BISMARCK AND THE CATHOLICS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4244, 27 October 1874, Page 3

BISMARCK AND THE CATHOLICS.

(From the New Yorh Herald.) Frankfort-on-the-Main, July 24, 1874. The attempted assassination of Prince Bismarck is still the chief topic of discussion in the press, and the “ afterwoes ” are just beginning to he felt. No oue living outside of Germany can possibly imagine the amount of intemperate, angry language used by the official press of Germany against the nltramontanes. The language of the Kreuz-Zdtung and of the Norddeutsche AUgemdne Zeitung has been intemperate, unfeeling, unjust, and repulsive in the highest degree. The pietistio IfreuzZdtung so far forgets itself as to see in the Kissengeu affair not only “ tho finger of God in the salvation of Prince Bismarck’s life, hut also in permitting the deed to be attempted.” Again, the pious ultra Protestant sheet considers that “on the 13th of May the Divine seal was placed by God on the May ecclesiastical laws.” The papers cried out day after day that the “ intellectual originators” of the plot should he sought out and brought to punishment. Tho Berlin Autographic Correspondence demanded as the “ necessary consequence ” of the Kissiugen attempted assassination, “that those persons (referring to leaders and speakers of the Catholic Union) who have stirred lip the agitation should he subjected to the sharpest weapons which the law has placed in the hands of the Government.” HOUSE SEARCHING. The very first step which tho Government takes is to open an attack on the Catholic party. The residences of a number of prominent leaders of Catholic societies have been searched by the police. Last Saturday the private dwelling of Christoph Joseph Cremer, the acting editor of tho Berlin Germania., was searched by the police, who confiscated letters, manuscripts, and some pamphlets. The next visit of the police, seven in number, was to tho house of Legation Councillor von Kehler, the Secretary of the Mayence Catholic Union, and their booty was considerable —about eighty documents, letters, circulars, the names of tho members of the society. On the same evening Herr von Kehler’» workroom in the EadziwiU Palace was also searched, and again on the following morning, but without any great results. The place of meeting of the Berlin Catholic Geselleuvereiu (union of journeymen), the house of Yioar Spiritual Councillor Muller (the father of Catholic societies in Berlin) were searched, proving that the Government suspects the existence of a conspiracy against the Empire. And these police inquisitions have been followed, quick as thunder after lightning, by the temporary closing of tho Catholic societies of Berlin. The Rdchsanzdger of the 21st inst. contains the following ORDER. On the basis of paragraph 8, of the ordinance of the 11th of May, 1850, respecting the prevention of abusas of the right of assembly and union, tending to jeopardise legal freedom and order, the following societies are temporarily closed by the Police President of Berlin. pint —The Catholic Society of Journeymeu (Gesellenverein) of this city, with the following societies in connection with it : 1. The Academy of the Gesellenverein. 2. St. Canisius’ Union of Young Master Workmen.

3. St. Eduard’s Society of Masters. 4. Society of Apprentices. All of Berlin. Secojidr— The St. Boniface Society, with the following societies in connection with it : 1. Boniface Students' Union. 2. St. Boniface Union of Independent Catholics. 3. Union in Honor of the Holy Family. All in Berlin. Third —The Pius Society of Berlin. It is hereby brought to public notice that the participation in any of these societies will be punished by a fine of from five to fifty thalers, or imprisonment from eight days to three months. Berlin, July 21, 1374. THE HUE AND CRY. This is doubtless only the beginning of the chase. One authority states the number of members of the Catholic Gesellen unions in Germany to be 80,000. Besides these there are hundreds of other societies, such as the Catholic adult societies, the Catholic young men’s societies, university societies, and , societies of women and of children. The Prussian Government ,is about to aim a severe blow at the organisation of these societies by almost severing the connection one with the other, even if it.does not resort to other and extreme measures by issuing ordinances with legal force, which may later be formally adopted by the Landtag. A paragraph in the Prussian Constitution permits this mode of procedure in “ case of need.” The rapidity with which the Government has already gone to work goes far to prove that it was waiting only for such an opportunity as the present to search nearer into the nature of the Catholic societies. The Frankfort Journal protests very energetically against an abusive application of the-law regulating societies, since the many millions of Catholic citizens should not, in any case, be held responsible for the crime of a madman or even for the pernicious agitation created by certain intemperate partisans of the Koman Curia against the Gorman Empire. WHO BEGAN IT ? Earnest hostilities against the Church were first commenced by Prince Bismarck. Ho drove the Jesuits out of Germany, and he thought he had good reasons for so doing. But herein ho insulted the Catholic conscience, as has been done since by the imprisonment of priests and bishops. So in return Prince Bismarck has received hard names. He has been styled by the ultramontane press a modern Diocletian, a Nero, a Caligula, the Beast of the Apocalypse, the Antichrist, and a dozen other unpleasant cognomens, and his name has been received with groans and hisses in the meetings of the Catholic societies. Bismarck commenced the conflict against the Catholic Church ; he knew the power he had to combat, and the Germania does not hit wide of the mark when it says that “it is not strange when, filled with the conviction that Bismarck is the great persecutor of the Catholic Church, the sum of passion, hatred, and rage, should have been collected in certain individuals, and finally break forth in the rudest rebellion against the laws of God and humanity.” An Italian paper says :■—“ The sermons of the clergy, the protests of the bishops, the manifestations of the Catholic societies, must of course produce their effect. It is unjust to make the Church answerable for the crime, but the leading astray of the conscience and the conviction that the course of events could be changed by a single life can only bo considered as the bitter fruit of an imperfect education, which places moral . culture in the background.”

THE DLTEAMONTANES AND THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS. The Kissengen event has proved one thing very clearly—that Bismarck, though popular with the majority, has a bitter minority against him—a minority which he treats in a very high-handed manner. The ultramontaues and the social democrats sail for the present in one boat. The official papers style them “ dit schwarzeri’ and “ die rothen” —the blacks and the reds—and charge them with inciting the people against the existing order of things. Dozens of cases occur every week in which social democratic assemblies are arbitrarily closed by the police. A working men's festival was prohibited at Brunswick a few days ago. Two meetings were suddenly closed in Berlin on the 14th and 15th inst. by the police. THEBE IS NO APPEAL. The veto of a policeman is sufficient. Many arrests of democratic leaders and house-searches have recently taken place. When the workmen revolted a few weeks ago at Quednau, near IConigsberg, the official papers charged the social democrats with having incited the people thereto. At the trial of thirteen workmen, however, it was found that the low state of education and morals was the only cause of the uproar. And so on throughout Germany, discontent among the working men, discontent and insulted feeling among the ultramontanes. Thus could Kullmau say, with some truth, that “hundreds of people were ready to take his place if he fell.” PFAEEEB BANTHALEB, Vicar of Walschaee, Tyrol, has been set at liberty by the police, and has returned to his mountain home a ■wiser, it a sadder man. Poor Hanthaler! We pity the good, harmless, short-sighted priest, now in his sixty-third year, whose curiosity to see the great persecutor of the German Church led him into such unpleasantnesses. We are almost inclined to laugh when we hear the old vicar told by the police he is at liberty to go, saying “ There are your papers and your photographic views of Kissengen.” “ Nay,” replied the old man ; the photographs you can keep, I have enough to remember Kissengen by—enough for my whole life. Ido not need any more.”