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New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1877. THE WELLINGTON ELECTION.

This event will come off in a few days. The nomination of candidates is fixed for Saturday next, and the polling for the following Tuesday. Two candidates are in the field, — Mr. Tbavers, a barrister of some standing, and Mr. Hutchinsoit, the Mayor of Wellington. Their principles, political, social, and educational are identical. The contest therefore is one, not of principles, but cf persons. There is not a hair to choose between them, and the public are in no way interested in the success or defeat of either. But as every contested election has generally something peculiar, something which distinguishes it from every other contested election, so it is in the present instance. And this peculiarity consists in the undisguised contempt in which both candidates hold the Catholic electors of Wellington. Indeed so great and striking is this contempt that we asked ourselves, can it be possible that through some oversight, or mistake, or technicality, all the Catholics of Wellington qu ilified to be electors, have been excluded this year from the electoral roll. On no other supposition could we satisfactorily account for the language of the addresses of these two candid ites on the subject of education, did we not know the sentiments of utter political scorn entertained by these gentlemen in reference to their Catholic fellow subjects. It is no secret ; on the contrary it is well and universally known that the Catholics of Wellington are conscientiously opposed to a system of free, compulsory, and secular education ; and that rather than send their children to Government schools, they have, at the expenditure of large sums of money, provided really Christian schools for their own children of both sexes. Yet here we find two candidates, both pledged in favor of a system of free, compulsory, and secular education, both treating their Catholic fellow subjects as if they had no existence, or as if their views on public questions were not worth a moment's consideration, or even a thought. Nor is this all, these two candidates pledge themselves to support a system of education, which puts the hands of one portion of the public into the pockets of Catholics, robs them for the purpose, and with the intent, of unchristianising their children if possible, and, at all events, of providing secularist bigots with the kind ot education they require for their own children, at the expense, to a great extent, of Catholics, who, after helping to educate secularists very cheaply, may then, if they please, educate their own children at their own sole and great expense. The two candidates for the honor of representing Wellington, in effect, say to their Catholic fellow-citizens : Stand aside, We do not want your aid, and as we do not want your aid, we will trample on your principles and consciences, contemptuously take your money to injure and insult you. and advocate a system of education which, we are quite certain, will as efficaciously exclude you irom all participation in the expenditure of the public money, to which you contribute equally with all other citizens, as if there were a penal law expressly excluding you from government schools. This is really the meaning of that part of both the addresses, which treats of the subject of education. Aud we do hope that the Catholic voters of Wellington will accept the invitation of Messrs. Travers and Hutchinson to stand aside. We trust the Catholics of Wellington, on the polling day, will be conspicuous by their absence from the booths, and religiously abstain from giving the least help to either. In fact, it appears to us, that if any Catholics vote for either of the candidates, they will be guilty of an intrusion where they are neither wanted nor expected, as well as give evidence of a mein and servile spirit. Our advice to Catholics is to altogether abstain from taking any pare in this and similar contests. No good can come to the cause of truth and justice from sharing in such contests, wheread nothing but the loss of self-respect and the defeat for an indefinite period of the cause they have most at heart cau result from their doing so. In about two years or so an opportunity will present itself, at the general election,

of punishing the successful candidate of to-day, by an. unanimous Catholic vote against him. In the ciicumstancesin which Catholics are placed, their true policy is, on all occasions when it is in their power, to punish all candidates who have opposed aid from the public moneys to Catholic schools.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZT18770323.2.22

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 207, 23 March 1877, Page 10

Word count
Tapeke kupu
771

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1877. THE WELLINGTON ELECTION. New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 207, 23 March 1877, Page 10

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1877. THE WELLINGTON ELECTION. New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 207, 23 March 1877, Page 10

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