DR MORAN’S REPLY TO MR BARTON.

Evening Star, Issue 3493, 4 May 1874, Page 3

DR MORAN’S REPLY TO MR BARTON.

- To the Editor. r v? R ’ —will much oblige me by publishing a few words of explanation from me reference to a letter from Mr George Elliott Barton which appears in your issue of Saturday. As to the number of Catholic voters in this city, which I am surprised to hear is so large, and the part taken by Catholics in the late election, I have nothing to say, inasmuch as I am completely ignorant on these points. In the second place, I took no part whatever in the election. I did not canvass, I did not ask any man t® vote for either candidates. 1 did not harangue a publid meetmg, 1 did not record my own vote. > Yet Mr George Elliott Barton bolds me responsible for his defeat,: and, what is more,'.endeavours to raise a “ NoPopery” cry and excite public indignation!against me. Mr Barton gives an account of some inter views I had the honor of holding with him, and of some conversations that took plaice at these interviews. . I have no wish to impugn Mr Barton’s veracity, but I am bound to say that his memory has failed him in reference to these, .'i he allowing is my account of them -b asked Mr Barton to present the petition of the, Dunedin Catholics to the Provincial Council. He did not poritively refuse, but he made very great difficulties about doing so, and suggested to me the propriety of asking .the member for the Lakes District.to present this petition. - I replied ; That hon. member is not our representative, he represents a mixed constituency, just as you do ; and as you: are one of the members for Dunedin, the Catholics of Dunedin have a claim oh you. Ultimately, Mr Barton cbh ‘ sented to present the petition. The folloX ing day, 1 think,. 1 sent down the petition, together with a note to Mr Barton, and both were left on. his desk, in the Council Hall During the three following, days, Catholic petitions were presented from various places m the Province, bqt neither Mr Barton nor any one on his behalf presented the petition of the Dunedin Catholics. On finding such to be the case, I sent a gentlemen to look after the matter, and ask.some other member to present our petition., On making inquiry, this gentlemen ascertained that both the petition and my letter had beienkicked about the Council Hall for three days'; and he also ascertained,that so great was the disinclination to do us the poor courtesy of even permitting us to petition the: .Council for re-' dress of a greiyance,' that' another representative of I 'hnedih,' when'- asked 1 - to present this petition, indignantly refused todosd Someitime after this, the! member, Lakes District alluded to above resigned his. seat-in ;the : Honse of Representatives;; and Mr Barton, who was a candidate for the vacant seat, came to my house and atked me to give him my interest iin.the district, arid nse my influence with the Catholic electors there in his favor.’ I replied thaq I would not interfere in politics. Mr.Barton pressed/ his suit, adding that if I wouid exert my influence for. him, be was .pretty certain of being returned, as hehadmany friends! there vyhe would support him. I replied a secondtime that I would not *interefere in- politics.*! But Mr Barton was not to be put off so,easily. He continued to press me to interfere on hiai behalf; and at last, in order: to get rid of the. importunity, I said, Well Mr Barton, as you press me to interfere, I certainly shall do so: i you stand ; and in that case I shall ask: such as I have influence with to vote against yon' ■ disobliged us in referei ce to our petition.' Mr Barton then pleaded the Reichelt case as bis excuse.. But, I rejoined, you were in the house during these , three days, and, , if you!: wished, you might have complied with the* request of your constituents, or, at all events, you. could have asked some other member to have presented the petition ok your behalf. Then Mr Barton Said, do.jlou want me to spoil myself? if I goih for yon, the others will go against me. I answered, Ido not ask you to .become our advocate, but we have a'blaim bn yon and bn'every marifbr justice. Mr Barton answered, but lam your friend ;T have fnends. and you are not able to put’ into Patiiainent one of your own; ’My answep vrasi emphatip. Wpll, Mr Bartori; : if you are our’friend, you have a comical way of shpwjng friendsh p, and though we are not strong enough to put in one of our own, we are strong enough to keep you out. And I meant what I said Mr Barton then said, Well thhn, 1 won’t stand. After which he went away. I wish'you; sir, and the public to make no jniajjake as to" Mr Bartons conduct. He asked me a couple of years ago to use my inflaencp with the Catholic electors of the Lakes District, to induce them to vote for him. and in his letter published’in your issue of to-day, he manifestly endeavours to hold me up to his Protestant fellow colonists as a man’who is endeavoring to do all sorts of political evil, because he wishes, without any grounds other than those stated, to attribute his recent defeat to me.' Certainly, the man who asked me to return him for the Lakes District is the last man in the world who: should find fault with me for helping to defeat him thb other day, r even if I had done any overt act to that effect. ! * Mp. Barton’s letter will have 1 one good pflept. It vyill open the eyes of the few Catholics whqm he qp t 0 the present succeeded in deceiving; arid I hope that my Protestant fellow cdlohista will not permit themselves to be made tools of by the quart* dam blatant Liberal, -now turned Orangeman. The most besotted, bigotoould-not have given expression to a greater spirit of hostility to his Catholic, fellow-subjects, and a more lamentable ignorance of facts in reference to the designs of the Catholic Church than Mr Barton has displayed in his letter of to-day. Mr Barton is angry at the idea of the Catholics voting in a body in order to enforce their principles. - Wbat: crime is there in their doing so ? ; All electors of all denotnir nations do this, and were they to do anythi- g else, what should ,be said of them ? People ought to vote according to their consciences. But Mr ‘Barton seems to think that Catholics should vote for their enemies, and that, consequently, it was a crime in them not to vote for himself. My idea, however, is that had they supported him in the late election, they would have proved themselves slaves, and given strong reasons for concluding that they are deserving of being slaves.—l am, &c., + P. Mohan.