A FALSE PARALLEL

New Zealand Tablet, 9 January 1913, Page 49

A FALSE PARALLEL

ULSTER AND PRESBYTERIAN SCOTLAND At present a remarkable and well-organised effort (says the Aberdeen People’s Journal of October 5) is being made to enlist the sympathies of Presbyterian Scotland with the wild campaign of religious bitterness which for some time has been sweeping over the NorthEast of Ireland,. The spirit of a common ancestor is evoked; we are reminded that we are of the same faith, and a strong appeal is made to us on the ground of sentiment to lend the Ulster Unionists our aid in what they assure us is the crisis of their fate. The special pleaders for the Orangeman have, in order to make the picture as attractive as possible to Scottish eyes, taken of late to representing the Ulster Protestants as first cousins of the old Scottish Covenanters who could not be driven from their faith either by the sabres of Claverhouse or the thumbscrews of Lauderdale. A False Parallel, Now it is, of course, perfectly true’that our Scottish Covenanting forefathers were Presbyterians, and that they are Presbyterians in the North of Ireland, but there, we are afraid, the similarity ends. At least, any attempts to draw a political parallel between the two can only result in failure. In Scotland an effort was made to maintain an Episcopalian Establishment in a Presbyterian nation. It met with resistance, and was wisely abandoned with the most beneficial results. In Ireland the effort to force an alien Church on the people was continued for centuries, and, as a consequence, the country proved a source of palpable weakness, rather than of strength, to the Empire. The part that was played in the ‘killing time’ by Scottish Covenanters was enacted in Ireland by harried Roman Catholic priests and peasants, who clung to their faith despite all the penal laws and cruel persecutions by which it was sought to force them from it. In short, what was attempted in Scotland against Presbyterianism was attempted in Ireland against Roman Catholicism, and when analogies are drawn that essential and dominant fact must be kept in mind. The Demon of Discord. What is really meant by those appeals which we have heard of late from the North of Ireland—in some cases there is no effort at disguise—is to awaken the slumbering demon of religious discord, to raise once more the cry of 1 no Popery ’ in the hope that reasoned conviction may be thwarted by prejudice and passion. What we wonder would the Orangemen have us do with the Roman Catholics who form now such a large part of the population of the Empire. They proclaim that Catholicism is a danger both spiritually and temporally ; and apparently, if they had their way, they would set about trying to extirpate it in the good old way._ But every page of history tells us it is absolute political madness to try to force religion down a people’s throats; it only inflames the feelings it is hoped to subdue. Nothing, indeed, is better calculated to arouse opposition to a religion or a Church than the employment of coercion or intimidation of any kind by its protagonists. That the Roman Catholic Church is strong in Ireland to-day is due perhaps more than anything else to the deplorable efforts that were made during centuries to destroy it by penal statutes and by political and social ostracism. Does the Orangeman want us to tread again that disgraceful path ? It not, the anti-Papal diatribes which he is pouring forth daily are only furious words signifying nothing. Unionist Attitude. The attitude of the Unionist Party in this country towards all this stirring of religious passions is characteristic. The leaders will not associate themselves prominently with it, but they are not ashamed to accept whatever electoral advantage may be gained from it. No doubt they have a very awkward - position to maintain. In their heart of hearts, no doubt, many of them would like to join in the ‘no-Popery’ hue and cry, but then they must not forget the Duke of Norfolk and the English Catholics. Offence must not be given to these gentlemen, else votes- would be lost. So the Duke and other leading Catholic Unionists are invited to take their places on the platform at anti-Home Rule

demonstrations, and in their presence great care is taken that nothing is said to hurt their feelings. The ‘no-Popery ’ bogey is hidden away, and oratorical effort is concentrated on blood-curdling stories of agrarian crimes which .‘every man, whatever - be his religion, must regard with the utmost abhorrence.’ Ultra-Protestant Properties. But whenever the Duke of Norfolk and his English co-religionists are out of earshot out come the ultraProtestant properties, and we have a regular saturnalia of anti-Popery. There was hardly a speech in the recent campaign of incitement in Ulster which did not breathe the noxious spirit of sectarian prejudice, and which had not for its object the provoking of passions which it has always been the aim of statesmanship to allay. And the same sort of propaganda, with. Unionist approval, is being carried on in those parts of England and Scotland where it is judged to be profitable. Occasionally an awkward blunder is made. For instance, some time ago a bundle of ‘ Home Rule means Rome Rule ’ pamphlets were sent to a Catholic laird to distribute among his tenants. But, as a rule, cunning care is exercised, and the party are able to land fish from both sides of the electoral stream. How long they will succeed in playing the double part is difficult to say. The wiser; *mong them would like to shake off the Orange bigot, for they see clearly the disastrous effect of the present policy on Imperial unity in the colonies, but they have been gripped by a veritable old man of the sea, whose hold is not to be loosened at will. It is a deplorable but an instructive spectacle.