ANTI-HOME RULE FICTION

New Zealand Tablet, 28 December 1911, Page 2625

ANTI-HOME RULE FICTION

LIBELLING IRISH CATHOLICS

Mr. James H. Campbell, Town Clerk of Queenstown, sent the following letter, under date September 9, to the Dundee Courier, on behalf of the Queenstown Urban District Council. It explains the cause of the action brought by the Bishop of Cloyne and clergy against the Courier, as reported "in a cable message received last Friday : Dear Sir, —I have been requested by the Queenstown Urban District Council to inform you that at the last meeting of that body, Sir James Long, J.P., a member of the Council, directed the attention of the members to an article headed ' Sinister Side-lights on Home Rule,' which was published in your issue of the 15th ultimo, in which statements are made considered to be slanderous, and therefore seriously affecting the Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Catholic Bishop of Cloyne (who resides at Queenstown), together with the entire Catholic clergy of Queenstown. The reading of the allegations in the article created a most painful impression, amongst the members of the Council, Catholic and Protestant alike, who were filled with feelings of indignation, at the grossly untrue and cruel accusations made, and a resolution" was passed

Unanimously Protesting

against the wanton insult offered to the bishop and clergy, who are falsely charged in the article in question, not only with religious intolerance, but with the crimeas crime it would be were the accusation true — of being the authors of a propaganda to have Protestant shop assistants in Catholic establishments in Queenstown deprived of employment. In seconding the resolution Mr. M. Ambrose, J.P., a Protestant member of the Council — in passing, I may observe, has been several times placed at the head of the poll by his

Catholic townsmen, and made Chairman of the Council —said that he deplored and deprecated such allegations being made, as he was proud to acknowledge that his success in life was due to the generous support accorded to him in business by his Catholic fellow-townsmen of Queenstown. '

Astonishment, too, was expressed by the Council that a responsible and widely-read journal like the Dundee Courier should publish such statements, without in some way first testing their credibility. Now, Sir, you may put forward the plea that no charge of religious intolerance was made against the Bishop and priests of Queenstown, but to do so would be a mere quibble, inasmuch as your anonymous scribe distinctly states ' that instructions were issued by the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities that all Protestant Shop Assistants were to be discharged. One shopkeeper, a Roman Catholic-j refused to discharge an assistant he had had for a number of years. The consequence was that his shop was proclaimed, and in three months he had to close and sell out, his stock being sold for next to nothing.' The italics in the quotation are mine.

Surely to a person of ordinary intelligence it must be clear beyond all cavil that when ' the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities ' are referred to, the writer who penned the words meant the Bishop and clergy of the Catholic Church in Queenstown, and it is equally clear that the stigma and odium which he endeavoured to cast upon ' the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities ' of being guilty of persecuting the Protestant shop assistants in Queenstown, was mud flung at

The Catholic Bishop and Clergy of Queenstown, which was intended to stick. The political party that hopes to profit by the manufacture of slanderous stories clumsily put together such as you published, and which bear the very impress of incredulity, of wanton invention and of malice, cannot be congratulated on the unscrupulous methods employed by its agents and advo-

cates, but on the contrary its methods must merit for it the condemnation of honorable men. For the information of your readers I may state that I have conversed with many prominent Protestants citizens of Queenstown, who have read extracts from the article entitled ' Sinister Side-lights on Home Rule' which appeared in our local newspapers, and one and all denounced the charge levelled against 'the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities' at Queenstown as a shameless attack, without a shred of truth to warrant it.

The most perfect harmony and friendship have always marked the relations between Protestants and Catholics in Queenstown and the former therefore very naturally resent the charge that at any time the Protestant shop assistants were the object of intolerant treatment by ' the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities ' at Queenstown.

