A SECULAR PATER ON CATHOLIC COLONIZATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 356, 13 February 1880, Page 9

A SECULAR PATER ON CATHOLIC COLONIZATION.

(Prom the Brooklyn Eagle.)

Bishop SpAlding, of Illinois, and Bishop Ireland, of Minnesota' could not be engaged in a better work than that to which they arc now giving so much of their time — the work of stimulating the poorer Irish residents of our cities to betake themselves to agricultural pursuits. These distinguished prelates addressed large audiences in this city on Sunday, and another last night on the advantages which Irish Catholics may derive and are deriving by taking advantage of the labours of the Catholic Colonization Society. The purposes and methods of the society are simple and highly reasonable. It issues stock like any other organization, and with the money paid in, undeveloped land is bought in certain Western States upon, which the stockholders are given a first mortgage as security for repayment. This being done, the Catholic layman who desires to settle as a farmer gets a title to the land without having to pay any increase over its first cost, and without having to pay anything cither towards the priDcipal or the interest until he has raised and sold his second ci op. At the end of Ihe third year he is required to make a small payment on the principal of the cost, and so from year to year until the debt is liquidated. The success of this plan, of course, depends on the confidence which men of money havo in the leading members of the society, and in the fact that no part of the earnings of the settlers go to the enrichment of the managers. That an enterprise like this should have found immediate favour, and that the future outlook is encouraging, is certainly not astonishing. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that a scheme of benevolence so admirably calculated to develop self-respect and lead to independence was not sooner thought of. Bishop Spalding told bis hearers that the society has within the past three months " put :300,0C0 asres of land in the possession of liLsh Catholics, and that 33,000 ntorj arc to-day awaiting settlers in Ncbiaska and Minnc-f-'ota." Bishop Ireland said that colonies have been established in Kansas, Nebraska, lown, Minnesota aud other States. In Minnesota, during the pact four years, sixteen hundred families have by these means been settled upon farms. While commending in the iieaitie&t manner, a labour s,o obviously beneficent , we cannot foi bear to urge upon those who arc disposed to second the work of the Colonization Society the expediency of considering the advantages offered by Long luland to the labouring men of New York and Brooklyn. No doubt there are thousands upon thousands of men in othev cities who cannot do better than go to the Western fields, but it is difficult to umlci stand why any thrifty man should go from this pait of lh< 1 country to Nebraska, while there arc five hundred thousand acres oC unreclaimed laud which may be bought cheap ; which is accessible by three lines of railroad; is within easy reach of the Atlantic Ocean and the Long Island Sound, and can, as experiments abundautly prove, be made to blossom like the rose. If, as we trust theie will, a branch of the Colonisation Society should be formed in this cify, we believe the members will find it easy to benefit thousands of their industrious coreligionists by securing settlements foi them on this Island. By a concerted movement such as the intelligent aud more wealthy Catholics of Brooklyn and New York might easily make, five thousand farms might bj cleared within the next five years and a hundred thousand human beings be put on the highway to indepcudenco.