PERSECUTION AND PROSECUTION.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR-1
SIR,—I should not presume to utter a word in a controversy between such eminent persons as yourself and Dr. Liddon,
had I not suffered with reference to this very question recently
in the Spectator. In your issue of October 2nd, you pilloried a letter of mine with the title "Persecution in
France," and subsequently refused to allow one to defend myself from the animadversions of another correspondent. However, my little wrong has been amply revenged. This imprisonment of Mr. Dale comes like a Nemesis on English Liberal journalism, and will, it is to be hoped, help to make it more just towards the position of their own friends in France.
For it is singular how much the legal aspects of this into prisonment and the suppression of the Unauthorised Orders have in common. Both the suffering parties have ignored the law ; both have a certain vantage-ground in the toler- ance of its administrators, and in the fact that they represent important sections of their countrymen. But the difference in the issues involved is immense.
It is clear, however, that such questions can never be settled on merely legal grounds. The true Coart of appeal must ever be to the enlightened conscience of intelligent humanity. To this bar ought to be brought the question of the use or abuse of the two words,—" persecution " and " prosecution."
"Persecution," in the full, historical sense of the word, the sense we all attach to it, means an attempt by pains and penalties to make men obey the religion of the State. "Pro- secution," on the other hand, is an attempt to make men obey the law. In this light, Mr. Dale's imprisonment is not only prosecution, but persecution, while the suppression of the Authorised Orders is simply prosecution. For the former act is distinctly the necessary result of an effort to make a man obey the religion of the State. England, in her effort to maintain a national religion, and yet bring herself into harmony with modern ideas on religious liberty, has surrendered everything except her control over the ministers of her religion. This she must maintain, or give up the principle of a national religion altogether. But to do so involves pains and penalties against the disobedient. And then, however indefensible their conduct, if it arises from religions scruples, the attempt to compel their obedience is at once, to all intents and purposes, persecution in the historic sense,--i.e., forcing men, by pains and penalties, to obey the religion of the State. France, on the other hand, has, for nearly a century past, virtually given up the principle of a national religion; for, good or evil, she is a State without any religious principle whatever. From motives of policy, she entered into agreements to recognise and support three religions, which in their turn promised strict obedience to the law. which is the only authority common to all Frenchmen, Not having, then, any religion of its own to maintain, the State in France, unless worked by some occult religious party —which, of course, is possible—cannot persecute, in the old, historic sense of the word. Its business is simply to maintain the law. It may do this in a harsh and cruel manner,—it may even make iniquitous laws, and carry them out tyrannically ; but I contend that it is a misnomer to call the acts of such a State persecution. It confuses people's ideas, and seems to me playing into the hands of those who defend religious persecu- tion on principle.—I am, Sir, &c., RICHARD HEATH.
[Mr. Heath's definition is convenient for his purpose. If to enforce laws which disallow certain religious, or presumably religious, acts, after those laws have become obsolete, and have become obsolete because they were recognised as interfering grossly with the private conscience, be not persecution, we do not know what the word means. If we could find an un- repealed statute against witchcraft, and were to enforce it, would that be not "persecution," but merely "prosecution ? " We do not try or wish to enforce Mr. Dale's obedience to the religion of the State. What is attempted, is to make the Ministers of the Established Church either fulfil the conditions on which they belong to the Established Church, or join a Voluntary Church ; whereas France now forbids and punishes all voluntary religious organisations disapproved by the authors of an obsolete law.—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
