Sectarianism in Politics

New Zealand Tablet, 20 December 1906, Page 10

Sectarianism in Politics

. There are .(according, to Uacon), people so" selfish that they will set a house on fire ' an- it were to roast their eggs'. The " various "sectarian electors' committees across the water lit the flanie "of-^religious .passion all over two States in order to,' ' roast their eggs '—to secure an unconstitutional religious- ascendancy' for their own -.yellow V •facULon, -and- lo exclude Catholics artd tolerant Protestants- from public life.- ' Supposing-, said the Archbishop of 1- Melbourne in a" recent, discourse, ' Catholics met and issued such an unchristian, uncharitable, and. unjust .programme, and proclaimed their .-intention to exclude, as~ : far as they could, every Protestant from Parliament, what, would the work! say but that they . were most- unchristian, and, uncharitable, plotting- against, the -best interests; of the State, and not good citizens in seeking; to arrogate to themselves powers and privileges they should sshaje with others? Seeing that they (Catholics; were only a- fourth or a" fifth of the population, how could they adopt measures that would ensure any undue political or parliamentary representation '? .The whole .thing was" a farce!. It was simply an excuse to- justify themselves before their own consciences— if they- ever appealed to conscience— a,t any rate 'Before, the world— for v thef oppressive and unjust measures adopted by them for the purpose of depriving Catholics of those- political -and -social privileges to which they were justly entitled.' . The most melancholy feature -in- -t«is evil business was- the scandalous extent to which the movement was captained by men who profess to be ministers -of" the Gospel of peace ami brotherly love. The vast -majority of the leaders in this infamous conspiracy!^ against the political and social rights of Catholics and fair-minded Protestants were clergymen.. 'They,' said the Archbishop- of Melbourne, ' fanned the flame, and fomented an unchristian - spirit far more than the iay men, who, taking them as a whole, were not _wanting in a, sense of justice, a sense of propriety, 'ajid a sense- of charity.' -,-r- # Once- upon a' tiniest -was in 1824—' Di\ Peppercorn' (Barham of the 'ingoldsby Legends ') described how he and Ms friends carried home upon a shutter a soidisant 'Doctor Marshall '—a -talented tipster who had been laid out beneath . a gas-lamp by sundry long streaks of ' Kckwid litenin '. ' We bore -him -home, and we put him to.- bod t And we toid his wife and his daughter ' ro give him, next morning, a couple of red Herrings, with soda-water '. The orgie of political sectarianism is for the moment done beyond the Tasman -Sea. " The clerical and " lay gutter-politicians -.-.that bore- its standards are ribw surveying the scene of their /sectarian debauch, with a" collective head that must ache .corisumedly with the wild revelry" of yesterday and the blighted hopes and - disappointed, ascendancy aspirations of to-day. Tlkj con has failed to -achieve its chief purpose -.The Midshipman Easy system of triangular parties slill prevails in the Commonwealth Parliament. For all practical purposes,, parties stand in - regard to each other pretty nearly where they stood before— only a little more ehaotac and confused. ,We commend to the conspirators the Peppercorn ' jnd^me-up '—the sectarian red herring which .they, drew across the political issues of the Fedii eral elections, washed down by something Afferent from „^the strong waters, of religious hate and passion that a'sliJ, 6 , °, - Genlal Shopman's 'liquid death') were distidirf Un c - P eraonal supervision of Satan.-