COLONIAL LOYALTY AND THE VATICAN. T HERE are times in which
one shrewdly suspects that, with all their increased knowledge of this planet and • their mechanical facilities for travel, modern Englishmen are not much less insular than those who owned the late George III. as their monarch. Even the superior Radical politician, the man who loves to point the finger of scorn at the whilom representatives of an unreformed Parlia- ment, displays at times startling proofs that, in practical familiarity with the Empire he is supposed to control, he is as wanting as the ignorant squires and placemen whose too faithful votes kept Lord North in power, and cost Great Britain her American •plantations. It is true that scores of Englishmen yearly visit the great Colonies and Dependencies of the Eastern and Western hemisphere ; yet such travellers too rarely take the time and trouble to examine beneath the surface. Trade, and the pursuit of pleasure, are the main causes of modern travel, and their im- pulses naturally affect but a relatively limited circle. The bulk of Englishmen and Englishwomen, constantly as they are reminded in a thousand ways of realms beyond the sea, live and die in unimaginative ignorance of the real condi- tions of life elsewhere. If their fancy plays around the sub- ject at all, they conceive of Colonial societies as being, what, indeed, they superficially are, a more or less accurate copy of their own,—a reproduction of Church and State, Whig and Tory, town and country, in somewhat different scenery, and with a more pronounced flavour of democracy. So little do average Englishmen grasp the entire novelty which is involved in the residence in lands many thousand miles distant, that a large number of perfectly sane and businesslike persons notoriously fail to perceive the unfit- ness of English representative institutions for the purposes of Asiatic rule, while a yet larger number have their private doubts about the stability of the great American and Australasian Colonies, which lack Quarter-Sessions, a hereditary peerage, and other safeguards of mankind and civilisation. If Mr. Bradlaugh and Lord Ripon yearn for the day when the Hindoo shall have his County Council and his Parliament, duly returned by a caucus of wire- pullers, other Englishmen may be found who can hardly believe in justice which is not administered by Judges in scarlet and ermine, in communities which have no paupers, or in politics which are neither buff nor blue. Both sects have their following, and agree in one common article of faith, for both fervently believe that what is good statecraft in England is good statecraft all the world over. Mr. Gladstone's recent attack on the mission of Sir Lintorn Simmons to the Vatican is an instance in point of this perennial insularity. It matters little that Mr. Glad- stone had himself begun that adjustment of the domestic affairs of Malta, with the aid of Leo XTTT., which Lord Salisbury has sought to perfect. The interesting fact is, that such a past-master of electioneering tactics, in his anxiety to be avenged on the Pope for his denunciation of boycotting, and to make any further political capital he could, has thought it worth while to raise the old " No- Popery " cry. No doubt the temptation to win the Pro- testant vote, and to recall the Irish Presbyterians and the English Dissenters from the Unionist Party, is a pressing one ; yet the attempt to render all diplomatic negotiations with the Vatican impossible discloses an ignorance or forgetfulness of the existing facts of our Colonial Empire which is simply amazing in so experienced a statesman.
For, if the truth be told, the influence of the Church of Rome in the near future is likely to be an affair of serious and growing importance to our Home Government, although it is an influence which in England is very little understood. Here, and on the European Continent, Rome is still regarded, and not incorrectly, as a reactionary force. The French Republic of to-day doubts only whether the Church will declare for the Empire or Legitimacy ; in the " Neri," the Italians see impersonated the restless foes of their unity ; the disputes of the Kulturkampf are scarcely laid to rest in Germany ; while in England, the vulgar prejudice against the Vatican rests on a con- fused jumble of old-world reminiscences and suspicions. Throughout the Continent, the Papacy is feared as a living force and as the buttress of tottering causes ; in England it is disliked for the past, for its share of the Marian and Stuart persecutions, for its secret propaganda, for its sup- posed inimical claims of sovereignty. Only within our own memory have the churches and convents of the Roman communion in England been built in conspicuous places, or its social stigma greatly qualified, if not entirely removed.
