AUCKLAND POSTAL INQUIRY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 11, 8 October 1917, Page 6

AUCKLAND POSTAL INQUIRY

Sir,—With extreme distaste I ente! upon this controversy, but the Rev. J. J. North's letter compels reply.' I vish. to say that in nothing that follows do 1 question the bona fides of Mr. North* I believe him to have been misinformed aud misled on salient facts, heuco his defence of Mr. Elliott and his condemnation of my action. I shall try to undeceive Mr. North and others. Tha question I wish to discuss is not my attitude towards the conscription of tha Marist Brothers; whether that attitude is due to honest conviction or trie facte that I am a "weak-kneed Protestant" can be dealt with at' the next election day. i ■ •

ivo; the important question-is, ther the Rev. Howard' Ulliott has in tha conduct of his campaign adopted. tactics that should not .receive the couth tenance aud support of the ministers and members of the freo churches,, but that call for their emphatic disavowal. Mr. North says he has not. I say ha has,_ aud propose now to prove- my asi sertion. iiy case depends upon certain letters that Mr. Elliott posted over ficti-tious-names to the Protestant Vigilanca Committee to test the censorship. Mr. North says .that these were real lettera written probably by ignorant people to the Vigilance Committee, which Mr* Elliott, by the direction of his lawyer, had copied and posted to the committee. I say that they were nothing of the kind; that Mr. Elliott's own evidence states "that he framed them from certain reports that weija received from various sources"; tliat he debited them; that, in reply to a ijuestion, ha admitted that they were practically prepared by him; and that Mr. Worth's suggestion that they were "probably written by ignorant people," and tha consequent inference that they T,-era therefore likely to be untrue, is a direct! contradiction of all that Mr. Elliott has stated about these letters. To use liia exact words, they are not inventions "because one could not invent facts." Again, "they contain a substratum oE truthwhich, if occasion arose, could be proved."

But my next point is a far more sen* ous one, so 'serious that I hope thai when Mr. North reads and vermes my statement he will withdraw his letter* All Mr.'North's justification of Mr. Elliott is based upon his belief that Mr a Elliott did not intend these letters to reach the public oye. They were simply to be passed through the Post Cffica and received by the committee; and ha condemns severely the Magistrate who "wantonly. blazed abroad letters thai! had never enjoyed the least publicity.'" Sir, Mr. -th will be o^toni ol,t< l ( /y learn tha. 7W. Ostler commenced to, read thesi, ' ?:ters in open coi'r' Cj ali( ]i it was onl« -ji Mr. Gray's protest and: tho Magis > e's interferon to that bo bowed to .0 Magistrate's decision* What will still more astonish and, I trust, disgust Mr. North will be to learn' that Mr. Elliott Tead some of these letters to a large audience in Auckland, and that when he was asked by the solicitor for the Crown, "Would if! not have been sufficient to say, "Certain! . letters of a very delioate nature havo been suppressed in the Post Office/" ha said, "No; it would not." Mr. Grayt "Then you do not feel any shams in having made these remarks in public in a community which - consists to a t large extent of people of different religions, including Koman Catholics?" Mr. Elliott; "Not at all." Now what are the nature of these let ters that Mr. Elliott made publiof They, ■are of such a nature that iny referi ence to them must be couohed in general terms. The letters—l will allude to as Letter One and Letter Two—both contain ■.the most terrible charges that a man can level at a pure woman, and when Mr. Elliott gave publicity to these letters both the womeit whose purity is attacked were dead. In the case of Letter One Mr. Elliott had only to inquire of the police authorities whether tie charges made by an anonymous writer to the police had been proved or' disproved to learn that there was not an atom of truth in them. He apparently made no sucli inquiry, but launches this terrible scan* dal on a dead woman. Letter Two.is even more cruel, in that few would know who was referred to in Letter One, but the publicity given by Mr. Elliott to the second. fetter caused the most intense grief and annoyance to the relatives of the woman who it insinuated died in' shame. I am authorised in this case by a prominent Wellington barrister to state that he was consulted as to an action for slander, but was compelled to adviso that legally 1 a dead woman cannot be slandered. There was another letter that Mr. Elliott did not read, but that was annexed to the Magistrate's report. It .or such a nature as to reflect most shockinaiy upon the. whole Auckland priesthood, and one would think that its v(-ry impossibility would invite derision. These letters' are false, but suppose any one of them were true? Suppose Mr. Elliott discovered a-case of a Catholic priest or nun falling into sin, would that,justify his giving it publicity.? Is it with such weapons that the churches are to fight out their doctrinal differences ? If so, God save us from Christian polemics. ■ What should I think it iny Catholio priest, attacking as he has every right to do the doctrines of my Church that he (Teems erroneous, raked up some scandal about some Methodist minister who had fallen? I should say that that was a dastardly method in which .to attack er--ror of thought. I should say i&at aslcng as human nature is what it is, whatever care is exercised, there will be such lapses in every Church, and that it i 3 the duty of every Christian man, whatever his creed, to deplore.' not to advertise them. When I made my protest in tho House I- did so with the sincere desire of freeing the Churches I lovd from all complicity with such methods, and I still hopejhat when the ministers who have blamed me learn the full facts they will justify my condemnation, strong as it was.—l am, etc., LEONAKD M. ISITT. House of Representatives, ' Wellington, October 2. ,