GREAT PAPAL AGGRESSION PANIC IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 12, 19 July 1873, Page 11

GREAT PAPAL AGGRESSION PANIC IN AUCKLAND.

Pitt street, Auckland, 14th June. You will no doubt learn that there has lately been Borne considerable stir in this religious city both among Catholics and Protestants, caused by Jhe publication of a certain low and scurrilous placard, containing a gross and unjustifiable attack upon the Catholic clergy and laity of New York, The object of this paper cannot be mistaken. It is to raise a no popery clamor against the Catholic people, clergy, and laity of New Zealand ; to terrify the timid and ignorant Proteslants with the prospect of a fearful impending papal aggression, and sound the Protestant trumpet and call all good Protestants to prepare manfully for the coming battle against " Popery "in New Zealand. With this view the paper parades before the people, the fact that the Catholic clergy in New York, backed by a predominant Catholic political party in that great city, have succeeded in greatly increasing the number of Catholic schools and filling them with pupils, while the State or Godless Schools are being deserted. Horror of horrors. Popery already in the ascendant in New York ! Why, we shall have it rampant in Auckland very shortly, unless the people band themselves as one man against it. Then look at the horrid, abominable, and wicked means by which these Catholics in America— Jesuits many of them— have gained this great triumph. A torrent of foul abuse is vomited forth upon the devoted heads of the Irish Catholics in New York. Such is the essence of this remarkable document. It is a mystery how a respectable printer such as Mr W. C. Wilson, proprietor of the ' New Zealand Herald,' could have been induced to use his Press to any purpose so discreditable as the printing of such a circular. But what will the love of money and religious bigotry united not induce men to do ? It bears to be printed by that gentleman for the " Publisher." Who the publisher is remains also somewhat of a mystery. The gentleman who took the most prominent part in distributing the document in the streets and elsewhere is a rather celebrated public character, a certain Mr George Staines, a marine store dealer and ex-M.P.C, who occasionally makes an exhibition of himself at public meetings, to the greai diversion of the audience. So far as we are concerned, we may regard Mr Staines as " the publisher " of the placard which Mr W. C. Wilson printed for him. Mr Staines' business being of a'somewhat miscellaneous kind, he possibly may in future turn an honest penny as publisher of "Anti-popish Tracts." So much the better, say I. Nothing like agitation for bringing out truth, wherever it lies. The Tablet will no doubt help in that noble work. Only for the credit of this branch of their business—Mr Wilson as printer and Mr Staines as publisher of no-popery tracts— l_ would suggest that in future their tracts be written in a more civil style ; that they contain specific facts, and give names whenever anyone is blamed for saying or doing anything contrary to good morals and the public interest ; and that they avoid vague sweeping and general abuse, or charges such as those which the present placard casts about so liberally, without giving particular names or facts. They must see that such a mode of assailing the character of a «y. m £" 01 " body of men Dehmd their back, and thousands of miles off, is highly unfair and reprehensible, not to say cowardly. But the fact is, in all probability, Mr Staines is little to blame for what he has done or may do hereafter as a publisher and distributor of such vile tracts. He is not by any rreans a highly educated man, but possesses not a little of the spirit of John Bull in him. He w a plain, blunt man, who speaks his mind freely s and, lor anything I know, speaks it honestly too. He cares not who is scandalized or offended by what he says on public matters. Any fault he has committed m circulating this abominable and unjustifiable attack on the Catholics of New York may, therefore, be charitably regarded by us as of a venial kind. He errs most likely through excusable ignorance, not from motive, and may be regarded as the honest dupe of some parties wiser and better informed, but less honest, than himeelf. Charity herself, however, would forbid our extending to Mr W. C.

Wilson a like measure of lenity in judging of his share in this transaction. He ought to have known better than to print anything so scandalous for publication. If he do not know he ought to know the real character of the Catholic Church, and the nature of the work in which her devoted clergy and religious orders of men and women are engaged. If his understanding were not hope^ssly blinded, and bis sense of right and justice hopelessly perverted by a voluntary and rooted prejudice and hatred against everything Catholic, he would know and admit, that the Catholic clergy, according to their means, are the best friends of popular education, religious and secular, as they are the most fearless upholders of the rights of the poor and defenceless against the power of tyrants of all kinds, small or great. Knowing this, as he can hardly fail to know it, he should have been the last man in the world to permit such a calumnious and disreputable paper ever to issue from his press. Let us hope he will yet come to a better mind, and make us reparation. One good, however, has come of the circular : it has made widely known the two gratifying facts that Catholic schools in New York are the most flourishing of any there, and that the Catholic* as a political party in that important city are triumphant. The real reason why the Americans of all creeds shew such preference to Catholic schools is because in them the moral discipline is much superior to that in the State schools, and the manners and deportment of the pupils, as a natural consequence, are far more satisfactory. I may here state, for the iuformation of Mr ]7. 0. Wilson, Mr Staines and others, that in England, no less than America, the superiority of Catholic over Vrotestant schools, so far as regards even secular knowledge, has been officially attested ; the report of the Committee of Education of Her Majesty's Privy Council, lately laid before Parliament, announces the fact. The circumstance seems incredible, but it is true notv. irhstanding, aud wa3 mentioned not many months ago by Lord Robert Mpntague at a great Catholic educational meeting held in St. James Hall, London, Archbishop Manning in the chair. Lord Robert either is or was YicePresident of the Committee of Education of Her Majesty's Privy Council. J. Wood, Surgeon.