BELGIUM AND NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 110, 5 June 1875, Page 9

BELGIUM AND NEW ZEALAND.

♦+ . No State in Europe seems more prosperous and peaceably disposed, and consequently more happy and contented, at present, than the j small kingdom of _ Belgium. It is eminently a Catholic State, though of course it contains an anti-Catholic party, of whose services Bismarck and the " Liberals" would fain avail themselves to create a vow, if they could. The "Liberals" are most liberal mischiefmakers. Nothing serves their end so well as war and confusion, in any State. The circumstance of Belgium being a email and comparatively poor State, no less than, an intensely Catholic one, probably contributes to its exceptional prosperity and peacefulness in these times of war and confusion, and distrust between nation and nation. "We might take a hint from all this, and leara the benefit we would likely derive from each Province being as far as possible self governed, and a separate small State, instead of being under a central Government at Wellington. Centralisation is but another name for despotism, I suspect. The principle of "Home Bule" is as applicable to our Provinces as to Ireland. Ireland will sooner or later get Home Rule — or a system of Government equivalent to that. Let us go in for it too. Pauperism in Belgium and Ireland is nothing like the scandalous evil it is in England, or even in. New Zealand. Pauperism and Protestantism go together, though in Catholic countries there is no lack of destitute persons. They are not "paupers" in the English sense. The virtuous poor represent our Lord. Laic