The Baffled Bigots.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 51, 18 December 1902, Page 1

The Baffled Bigots.

We dealt last week in our leading columns with the discomfiture of the Rutledge and Dill-Macky crowd in New South Wales by the publication of an official return which showed "that the Orange allegations about Catholics dominating the Civil Service were absolutely untrue and that on the contrary Catholics were to a scandalous and outrageous degree done out of their fair share of representation in the Public Service Departments of the Colony. In order to complete the enemy's confusion a Catholic member of the N.S. Wales Parliament has asked for a further return showing the amount of the salaries paid to the members of the various denominations employed in the Civil Service, and it is anticipated that this will serve to bring out in a still more marked way the unfairness and injustice of the treatment meted out to Catholics in the Government departments. This is evidently the result which the bigots are afraid of, for they are awaiting the publication of the return in a condition of undisguised ' funk.' The alarm felt in ' Protestant Defence' circles is given expression to by the ' Daily Telegraph,' which would do anything now to stave off the showing up which it and the bigots are bringing upon themselves. A week or two ago it was, as we have shown our readers, howling for the fullest exposure of the true state of affairs in the Civil Service. We quoted it as saying, with reference to the Orange Manifesto : 'It forms part of an indictment which if untrue oujjht to be rebutted, and if true reveals a state of affairs which ought to be exposed in order that the tolerant and liberalminded majority of the people may clear the political ground of the noxious weeds of sectarian meddling, and in the future act freely for themselves. Only when they do so, and shake off the domination of one sect or another, can politics be clean and impartial.'

Thus the 'Telegraph 'of October 15. But after the first return was published and when it was seen that the bigots had 'fallen in' very badly, the 'Telegraph' ignominiously turned tail on all the grand principles it had laid down and protested against the issue of the very returns which its own bluster had made necessary. This is how, in its issue of November 18, the erstwhile champion of 'clean and impartial politics ' declaims against further inquiry :—: — ♦ If the State Premier gets rather badly stung as a result of rousing into activity a sectarian hornet's nest, his sufferings will not awaken much pity. His ready acquiescence in the demand that particulars should be furnished regarding the religious beliefs and salaries of persons employed in the Public Service was an almost incredible act of political folly. The merest Parliamentary tyro would hardly have permitted himself to fall among sect-mongers as helplessly as did Sir John See, or place himself in such a ridiculously false position. . . . . Suppose it was shown that, in proportion to their numbers among the community, too many Roman Catholics, too many Presbyterians, too many Baptists, or too few of any of these, were employed, would that be any evidence that interference in the public interest was called for ? Could it be

shown that it was because of professing a particular religious belief rather than because of having ability that the followers of any creed outnumbered those of any other among State employees ? '

In other words, if the Catholics are in a majority in the Civil Service it is necessary, according to the ' Telegraph,' to • clear the political ground of the noxious weeds of sectarian meddling ' and to ' shake off the domination of one sect ' ; but if it should turn out that Presbyterians have a majority of public appointments no action is necessary, the fact being only evidence that Presbyterians have more ability than the members of any other denomination ! Last week we referred to the • Telegraph 'as a' reputable journal, 1 but if this is a fair specimen of its tactics the honorable epithet w.is not deserved. Such contemptible paltering with principles inflicts a stain and a disgrace on-the high-class journalism of Australia.

The inconsistency of the bigots in first demanding and then protesting against the publication of these returns has been pretty freely denounced on all sides, but the ' Sydney Bulletin ' probably takes the palm for the neatness and force with which it has sized these people up. 'If the Dill-Macky crowd,' it says, 'didn't want the information supplied by Parliament, why did it demand the information ? Why didn't it object to the proposed return when it was first asked for, and not reserve its objections till the document arrived and bowled them out? ' And again it asks, ♦ What kind of a row about preventing the light of truth shining- in on the dark places of iniquity would the Macky and the Rutledge crowd have made if the Government had refused the information? ' It then propounds the following pointed and suggestive catechism for the special use of Dill-Macky and the other Orange agitators : — Should Catholics have a vote at all ? Should Catholics be admitted to Parliament, to the Ministry, and the Public Service ? If not, why not state the fact ? If they should be admitted, how many would Dill and Co. admit ? Are they to be represented according to their share of the population, or are they to be represented on a lower scale, and if so, on what scale ? How many Catholics should be sacked to put the Public Service on what Dill and Co. would call a fair basis ? How many extra or superfluous Catholics have there been in (say) the last five N.S.W. Mir.iStries, and which has been the most superfluous Catholic of the lot ? Will parsons Dill-Macky and Woolls Rutledge, instead of disturbing the public at its beer by denunciations that lead to nothing, draft a Bill to put the whole Public Service on a proper Protestant footing, and to put anything else that they think is wrong on a proper footing also? If they will the ' Bulletin ' will find a member to introduce that Bill into the Assembly, even if it has to pay him £50 to do it. Surely after such a riddling the bigots will have enough shame to ' hide their diminished heads ' and will have sufficient sense to at last realise that the community is heartily sick of their silliness.