POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS ANNIVERSARIES.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXI, Issue 3186, 31 October 1878, Page 4

POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS ANNIVERSARIES.

[FKOM THJE SATUBDAV KEVrEW. ] Englishmen have little cause, however, ..tp/j .blame the people of other countries for a too obstinate clinging to anni- . versaries which have ceased to have any but a mischevious meaning. Their own fellow subjects in Canada have just been ... giving a similar, but far more unreasonable, example of devotion. The taking . of the Bastile marked an epoch in history ; but the incidents in Irish annals the memory of which it pleases the Orange Societties to keep alive have long ceased to have any meaning. The period with which they are associated is one which Englishmen ought never to recall without shame. The Irish Protestants of

two centuries back made the preservation of their own liberties an occasion and pretext for the destruction of ihe liberties of their adversaries. , - Their deliverance from the tyranny of James 11. was the signal for the imposition of a far worse tyranny on Irish Catholics. It is intelligible, perhaps, that the Orange anniversaries should be kept alive in the country where they had their tjirth. For more than. a jcentitry it was prilyby recalling the evils 'they' ha&' escaped -that oven Orangemen could justify to their own consciences the evils they were inflicting ; and when this period passed away, the satisfaction of insulting the enfranchised Catholics was the one consolation left to an Irish Protestant of the old school. But when these same anniversaries are transported to Canada, where they have no meaning and no associations, we can pnly wonder at the extraordinary , vitality of religious hatreds. The Canadian Orangemen 1 would no doubt like to subject the Roman Catholics of Canada to a well-devised system of Penal laws, and if they had the /strength to accomplish their object they would at least have that title to respect which accompanies the ability to do mischief. But when they can only proclaim that they would like to persecute, without succeeding. in persecuting, they would be . Simply ridiculous if it were ; not \that they still retain tbe power of provoking a_ public disturbance. Theylßavel'tTn'B". much of superiority over Bunyhn's superannuated giants, that they can go into the streets and can only be got out of them by the employment of police and soldiers. The pretext for these, political '."processions is ? ÜBually that the ' Roman Catholics 'have' had a procession on the ITeaßt of Corpus Ohriati, or are going^tohaye one on the Feast of the Assumption.'- '-"AsHhV'latter day falls on the 15th August, and the former some time in June, it is particularly convenient that the greatest of Orange commemorations should come on i the 12th of July. CCirangeihenare 'usually pleased to" call themselves Conservatives ;. but in this case they fall into exactly' the same confusion as that of which the French Radicals are guilty when they forbid religious processions. A political anniversary is either one which the entire nation can join in keeping, or- it is'bne the celebration of whicb is as irritating to one party as it is consoling to another. In England, anniversaries of this latter class are no longer valued. No one cares any longer tp afflict', his,-, soul on the 30th ,pf January,.. Pr£ to r/ejeicel on the 29th of "ay; The sth of November is still in some sense a popular fostival, but the lingering for it is confined , to boys and louts, and concerning these the law, does not trouble itself. The case is different when political anniversaries retain their power of stirring up evil passions. As was said when speaking of religious processions in France, an attempt to keep the 24th of August . in . memory of the massacre of the Huguenots ought undoubtedly be forbidden unless it could be safely left to the salutary operation bf public contempt. The same measure should be applied l to Y Canada until the Roman Catholics become wise enough to 'know that the reason why Orangemen love to organise processions is that the law has deprived them of any more effective ma : chinery of -.annoyance/ f :