MR BARTON AND DR. MORAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 54, 9 May 1874, Page 10

MR BARTON AND DR. MORAN.

The following letter, with reply thereto, has been published in the , daily papers. We give them intact, and leave our readers to form their | own opinion of Mr Barton :—: — i Mr Bahton to the Electors. ! to the editoft of ttte ' otaoo gtta3jdian.' Silt, — I was not aware that the official declaration of the poll was to ' be made on Saturday last, and consequently did not attend on that . occasion. This might seem an unimportant matter on which to ask a portion of your space ; but I do so not bo much on my own account as that I hare something to say to the electors that may guide them in future political struggles. J am told, alike by my friends and oppo- ! ncnts, that I na« beaten rut her by Dr Moran than by Mr Wales und ' the party who supported him, and I have satisfied myself that the ' Catholic voters of this city recorded a block vote against me, their i numbers being, to the best of my information, close on 400. If this is j correct, then the Protestant voters (who do not vote at dictation, but according to their opr.iions)°wcre divided as follow :—: — j Barton ... ... „, 541 I Wales ... ... .., 229 Protestant majority ... 312 During the contest I -was told by many influential Catholics that the Catholic vote would be considerably divided, the larger number, as th"\v believed, being in my favour. The same identical gentleman, after my defeat, told me that the Catholic party had given a block vote against me, and would do so at e\ery election where I presented myfelf. Some of my suppoiters have informed rue that certain leading Catholics went about among the Protestant electors representing that I am mjsclf a Catholic, and my famih bigoted Catholics, while at the fame time it was represented to certain Catholic electors that I am a renegade Catholic, und had wantonly and grossly insulted the Catholic bedu I learn, tiKo, that whenever, in the course of their canvass, th(>y met a warm supporter of mine, they slated that my friends need )Kt c\crt thcnise]ve«— that I was quite' safe, as the gie'at bulk of the Tush Catholics had determined to support their countrjimm I must here. =top to say that I am a Piotcstant, and that none of II y name ever wcie Catholic. I am not only a Protestant, but lam tl c nephew of an Archdeacon and cousin of a'])ean of the Church of In glinid, and my iathcr was not only a Protestant but an Orangeman, therefore a grosser falsehood could scarcely have been uttered than 11. c assertion that I am cither a, Catholic or a renegade from that faith. The cause, or pretended cause, of this priestly hostility to me is as follows :—lt: — It will be within public recollectiou that shortly after Bishop Moian came here I c complained of certain paragraphs in our public school-books wlmh he thought were calculated to diminish, in the children of Catholic parents, the respect due to their own priesthood. It germed to me that if such were the case Bishop Moran would have

just cause of complaint, and I expressed this opinion to persons who conveyed it to Di Moran. The result was that he desired an interview with me, and at that interview he stated his grievance, and asked me in what way he could best obtain a fair hearing before the Provincifl! Council, of which I was then a member, informing me that all his congregations throughout the country warmly coincided with him. My advice was that a petition should be drawn up and sent to each of the congregations for signature, and that each of them should be presented to the Council by the members sitting for the respective districts. I heard no more of the matter for a long time. But one night in the Provincial Council I was told by a member that an evening or two before, during my absence from the Council, a great number of Catholic petitions had been presented, and that one which should have been presented by me had been duly presented by another membei On the evening -when these petitions were presented I was in the Magistrate's Court, in the inquiry in Reichelt's case, the Court sitting throughout the evening, as well as the day, for a number of days. Some time after my interview with Bishop Moran his partianns in the Conncil brought forward a motion affecting the subject of his alleged grievances, and proposing changes in our education system This motion went beyond what I felt I could conscientiously support and I accordingly did not support it, although I would have supported a motion for an inquiry, and for the removal of any causes of just corr plaint. Some time afterwards I was informed by Mr C. E. Haughton thai; Dr. Moran complained that I had insulted him by declining to present the Catholic petition he had forwarded to the Council Chamber. lat once called on him, to explain how it was that I had been unable to present the petition, and to assure him that it had been presenteu though not by me. I reminded him that he had given me ho notic* and, assured him that I never heard of the petition till after it had been presented. To my surprise he declined to accept my explanation, and rising from his chair he went over a list of names hanging on the wall, and pointing to one written a little way down, he sp ; c, "Mr Barton ! There is your name. We, Catholics, are not strong enough to put in a member of our own, but whenever you or any of the other gentlemen named on this paper come forward to contest any constituency, we will show you that we are strong otiough to keep him out ! " My non-presentation of the petition under the above circumstances is the ground put forward by Catholics (since the election) ft - their opposition to me ; but my own belief is that the real ground i~ my well-known views on secular education, aiad my desire to uphold our liberties, whether assailed by priest or. layman. Before this election came on I was aware from what I had seen iri the Tablet, that the Bishop's hostility to me still remained ; nevetheless, I refrained, during the contest, from any allusion to the sal jeet, from a feeling of reluctance to raising the No-Popery cry. I have been watching the struggle now going on in European countries, and I gather that the real object of the Ultramontanists is to keep their own flock unthinking, and uneducated, and to do what they can to retard the education of others in all respects in which education would fit them to guard the liberties they possess, or increase those liberties with wisdom and moderation. We, Protestants, know that no free country that ceases to struggle for this class of education will long retain its liberties, however democratic its institutions may appep" to be. To use the word of an eminent French writer, " TJltramontauff Catholicism — and since the promulgation of the decree of Infallibility I there is no other — is beat on making itself master, in order to cut up b) the very roots the liberties which the Cliurch condemns." i The danger our constituencies are in from that party is greatly increased by the darkness of their workings aud the crookedness of I their paths. Protestants will yet have a severe struggle to mainta ; n ; the right, won through so much blood and persecution, to have educai tiou without bigotry. But they must fight. Happily, in these eouu1 tries as yet, the JRoman priesthood cau only rule the ejections through the apathy of Protestants. Once we awake to the fact that tin j Catholics vote in a block against any candidate who will not furthei I their schemes, and thus that a pressure can be brought to bear sufficient to force every Ministry to yield more or less to their demands; then the spirit of the country will be aroused, and the bare suspicion of j Catholic support will defeat any candidate, and overthrow any I Ministry. I observe that Mr St afford has lost an election in Caute- • bury province, and some of the newspapers accouut for the defeat of so eminent a man by stating that the Catholic support received by Hin ulieuated the Protestant electors- If this be so, Canterbury is awaking. The l>unedin election was the converse of Mr Stafford's case. Here the Catholics, by concealing their true alliance, and pretending a connection with vie, put in my opponent. ! I take this opportunity of thanking the electors who voted for m. I and I hope the contest, however barren in the results to me, may not 1 be without its uses to them. I believe that every eligible Catholic in j Otago is on Uie electoral re.l. I hope the Protestants will at once 1 follow their example. Shall those who are working to undermine i hboity, be the only persons who carefully secure the right of voting ?-• 1 I am, &.c, 1 Geoege Elliott Baetou.