CRANBROOK’S FOLLY(?).

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 960, 5 August 1903, Page 3

CRANBROOK’S FOLLY (?).

(To the Editor Gisborne Times, j3 IR , Tho press appears to regard Lord Cranhrook’s recent utterance in the House of Commons as foolish and deserving of severe censure. It may perhaps have been an indiscretion on his part, but is it not one that does considerable honor to his heart, if little, perhaps, to his head 1 It is, of course, difficult for foreigners to make a really accurate estimate of affairs in France, but it does seem to those who value that sense of fair play which is claimed, if not always possessed, by Englishmen, that the Religious Associations Act is a harsh and Bomewhat mean measure. Some of us, I should imagine, would think it a 1 more honorable and straightforward course for the Radical party to separate Church and State rather than thus harass, penalise, and ejeot large numbers of men and women, venerated—even idolised—by the population of the provinces at least. Far more just was the attitude of the State to religion, instituted in 1794, when the Festival of the Supreme Being was held. 3?rom that time (vide Von Sybel’s History) until the rise to political power of Napoleon the Governmental policy was one of non-inter-ference with the Roman Catholie and other religious bodies, furnishing an example to all nations.—l am, etc., J. G. Cox.