A Catholic elector wrote a sensible letter to Saturday's Times
to defend his party for their adhesion to the Conservatives and to maintain that the true Catholics would all, sooner or later, throw their influence on to that side. It is not, he says, the Italian question which alienates them from the Liberals, it is the Liberal policy on such subjects as the Divorce Act and the common or secular school system as distinguished from the religious education system. It is their hostility to the Liberal views on such subjects, he says, which are coming up for discussion all over Europe, which is all over Europe throwing the Catholic influence on to the Conserva- tive side. Only the other day, he points out, two distinct tele- grams were received from Belgium, "the Catholic party have triumphed," and "the Conservative party have triumphed in Bel- gium," both meaning the same thing—the defeat of an attempt to secularize education and marriage laws. We do not think any attempt will be made in England, or has ever been made in Ireland, to " secularize " education, though a common education for children of different faiths on secular subjects has been tried in Ireland. But we agree with the Catholic that common principles will, except in rare cases, naturally ally the Catholics rather with the Conservative than the Liberal. The Liberal wins the Catholics all their privileges, their electoral rights, and even now their rights to have Catholic chaplains in the gaols, and then, quite naturally, loses their support. The true Catholic can be made into a good Liberal only by persecution, and he who frees him from persecution restores him to his natural Conservatism.
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