OUR OBJECTS AND PRINCIPLES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 2, 10 May 1873, Page 14

OUR OBJECTS AND PRINCIPLES.

In making their bow to the public, the proprietors of this newspaper wish to state their objects and principles. They have in view to supply good reading matter to the Catholics of this colony ; and to defend Catholic principles and Catholic interests generally. All Catholics, at least, will acknowledge this to be not only desirable but necessary. Good books are at once a great blessing, and of urgent necessity. It is difficult, however, for all in this remote corner of the world to procure such books, and it has, consequently, struck the proprietors that a good Catholic newspaper might, to a very considerable extent at all events, meet this difficulty. It is intended that the New Zealand Tablet shall contain a large amount of interesting information useful to Catholics.

Unfortunately, in the present age the public Press, speaking generally, is in its tone hostile to the Catholic Church, and calumnious in its statements in reference to the Church and her pastors. It is incumbent on Catholics to provide an antidote to both.

The tone of the New Zealand Tablet will be eminently loyal and respectful to the grand old Church, and its highest

honor and ambition to proclaim and defend her principles, and to refute calumnies directed against her, her Head, and

her ministers.

But whilst putting Religion and her interests in the first place — which is her proper place— the New Zealand Tablet will not neglect or overlook the interests of merely civil society. Here, however, the great object will be to ascertain what is true and good, and to defend these and the sacred cause of justice.

The New Zealand Tablet will not ally itself with any party, and although it will freely discuss political principles and measures, it will always consider them on their merits, and not from, the point of view of party. Nothing personal will be permitted to appear in its columns ; and the greatest care will be taken to exclude everything calculated to offend good taste and propriety. These objects and principles deserve success ; but shall the New Zealand Tablet succeed? This will depend on itself in the first instance, and in the second on the amount of support accorded by the Catholic body of the colony. But Catholics will do well to bear in mind that a generous and confiding support at the beginning, will very largely contribute to make this newspaper everything it wishes and proposes to be itself, and everything they could wish it to be.

The proprietors flatter themselves that the New Zealand Tablet will meet with a hearty welcome from their brethren of the Press. The Tablet does not propose to compete with any existing newspaper ; there is a sphere for itself, and it has its own special work to do. Then, it can not be for the interests of colonists that one large section of the community should continue without a representative in the Fourth Estate ; neither can it be pleasant for public writers, nor conducive to their efficiency, to be ignorant of the views of their Catholic fellow-colonists. These and the Tablet will, »no doubt, be opponents on very many questions ; but the opposition, it may be hoped, will be open, manly, straightforward, and based, not on prejudice, but on reason and argument. As an advertising medium this paper will enjoy especial, advantages. Its circulation will not be confined to any cfty or province, but as the organ and representative of Catholicity, will have numerous subscribers in all the provinces.