RELIGION AND POLITICS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 21, 24 July 1918, Page 8

RELIGION AND POLITICS

TO TBS EDIIOB.

Sir, —"No Camouflage" would seem to have scored a palpable hit against me in regard to the word "politics"; but no amount of careless diction on my part can alter the plain fact of the matter in the slightest. The current popular meaning of the word is concerned with the struggles of the "Ins"'and "Outs" to gain or hold the reins of office; and with this sort of thing Catholics have no more special interest than the ordinary taxpayer. When legislation, however, picks them out (or leaves them out) because they are Catholics as well as taxpayers, does their consequent protest ("squealing" as "N.C." kindly puts it) make their interest Apolitical"? And, as regards the Catholic Church being "the same" in New South Wales as in New Zealand, .- can your correspondent not conceive that different disabilities at the hands of different Governments compel Catholics in different countries to adopt different methods of protection and: protest? "N.C.'s" letter simply rattles off the old, hackneyed retorts to the Catholic protest. And again it is pure, unadulterated camouflage to call-a "refund" a "grant," to call free secular education "a special privilege" if asked for by Catholics, to describe as "a grant in support of my religion" the share in the taxes claimed by Catholics in return for'the amount of State-approved secular education given in Catholic schools, and so on. Will "N.C." tell me why funds made up of taxes paid- by the whole of the people should be applied to the education of the children of only a part of the people? Or why a grant (consisting of the whole of the State Education Fund) should be made to benefit merely one class of citizens, those who are 'satisfied with secular education. Will he even tell me what would happen to the overcrowded, under-staffed, underaccommodated State system if it had to suffer an invasion to-morrow of the children which thn Catholic system at present relieves it of? Tho current criticism of the State system by its own supporters, makes many, a Catholic wonder how mnch that system is bolstered up by the unwilling contribution annually made from Catholic pockets, for which no thanks are received.

In connection with "N.C.'s" thrust about "the domination of the Church of Rome," I would ask him to turn up the Dunedin Evening Star of 10th instant and following dates, and read of how tho largo-hearted State headmasters of Dunedin endeavoured to have the Christian Brothers' pupils excluded from the annual school sports under the auspices of the Caledonian Society—a sportsmanlike attempt which he will be pleased to see properly failed.—l, am, EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL. . 23rd July.