But in Australia, or New Zealand, or North America, the status and role of the Roman Church are wholly different. Numerically weak, she has determined from the first on a bold and striking programme. Possessed of apparently un- limited wealth, and with an unrivalled organisation, Rome has decided and begun to conquer new worlds, and to appear as the friend of incipient nationalities. In immature States, the urgent needs of life conflict with the cravings of the spirit. Emigrants and their children are, by force of circumstance, more concerned in the struggle for existence than in religious exercises ; and the visitor to Australia or New Zealand is soon aware, and is frequently informed, that the populace is not a church-going one. Among those who have won wealth, the excitements and business of life are more absorbing than religion or politics. The jeunesse dorh of Melbourne or Sydiiey turn naturally to racing, or gambling, or business, or the imitation of London society. There exists, however, a pride of country and national aspirations which sometimes exhibit them- selves in-sentimental pride over the English Empire, but more frequently in vaunting comparisons of the new and the old country. In Australia, beyond a doubt, the popular intention sets strongly in the direction of a democratic Federalism which would be entirely independent of England ; while in Canada the question of union with the United States depends in a great measure on fiscal and religious questions, and very little on sentimental Im- perialism. At any moment, should the mot d'ordre arrive from Rome, the Jesuits of Quebec and Lower Canada can initiate a revolution, which may involve the loss of our Canadian Dominion from Halifax to Vancouver. The possibility is no fanciful one, since the capitalists of Oregon and California, not content with their own vast territories and their almost miraculous enterprises in the new regions of the State of Washington, cast hungry eyes on the noble rivers and harbours of British Columbia, and the vast and fertile corn-lands of the Saskatchewan or Assinaboia. If the suspected mineral wealth of British Columbia proves a reality, the tempta- tion to force an annexation will grow acute. In the hour of crisis, it will be for the Vatican to consider whether its future interests will be best advanced by the absorption of the British Provinces in the neighbouring Republic, or by the maintenance of the status quo. In view of the immense strides of Roman Catholicism in the United States toward pre-eminence, it is very possible the decision may be an adverse one ; but in any event, the fate of the English Empire in North America will be largely con- trolled from Rome.
Of these circumstances in her favour Rome is well aware, and she acts upon them. If the Colonist of to-day is careless of creeds, the everlasting Church is content to wait, and in the meantime carefully prepares the ground. In the fluent and superficial civilisation of our Colonies, show and display are deemed to be the signs of energy and success, and prove the most successful bait for the young democracy. In Sydney, or Melbourne, or Wellington, and in the humbler cities and towns of the interior, the most striking sites and the most stately edifices mark the ambi- tions and resources of Rome. Her perfect almost military organisation conceals and dignifies the comparatively scanty numbers of her followers, and she claims for herself the future with no want of confidence. Audacity, not untinged with swagger and self-assertion, are qualities which lead to success across the seas, a truth the Roman clergy in no ways despise. To-day display, to-morrow conversion, is their idea, and it promises to be a fruitful one. Nor do they neglect any field of promise ; already the task of pro- viding secondary education in New Zealand has become identified with the Marist Brothers, whose discipline and skilful training leave them masters of the field. The Protestant Nonconformist bodies, weak in their insane divisions, can offer little effectual opposition, save in par- ticular localities,—such, for instance, as Dunedin or Melbourne, where Presbyterianism commands the local wealth.
The Church of England alone can come into serious competition with that of Rome, and her characteristic sobriety and the vast demands on her resources combine with some serious latent causes to hamper her in bidding against her great rival for the future favour of the demo- cracies into which she has been transplanted. While the Anglican Church throughout the world is one of the great ties which bind together the vast mass of our Colonies, since her political instincts are imperial rather than local, English rather than Colonial, Rome, on the contrary, plays for her own hand, and if she sees it best to flatter in that way the new democracies, and so identify herself with them, she will advocate both secretly and openly the Separatist cause. It is not difficult even now to see and measure the leanings and policy of her hierarchy. Of the Australasian clergy, two Archbishops and at least six Bishops are Irishmen, and it is well known that the appointment of the present Metropolitan of New Zealand was strongly resisted, on the ground that he was an Englishman and opposed to the Irish Separatists. Of the Marist Brothers, many, if not a majority, are Home-rulers, and support the cause of Mr. Parnell.
To an impartial eye, the eventual severance of the Aus- tralasian Colonies from England is only a matter of years ; but the terms of that severance may be largely influenced by the wisdom or folly of the Home country. That the ' Roman Church will have an active hand in the matter, is ' certainly probable, and unless the central authority of ' the Vatican controls and restrains their actions and • policy, it may be guessed that the weight of the Aus- tralasian or Canadian hierarchy may be thrown into the • scale against the Mother-country. Hence the fatuity of those Englishmen who strive to arouse popular feeling against diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican. The great rampart of the Established Church keeps English- men at home, Nonconformists as well as Churchmen, from an actual knowledge of the power of Rome as it is felt elsewhere, and lets them lose sight of the real facts of the time in a mist of anachronistic prejudices and conceits. Grant that the pretensions and empire of Rome are still objects for suspicion and alarm ; and still the danger will be enhanced and made inevitable by a blind disregard of the true position. Insular England can defy, but Imperial England can no long& ignore, the Vatican. Already, in the case of Ireland, an appeal from the action of the inferior clergy has had to be laid before Leo XIII." himself. The day is dawning on which momentous decisions must be taken by the Mother-country in respect • of her children beyond the ocean. Will the Vatican then be for the old country or the new ones ? Will Leo XIII.
and his successors be content to succour Downing Street, or aim at playing once more the role of the Middle Ages and of Innocent III., and to appear as the champion of the infant States ? In either case, she will put forward the claim, Do ut des ; and it is for our more provident politicians to consider before it is too late whether we can wisely continue to diplomatically overlook the Court of the. Vatican. The balance trembles in the scale, and no rules of prudence encourage Englishmen to lessen one chance, of minimising Separatist influences.
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