Then and Now

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 37, 10 September 1903, Page 2

Then and Now

We remember reading, many years ago, a magazine article in which an American newspaper editor stoutly maintained that ' special articles ' for the daily press should invariably be written by persons who had little or no previous acquaintance with the subject which they were required to treat. -.A cutting sent us by a Palmerston correspondent from a North Island paper reminds us that, in the estimation of some of our nonCatholic clerical friends, the same principle applies to the lecture platform. At any rate a Protestant clergyman, according to the brief report, waxed eloquent in a recent lecture over the manner in which Italy has ' improved ' since it shook itself free from ' papal domination.' Improved ? Well, it has ' impro\ed '—to use an Irish proverbial saying—' like bad fish in July ' The demands on our space in this issue forbid us entering into much detail upon the subiect ; but we will call in two unexceptionable Protestant witnesses who will set the matter in its proper light.

The first is the distinguished American Protestant author, Bayard Taylor. He is an eye-witness for the conditions that prevailed in the States of the Church in the days when they were under ' papal domination ' This is what he has to say :—

4 I have road in various papeis the Papal States are the worst governed in Europe. The precise nature and extent of this despotism I am a little in the dark about Our generous enhghteners, the editors, do not condescend to come down to particulars Still, a plain man may be permitted to ask a few questions. In what docs this despotism of the Papal Government consist ? Is it that clergymen hold office ? For many years there has been a smaller proportion of clergymen holding office in the Papal States than in some of the States of this Union, and their salaries have been in a still smaller proportion to those of secular offices Is it in the expense of the Government ? It is one of the most economical in Europe The salaries of higher officers of State do not exceed 300,000 dollars (about £60,000) a year, and the whole civil list costs about 600,000 dollars (about £120,000). Are the people ground down with taxes ? The taxes in Rome are far less than in England, Prance, or New York. Are they deprived of tbe benefits of education ? Tbe Papal States, with a population of less than 3,000,000, have seven universities ; and the city of Rome has more free public schools than New York in propoition to her population, and what is still better, a larger proportion of children attend them Perhaps the poor are uncared for, and their sufferings treated with neglect 9 There are more and hotter free hospitals for the sick, the poor and ae:ed, tbe suffering of every class, in Rome, in proportion to the population, than in any other city in the world. It is not asked in

Rome what is a man's country or creed. Perhaps the bad government has reduced the people to pauperism ? Holland, Prance, the other free and enlightened countries, have from three to ten times as much pauperism in proportion to the population. The government is an elective monarchy. It has a liberal constitution, light taxation, very little pauperism, an economical administration, a cheap or free education for all classes, and abundant institutions of charity for the needy and suffering. I venture to assert that the single city of New iork pays more taxes, is more plundered by dishonest officials, supports more paupers, has more uneducated children, tolerates more vice and drunkenness, rowdyism, etc., and suffers more from crime year by year, than the whole (nearly 3,000,000) of the people of the States of the Church.'

Let another Protestant writer, a resident in Italy, point the moral and adorn the tale which tells the bitter contrast between the days of « papal domination ' and those of • improvement,' ' freedom,' and ' prosperity.' The appendix to ' A Village Commune ' thus briefly sums up the ruin of to-day :— * I did not live during the old regimes and cannot judge of them : but this I do know, that the bulk of the people passionately regret the personal peace and simple plenty that were had under them. . . The Italian people, beholding all their old plenty and ancient rights slipping away from them, stand sullen and full of futile wrath to see all that for twice a thousand years has been their own passing into the coffer of the foreign speculator or money lender. This ruin is called " Progress," and the whole land groans and the whole people curse.' Half an ounce of fact from residents on the spot is worth a hogshead of the sort of fiction that was poured out on that northern platform by one who had clearly never set foot within the borders of Italy.