PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 73, 19 December 1917, Page 7

PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION

A MEETING IN NEWTOWN. A meeting of thq Protestant Political Association was held in St. Thomas's Hall last night. Mr. A. A. Whitelaw presided, and there was a fairly largo audience. Admission was by ticket only. The chairman • explained that the meeting had been called in order that tho objects of the association might be moro fully explained to those interested. Tho Protestants wore realising that they had been "inhaling a subtlo malignant gas," and that the timo had como to apply an antidote. The antidote proposed was an efficient organisation. Pastor Stewart was the first speaker. He said he was convinced no organisation in the world wielded a stronger political influence than the Roman Catholio Church.' This bad been the case from very early times. Ho referred to some incidents of early Christian history, and charged tho Catholic Church with aiming at tho restoration of Papal power. The Rev. Knowles Smith said ho conceded freedom of religious opinion to all men. But while the British nation gave equality of opportuntiy to all men it also demanded from them loyalty to its common interests. Individual libnorty must bo accompanied by loyalty to tho State, so long as tho State did nob interfere with conscience. Ho proceeded to argue that the power of tha Roman Catholic Church was used in politics, tho members of that Church voting as instructed. The individual Catholic, was lovnl, hut ho criticised the action of tho Roman Catholic hierarchy in claiming that tho Marist Brothers should not go to tho war, and also tho attempt maclo to secure the exemption by legislation of priests and Marist Brothers. The speaker condemned tho actions of leaders of tho Roman Catholic Church in Now Zealand, Australia, and Ireland as antagonistic to tho principles on which the British Empire was based. The Protestant community must organise. Ihe mightiest power in the interests of tho Catholics was the apathetic Protestant majority. Ho agreed that the introduction of sectarian differences into politics was not a desirable thing, but the Catholics had introduced them already and the Protestants must replv. They'must break the power of tho Roman Catholic Church as a political machine. , ~ . A motion in favour of tho formation of a Wellington South brand; of tha FrolMant Political Association was carried.