BISHOP LISTON'S SPEECH.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1922, Page 7

BISHOP LISTON'S SPEECH.

(To the Editor.) •Sir, —Can you find room in your esteemed paper to insert a few remarks about the above speech, which no doubt all your readers have perused? lam an English Catholic, and have been farming in New Zealand for over forty years. I don’t approve of Bishop Liston's speech at all, and think it deplorable that we have come to such a pass out here that the Bishop thought it necessary to make it. But what can you expect? When I first landed in New Zealand I thought I had left al] bigotry at Home, and could live at peace with my neighbors for the rest of my life. But now, alas, everything has changed in the last few years, and bigotry and hatred of a virulent German type are being openly preached in some of the churches. Sir Joseph Ward, the most able financier we ever had, was hounded out of politics on account of his religion. If he had remained in power we would not be i/}, the mess we are in now. For two years the Rev. Howard Elliott has gone round the country, in the pay of the P.P.A., baiting the Catholics, whom he insultingly designates as “Rome,” whatever that may mean. He first of all gathered large congregations round him to hear him slander a dead nun. If he were a man he could have leit her to rest m which apparently she failed to find in this world. finds another nun who was dissatisfied with her life in the convent and left it. Well, what of it, and why make a song about it? No one wanted her to stop if she wanted to go. The reverend gentleman knows well how highly the Catholics honor their nuns, and. not one in a million of them ever give cause to do otherwise. The convent schools are filled with children of other denomiuations to their own, which speaks for itself. Up to now the Catholics have suffered his vile attacks in silence. But apparently that time has passed, and now we are going to be plagued to death with religious dissensions. His next gag will undoubtedly be “disloyalty.” I have only a few words to say on this subject, and will finish, for which I can hear you say “Thank God.” Who can say if a man is loyal or not out here? All my neighbors are of different nationalities and different religions, yet we all get on well together, and undoubtedly would put our backs together to resist a foreign foe, although we all think differently. I never heard anyone call Carson disloyal when he threatened the British Government with 100,000 rifles if Home Rule was passed. The Irishmen have got Home Rule now, and can fight among themselves to their hearts’ content. We need lose no sleep over that. Can we call them disloyal for their past actions? Lloyd George for one won’t. They can do what they like for him, and he will never interfere again. The Americans wouldn’t have him at the Limitation of Armaments Conference until he first put his Irish house in oraer. Now, Sir, may I ask you to appeal to your readers to stop this horrible sectarian dissension before it goes too far to be stopped? I feel sure no sensible man wants that sort of thing out here, and perhaps some more able pen than mine will take up the “divine theme” of “Peace and goodwill amongst men on earth.”—l am, etc., AN OLD COLONIAL.