e B fc w"m * *?*?' t0 ?° eTer y tbi °S calculated to rouse the ire of a hot-blooded, yet sincerely believing and devout people. Something of of SWn S* a rCCen % *°Z? eObg ° n in Mad " d and other pfr?s of Spain : the Government kindly stepped in to wuru indiscreet persons against bringing trouble on themselves. per This very simple and rational proceeding bus, it now appears been magnified into a- national offence. A despatch has arrivedd London stating that "a Keufer despatch from Berlin says X tolerant measures of the Spanish Government against Protestants aw s fated to W given nee to a frequent interchange of notes between the British and German Governments. It is understood that They will address remonstrances to Spain on the subject, and call upon her to act in conformity with her engagements." P This reads like a grim joke, on the part of the German Government especially one of those jokes for which Prince Bismarck famous. The idea, in the face of present events, of a Protestant

government addressing 'Cremohslrarices'f to.a Catholic gdyernmenfc for just warning Protestant proselytizers living under such Catholic governments, not to be too indiscreet in their zeal,-is&omething almost funny. What a farce, it is to see the assumedjindign&tion of these two virtuous governments at "the intolerant ifieasurea" of the Spanish Government against Protestants. Does it never occur to England or to Protestant Germany or to our Protestant friends on this side, many of whom we are confident will take up the htt^ and cry this week, that Germany within the last few years has' been just a little bit intolerant of Catholics ? Has England already forgotten its history— its history within this century ? Within the memory of living men it also was intolerant of Catholics. Do our friends around us, who this week will hoot intolerance at Catholics from end to end of the land, close their eyes to these facts ? Spanish intolerance ! Where is it ? First of all, Spain is the wrong country to go to in. order to find intolerance ogainsfc Protesbants. There are no Protestants there vvorth considering. But such as are fhere have all the liberty they desire. They desire, however, not liberty but license,- and this the Spanish government very properly refuses to allow them. We might call Spain intolerant, if we saw it a country of, say, 40,000,000 souls, onethird of whom were Protestants ; if we saw the Protestant churches seized by the government and given into tie hands of Catholics ; if we saw the Protestant bishops and clergy imprisoned or exiled, or constantly fined for teaching Protestant doctrine ; if we saw Protestant schools and ProtPstant teaching utterly abolished ; if we saw every means taken to prevent Protestant youth from studying for the ministry ; if we sntw Protestant houses of charity and religious communities, seminaries and such like, broken up ; if we saw this thing kept up daily, year after year, and the persecution deepening in bitterness instead of softening, as time went on, we might, perhaps, then-speak of Spain as intolerant towards Protestants. But even then the German government could not well remonstrate, since for the last fire years or so it has been doing all this itself on the other side. Nor could those who applaud Germany in its dealings with its Catholic subjects remonstrate; for surely they could not in reason object to the measure that is meted out by them to others being meted out in turn to them. Qn the whole, we are inclined to disbelieve the dispatch, for even ther government of Prince Bismarck could scarcely rise to tuch a height of foolish impertinence. — ' Catholic Review.'