In Spain

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 5, 31 January 1907, Page 9

In Spain

There are' (it is said) tricks in every trade. The vanishing trick seems -to be -just now the favorite one in the cabinet-making trade in Spain. The Spanish Freemasons (who are closely allied with those in France) are " endeavoring to force upon their country a course of anti-religious legislaAon based upon that which is now in force north" of the Pyrenees. A very few months ago Senor Moret (Prime ]V»lnister) took up the task of harrying and plundering the* Church. He

promptly, went beneath the political surface. Then, like a bubblej up rose Senor Romanones as - Premier. He swiftly broke and vanished. Then, for a brief space, Sciior Moret rose to the troubled surface again and clutched the bauble-emblem of power. We next see it in the hands of a Senor whose name is variouslyrendered De Armijo and De Ramijo. The cable-men ha-d not time to malfe sure of his name when, lo ! ' gray flits the shade of power '. from his relaxed fingers. And now (according to Monday's cable messages) he is succeeded 1 by Sendr Maura, who (it is added) ' will treat the Church • and' the Vatican "with deference '. It is said that Englishmen never quite master the difficulty of riding on an -Irish jaunting-car. It is by no means the only Irish difficulty that they have failed to master. But a seat in /the Spanish Ministry just now seems to be still more -^insecure — to be as jolty and uncertain as a seat on a' champion circus mule. Anticlerical Ministries in Spain during the past few months appear to have been spending most of their time upon the ,tan — fubbing embrocation into their ~ bruises. Harrying the Church does not seem such easy and profitable' work there as on the >other side of the' Pyrenees. These are the outstanding facts of a situation in regard to which the cables and some of the English daily papers have been for some time past giving us some very false and misleading ideas. For the present, we -merely caution our readers that in Madrid, as in Paris, the swiftest' channels of external communication are in the hands of the enemies of the Church. They are echoes of the Masonic and anti-Catholic l Heraldo.' And (to use a Celtic proverbial saying) one might as well 'go to the goat's house for wool ' as go to such journals- as the Madrid ' Heraldo ' for a fair and faithful statement of the facts of the Masonic campaign- against religion in Spain.

There is pel haps more than a little significance in the fact that, s both in -France and in Spain, the periods of governmental war upon religion have been ueriods of astonishing ministerial instability. France has had nearly forty Ministries since"' its rulers started the twenty-five-year-old campaign to ' hunt Christ out of the Government of the country.' Spain has had four Ministries within some two or three months— a swiftness of lightning-change that even the Third Republic could hardly rival, in the Monarchy, as in the Republic, 'a resolute and well, organised minority' may (as Leteky said of France) force their policy on a majority who are' ' for the most part languid, divided, or unorganised.' But the country would be the loser. For in Fiance (as Lecky has pointed out) public interests have been ' profoundly affected by constant fluctuations among it chiefs ' ; grave evils have arisen from inexperience and ~ nominal power; 'a lowered tone ' has entered into public life ; liberty has w.aned the brilliant talent. f of /ormer days is no longer at the nation's service ;- the introduction of the pa-ineiple of spoils to the victors has degraded the official system; the lack of professional honor among ' diplomatists and other officials "' is a most sure and ' ominous sign of deterioration in public life ' ; and the country, is suffering from instability" '.where steady- continuity is c€ the highest importance.' Continuity of general policy, and especially- of foreign policy, is hardly to be expected of Ministries that appear and disappear withthe abrupt .and frequent squeak of a Jack-in-the-box. A. consistent! -foreign,; policy made France respected abroad, in the days of Henry IV., Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIV., and Cardinal Floury. To-day, the pigany politicians of the ' Bloc ' have inaugurated a reign of plunder, proscription, and persecution, set Frenchmen at the throat, of Frenchmen, and plunged the country into a state bordering on civil war, merely to gratify the hatred entertained by a dark-lantern" fraternity against religion. And. 'like spaniels they effusively lick the

hand that slapped their face at Fashoda, and meekly kiss the 'hob-nailed . boot that kicked them on the Rhine. How are the mighty fallen ! And . how God avenges Himself upon the nations that, in- their rul-_ ers, raise their sacrilegious right hand against Him !