VIOLENT SPEECH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2407, 21 March 1922, Page 2

VIOLENT SPEECH.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP. MAYORS EMPHATIC PROTEST. Auckland, March 19. In a speech at St. Patrick’s concert on Friday evening Bishop Liston, coadjutor Roman Catholic Bishop, said tJistins parents were driven from th® country in which they were born and in which they would have been content to live, because their foreign masters did not want Irish men and women peopling their own land, but wished to see it as a cattle ranch for tlfe snobs of the Empire. Bishop Liston said he was a native of New Zealand, and loved his country. They could not, say that Ireland had gol all she asked for, and all that her sons had died for, but she had got the first instalment of her freedom, and was determined to have the whole of it. (Applause.) The omnipotent hand of God, he continued, had made Ireland a nation, and while grass grew and water (lowed there would be many to fight and to die in order that God’s desire might be realised. It seemed to him proverbial that a,man who had faced difficulties and carried them so far was there to see that the rulers of Ireland were not duped by England. He referred to the men and ..women who “in the glorious Easter of 191 G were proud to die for their country, murdered by foreign troops.” They could not forget these men and women, but in order that their dream about Ireland might come true they could forgive. The Mayor of Auckland (Mr J. H. Gunson) publishes the following statement: —“The speech of Bishop Liston calls for immediate action on my part as Mayor. On behalf of our citizenship. I wrote to the Bishop on Saturday morning, asking him to advise me whether he had been correctly reported, though-my long experience of the Press in Auckland gives me no cause to doubt Ihe accuracy of the report. The epeech as reported is avowedly and openly disloyal to King and country, and is an affront to our citizenship. It is seditious, and designedly calculated to cause disintegration of all that the Britishers hold dear. It is a studied insult to the citizenship of the Empire to which New Zealand is proud to belong. Repudiation .of England, a sneering reference to her as “a foreign nation,” and the entire dissociation, with' disdain, of the speaker and those for whom he said lie spoke as “a right” from all that pertains to the Empire, challenges all loyal citizens to raise their voices in protest. “The reference to British soldiers as foreign murderers is especially off on sive and unwarrantable. I take this public opportunity of saying with all the emphasis possible that (lie citizens of Auckland will not tolerate for one minute such a studied and deliberate act of disloyalty and of insult to British ) manhood and womanhood.

“In making this intimation, I wish to say that such a seditious and ruinous speech will not be allowed in the Auckland Town Hall or in any place\ which the city administration controls licenses. The Bishop and others holding views such as those reported are not fit longer to enjoy the privileges and rights of our British Commonwealth and the protection of the British flag. “This speech will be brought under the notice of the Attorney-General, and it will be my duty to advise the City Council to take other appropriate action. In the meantime, on behalf of the citizens of Auckland, I enter an emphatic protest in the foregoing terms.” i

A CHRISTCHURCH RESOLUTION. Christchurch, Last Night. The Council of Christian Congregations discussed Bishop Liston’s speech, and Mr Gnnson’s reply thereto. As a result, the following resolution was passed: “This Council regrets exceedingly that Bishop Liston should have used the occasion of the Irish Treaty, which has been approved by the Parliament of Great Britain, hv the Irish National Assembly, and l>v the world at large, to express suspicion of the honesty of the intentions of the Mother Country, and discontent with the Treaty itself, and generally to malign the Empire. The Council is unable (o believe that any man is a good New Zealander who defames the Empire. The Council expresses its pleasure at the stern attitude of the Mayor of Auckland, and trusts that an end will he voluntarily put to this type of mischievous utterance.”