Dr. Moran's Reply.

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

Dr. Moran's Reply.

to the editor op the 'otago guattdun.'

Silt, — You will much oblige me by publishing a few words of ex pi? r 1,1 . tioii from me in reference to 0, letter from Mr George lilliotL Bmrou which appears in your issue of this morning. As to the number of Catholic voters in this city, which I am siprised to hear is so large, and the part taken by them iv the lvi - election, I have nothing to say, inasmuch is i am completely ignount on these points. In the second place, I took no part w^^ever in the election, did net canvass ; 1 did not ask auy man lor his vote for either of th candidates; I did not harangue a public mooting; I did not rccor my own vote : yet Mr George Elliott liar ou holds me responsible fo

his defeat, and, what is more, endeavours to raise a No-Popery cry, and excite public indignation against me. Mr Barton gives an account of some interviews I had the honor of holding with him, and of some conversations that took place at these interviews. I have uo wish to impugn Mr Barton's veracity ; but I am bound to say that his memory has failed him in reference to these. The following is my account of them : I asked Mr Barton to present the petition of the Duuedin Catholics to the Provincial Council. He did not positively refuse, but he made very great difficulties about doing so, ami 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, j just as you do ; and, as you are one of the members for Dunedin, the Catholics of Dunedin have a claim on you." Ultimately Mr Barton consented to present the petition. The following day, I think, I sent down the petition, together with ft note to Mr Barton, and both were left oh his desk in the Council Hall. During the three following days Catholio petitions were presented from various places in the province but neither Mr Barton nor anyone on his behalf, presented the petition of the Dunedin Catholics. On finding such to be the case, I sent a gentleman to look after the matter, and ask some other member to present our petition. On making inquiry this gentleman ascertained that both the petition and my letter had been kicked about the Council Hall for three days ; and he also ascertained that so great wm the disinclination to do us the poor courtesy of even permitting us to petition the Council for redress of a grievance, that another representative of Dunedin, when asked to present the petition, indignantly refused to do so. Some time after this, the member for the Lakes District alluded to above resigned his seat in the House of Representatives ; and Mr Barton, who was a candidate for the vacant seat, came to my house, and asked me to give him my interest iv the district, and use my I influence with the Catholic electors there in his favor. I replied that I would not interfere in polities. Mr Barton pi'essed his suit, adding that if I would exert my influence for him he was pretty certain of being returned, as he had many friends there who would support him. I I replied a second time that I would not interfere in politics. But Mr I Barton wag not to be put off so easily. He continued to press me to interfere on his behalf, and at last, in order to get rid of tho importunity, I said : " Well, Mr Barton, as you press me to interfere, I certainly shall do so if you stand ; and in that case I shall ask such as I have influence with to vote against you." "Why?" he usked. "Because," I replied, "you disobliged us in reference to our petition." Mr Barton then pleaded the Eeichelt case as his 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 ah events you could have asked some other member to have presented the petition on your behalf." Then Mr Barton said : "Do you want me to spoil myself ? If Igo in for you, the others will go against me." I answered : "I do not ask you to become our advocate, but we have a claim on you and on every man for justice." Mr Barton answered : " But lam 3 our friend. I have Catholic friends : and y< v are not able to put into Paiharuent one of your own." My answer ■was emphatic : " Well, Mr Barton, if you are our friend, you have a comical way of showing friendship, 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 a lid, " Well then I won't stand." After which he went away, I wish you, sir, and the public to make no mistake as to Mr Barton's conduct. He asked me a couple of years ago to u*e my miluence 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-cUy, he manifestly endeavouis to hold me up to his Protestant fellow-<o onists as a man who is endeavouring to do all sorts of political cvi 1 , because ho wibhes, without any grounds other that those stated above, to attribute his defeat to me. Certainly the man who asked me to help to return linn for the Lakes District is the last man in the world ■who should find fault with me for helping to defeat him the other day, even, if I had done any overt act to that end. Mr Barton's letter will have one good effect : it will open the eyes of the few Catholics, whom he had up to the present succeeded in deceiving ; and I do hope that my Protestant fellow-colonists will not permit themselves to be made tools of by the quondam habitant Liberal, now turned Orangeman. The most besotted bigot could not have given expression to a greater spirit of hostility to his Catholic fellow -subjects, and a more lamentable ignorance 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 Catholics voting in a body in order to enforce their principles. What crime is there in their doing so ? All electors of all dchominntions do this ; and were they to do anything else, -what would be said of them ? People ought to vote according to their consciences. Bui Mr .Barton seems to think that Catholics should vote for their eneink's, and that consequently it was a crime in thorn not to vote for himself. My idea, however, is that, had they supported him 111 the lute election, they would have proved themselves slaves, and given strong reasons for concluding that they are de&ervmg of being slaves. — 1 am, &c., fI. Moean.