A GENERAL COMMENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7, 15 February 1900, Page 3

A GENERAL COMMENT.

Thus far the extract. It is a veritable lawyers me tangle of confused views, ial^e statement i and rampant fallacies, lisn^tnt lies plain upon the surface. And it is simply this to moke the demon of sectarian passion a^am-a a section of the community during the period of strong political ferment through which we arj now passing. We ha\e a lnely soh-c of the shortcomings as well as of the merits of the secular l'n-'-s. But we venture to si) that there is not in Austialasia any editor of a secular pap* r who would admit such a display of sectarian sky-rocketing into his hading columns, huch unchristian work has been r< served for a newspaper that unworthily bears upon its title-pane the glorious na <■ of 'Christian.' As far as one can unravel the tangled ro Waning of the extract given above, it charge* the Catholic Church with antiBritish partisanship regarding (1) the origin ot the war in South Africa, and (2) regarding its ultimate i--sue. ft is scarcely nect ssary to say that the writer of that slipshod piece made not the slightest effort to sustain his statement. We might dismiss him with a curt statement of his fatal omission, coupled with a reminder that the whole burden of proof falls upon him But for the reasons stated in the opening paragnph of this article we prefer to adopt a different course and to lay before our courteous Protestant corre a pondent and our other readers some pertinent points in connection with this unworthy attempt to aggravate the present position by importing into it the snarling element of sectarian bitterness and haie. Here in New Zealand the attempt is beiug publicly made under the auspices of the Orange organisation. \'ule*s we are mistaken, the obscure weekly from which the above-quoted extract is taken represents, or once did represent, the views ot that body. If so, it, like them, should blush to the roots of its hair at the mere mention of the word ' loyalty ' to the throne or Empire. Thoae who are acquainted with the facts of Orange history and ritual cannot easily forget the society's systematic, deliberate, and successful corruption of the loyalty of some oO British regiments between 1,^2'.) and 18M} ; the famous Cumberland Plot which they carried out in order to prevent the acce.-sion of the Princess (now Queen) Victoria in favour of their Grand Master Ernest, Duke of Cumberland ; their condemnation by King William IV., by the British Parliament, and by several Royal Commissions, and their suppression m ]525 and IS. ti as a disloyal and dangerous association ; the watch-cry of the Irish brethren 1868-1869: ' We'll kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne'; the illegal and criminal oaths taken to this day by the brethren at their initiation to the first and second degrees ; their systematic interference with the course of justice and of public tranquility in Ireland; and the avowed object of the association, as declared in their rituals, tracts, and speeches — namely, to drive Catholics for ever out of public life, and to undo what their ' accredited organ.' the Victorian Standard of May, 1893, termed 'that fatal error, the Emancipation Act of 1820.' The yellow-scar ved brethren have a weakness for obtaining a cheap reputation for loyalty by decrying that of others. But lectures on ' disloyalty ' from such a source remind one forcibly of Satan reproving sin.