Political Trickery

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 16, 16 April 1903, Page 1

Political Trickery

A lie has more lives than a cat. It ordinarily takes a lot of killing, but most of all when it represents a tangible value in money or votes In Australia, but more especially in New South Wales, the political and clerical leaders of the Orange brethren are again busy scaring their credulous following into a ' solid fi ont ' by the good old bugbear of the thrcatene*d domination of five million people by one million ' Papists ' in these new countries. This is the chief plank in the formation of the new ally of Orangcism in New South Wales Like the old Orange Societies its members are pledged to exclude Catholics from political and municipal life and to return to such positions only those who are associated or in sympathy, with the movement. Like ' rough and tough old Joe Bagstock,' the Orange standard-bearers of the new association are sly. veiy sly They know what they are about. They have learned by heart Pluto's Machiavellian lesson in the ' Infernal Marriage ' : 'I will keep each faction m awe by the bugbear of the other's supremacy. Trust me, lam a profound politician.' The keeping up of that awe spells notoriety for the clerical, and solid votes for the political, leaders of the new offshoot of Orangeism. And thus each party catches the hare that it is hunting.