CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 March 1922, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

PREACHING DISLOYALTY AND BITTERNESS.

To the Editor. Sir—The outburst of Bishop Liston at Auckland, a portion of whose speech was reported in this morning’s issue of the News, is more than, enough to set all rightminded and loyal citizens of our glorious Empire thinking seriously. Speeches of this kind are getting far too common. Here we have a man preaching racial hatred of the worst kind; stirring up the racial and religious feelings of the people. Where is it going to end ? Is our beloved New Zealand to be turned into another Ireland? If so, Bishop Liston is doing his “damnedest” to make it so. The Government prohibits immigrants of an undesirable type from landing in this country, and the time has come when Irish priests should also be classed as undesirable immigrants and prohibited from landing in this country. There are English priests ’to be had without importing Sinn Fein priests from Ireland to stir up strife and bad feeling. We don’t want them to poison the minds of otherwise loyal citizens. As a returned soldier —one who was through Gallipoli and France—l strongly object to be classed as a murderer. No troops, Allied or foreign, in the late war showed such self-restraint or less hatred towards their enemies as the British troops, whether from England, Scotland or the colonies. Well do I remember with what disgust the Dublin rebellion of 1916 was received by our troops in France. While we were going through hell —yes, and we will go through hell again to protect our freedom —there were these rebels in Ireland stabbing us in the baclc. Surely they easily out-Hunned the Hun, the diabolical murderers. It is tragic that there can be found religious leaders to applaud those murderous deeds; yet we have Bishop Liston, Archbishop Redwood, Dean Van Dyke and others, not only defending the perpetrators, but holding them up as heroes. And what a glorious victory for the Sinn Feiners when they murdered fourteen English and Scottish officers, in their beds, defenceless, and in the presence of their wives! Yes, Bishop Liston has something to be proud of in deeds which we associate with Egyptians, Turks, Bedouins and other partially-civilised, nonChristian races. Loyal citizens are not going to take these treasonable speeches lying down, and now is the time to nip in the bud this conspiracy of disloyalty. It is up to every loyal citizen who values his freedom to make himself heard; to stand up for his King and country. Never in the world’s history were peace and charity and sane leadership more necessary; but evidently the policy of Bishop Liston and his confreres (their speeches bear witness to it) is to keep alive the spirit of hatred and unrest.—l am, etc., “RETURNED SOLDIER”. Eltham, March 20.