The Law of Plunder

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 16, 20 April 1905, Page 2

The Law of Plunder

Artemus Ward says somewhere that American miming towns usfually go through a certain course of ' unadulterated cussednes's ' before they settle down to a life of normal quiet and order. It seems as if the French Government is passing through a similar experience.

Nothing since the wild "days of ' Bluff King Htetl's ' great pillage has surpassed the regime of legalised disorder and tyranny and plunder which has been for some time past sweeping over France. The forcible seizure and confiscation of over fourteen thousand religious establishments i^, in itself, a ' steal ' of colossal magnitude. Strangely enough, the great body of the English and colonial secular papers passed it over as a trifle scarcely worth recording. And yet ' The Ten Commandments will not . bu.dge, And stealing will continue stealing,' despite ministerial majorities, whether in or out of France. • The ' entente oordiale ' may have furnished one reason for the manner in which the British press shut up its shell over the seizure of the English (lurch in Paris. ' The church/ says Mr. Richard Davey in the London ' Ta<blet,' ' was built by the voluntary contributions of English and American Catholics residing in Parts, and was originally entrusted to the change of the Pas-ionist Fathers. At the recent suppression of the Order a number of Catholics subscribed very largely for the preservation of the church and mission ; among those subscribers was that ganerous lady Mrs. John Mack&y, who contributed not less than £1000. Now, sir, if the smallest Protestant church in France, or the tiniest synagogue, were about to be closed by order .of the Government, there woulS be a fc|ue and cry raised from one end of this country (England) to the other ; the press would be rampant, and meetings wou^d be held in Hyde Park, Exeter Hall, and in every town in England, and the Government would in the long run be compclka to intorver.e. But, strange as it may seem, a Catholic dhurch, built by English and American Catholics, can be put up at auction without producing the least excitement, either ameng British Catholics or in the general public'