11 OCTOBER 1873, Page 2

The effects of the new German persecution laws on the

Roman Catholic Church in Posen seem likely to be very disastrous. The.• Prince-Archbishop of Posen (Monseigneur Ledochowski) has been repeatedly fined for appointing priests without the assent of the Government, and it is now stated that his salary from the State has been withdrawn, and that the fines will go on accumulating till all his private means are exhausted, and he is compelled. to go to prison. That a State should withdraw a State salary when it believes any minister of religion to be striking at the roots of the authority of the State is only fair, and we have always said that if the German Govern- ment had limited itself to withdrawing all aid from Catholics who would not submit to its rules, and in other respects had dealt with them by the ordinary laws of treason and conspiracy, where there was any evidence of treason or conspiracy, there would be nothing to complain of. But we can hardly believe our eyes, when we read in the English papers such letters as that of the Times' correspondent's at Berlin published last Thursday, is which the proceedings of the Government, which, as it is admitted, are likely enough to end in depriving the Catholics of Posen of all those religious observances and consolations—to them, we suppose, involving more than life, eternal salvation itself,—are spoken of with sympathy and approbation. What would be- thought if we attempted the same sort of work in Ireland ?—and with the same laws as the German, we should certainly have the same sort of work in no time. Or would it really be a popular measure in 1873 to do all in our power to deprive the Irish of the consolations of that faith, which we restored to political equality with our own in 1869 ?