Generation of Prosperous Government in Belgium

New Zealand Tablet, 17 November 1910, Page 1879

Generation of Prosperous Government in Belgium

Apropos of the recent elections in Belgium, Baron Jehan de Witte contributes a paper to Le (Jorrespondant (Paris). As will be remembered, the results on May 22 last were entirely in favor of the Government, which for the past twenty-six years has given Belgium the benefit of its counsels and activities. It still retains the confidence of the country, notwithstanding many predictions to the effect that the Liberal (really anti-Catholic) Party as likely to turn the tables on the party that has had so long a tenure of power. There was a reduction of the majority by just two votes that are said to have gone over to the enemy for considerations of money. Belgium, small though she is, is the fifth power in the world in point of foreign commerce; but in respect of her position according to her population she is the first. The census of 1908 returns the number of her population as 7,500,000, an increase of 1,000,000 over the figures of 1898. The experience of the past century has proved beyond * doubt that Belgium is as essentially Catholic as Ireland, and that only a regime which is avowedly Catholic can make an appeal to or successfully impress its authority on the Belgian people. Even its exchequer balances have varied for good or bad according to the Government. From 1871 to 1878, under a Catholic Government, there was a surplus in the Treasury at the end of the seven years of nearly £1,600,000. A deficit of nearly £240,000 was the result of the succeeding Government of the Liberal Party from 1879 to 1884. From 1885 to 1908 under the Catholic ministry there accrued to the coffers of the Treasury a surplus of nearly £8,000,000. Also, notwithstanding the increase of expenditure and many other causes which entailed extraordinary expenses within the past decade, the State grants old-age pensions, has lowered the tax on imports, and the one and only tax raised has been the tax on alcohol. An object lesson,' if you will, says de Witte, to France, her nearest neighbor, whose governmental policy in these latter days is built on the idea that clericalism is the canker in the nation.’ The Belgian school laws of various periods within the past generation were ever enacted, bearing this first principle in mind —namely, that ‘ the general character of the teaching must be Catholic, even as the country is Catholic.’ In the case of the so-called Free Schools there is (as in France and England, for example) no bias in the instruction given, and where instruction in moral conduct is given to the children it is on the distinct understanding, as laid down by the law, that ‘ children whose parents do not wish them to have such instruction shall be excused from attending the classes.’ It is not to be denied, says de Witte, that in tne ccmmercial colleges and schools there is much anti-clerical and anti-religious bigotry and hatred. But, he explains, the amount of damage done is almost exclusively effected among a class of people who would under any circumstances never have given their attention to the teachings of the Church nor followed its discipline or practices.