I shall now, Sir, ask you for space to allow me to point out to your readers the line of action adopted by the intolerant Catholic Bishop of Queenstown towards one of the Creed which he has been charged with persecuting by your veracious correspondent. The facts which I am about to give I know of my own knowledge, and as one ounce of truth is worth a ton of fiction, I hope that any of your readers, be they Conservative or Liberal, whose minds may have been poisoned by the dissemination of the falsehoods contained in the article, will in future hesitate to accept as gospel the

Dishonest Statements

which sometimes appear in the press and-which, alas I politicians also give utterance to concerning Irish affairs, and especially where the object in view is to malign the Catholic priesthood of Ireland. Not lone sinceit became necessary for the Joint Technical Instruction Committee for County of Cork, of which the Most Rev. Dr. Browne is chairman, to appoint a teacher of engineering subjects for the Queenstown Technical School. There were two candidates out of a number left to choose from^—viz., a Protestant Englishman and a

Catholic Irishman, and will it be believed that this maligned Catholic Bishop, whom your correspondent accuses of having ordered the discharge of Protestant shop assistants, actually voted for the Protestant Englishman, thus securing his appointment? He did so, no doubt, on the ground that the Protestant candidate (Mr. Ward) was the more qualified of the two candidates, and therefore in the opinion of the Bishop better entitled to his vote and support.

Another 'instance of this same prelate's rabid intolerance where Protestants are in the minority in ' priest-ridden ' Munster, will suffice to convince all sensible and tolerant Scotsmen of the shameless character of the charge levelled against him, is, that the Bishop's legal advisers are Messrs. A. H. Allen and Sons, Queenstown, a well-known Protestant firm.

In concluding my observations in reference to the mean attack made upon ' the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities' in Queenstown, T merely desire to add that I have the privilege of knowing" the Most Rev. Dr. Browne intimately, and can vouch that there is

Not a Trace of Intolerance

in his character ; indeed, I can go further and state that he is regarded 1 by Protestants as a broad-minded prelate for whom they entertain the highest feeling of esteem and regard.

But your correspondent not being satisfied with having maligned ' the Roman Catholic Religious Authorities ' here, also charges the Catholic Community of Queenstown with aiding and abetting the former, by boycotting a Roman Catholic shopkeeper who was obliged to close his establishment, sell his stock in* trade for next to nothing, and flee to Britain. Let me at once assure you, Sir, and the good people of Dundee, that nothing of the kind ever happened in Queenstown. The story is absolutely false. It is a creation of a mind filled with prejudice and bitter rancour against Catholic Nationalist Irishmen to defame whose character in order

to make political capital out of it the foulest weapons are used.

The object of the writer of the article with which I am dealing, was unquestionably to create alarm in the minds of.the Dundee electors by showing up the presentday intolerance of the Catholics of Queenstown,* and thereby to demonstrate the inevitable persecution which Protestants would have to endure under the regime of a Home Rule Parliament. But I shall briefly place

A Few Facts

before your readers which will enlighten them regarding the treatment which the Protestant minority of this town has received from the Catholic majority in Municipal and in Parliamentary matters. First let me state that the voting strength of the Catholics in Queenstown is eight times greater than that of the Protestants, which goes to show that no Protestant candidate could possibly hope for election without the support of the Catholics. What happened at the last municipal election in January, 1911? Three Protestant candidates stood, and all three were elected, defeating twenty Catholic aspirants for municipal honors. Of course they were elected by the Catholic vote, and they acknowledged it gratefully.

Will your correspondent produce a single instance in the whole of Protestant Ulster where the Protestant electors have acted with similar liberality towards the | Catholics ? He cannot do so.

I now come to the question of the Protestant representation on another public board in this town, I mean the local Technical Instruction Committee. The committee consists of twelve members, and of these five are Protestants—viz., the Venerable Archdeacon Daunt, M.A. (rector), M. Ambrose, J.P., Engineer Captain Dixon, J. Rogers, and A. J. Moore. These five gentlemen, mark you, were appointed by the Queenstown Urban Council, which could have chosen all Catholics if the members were actuated by any religious or political intolerance. Again, on the local School Attendance Committee, of which three of the nine members are Protestants, the Catholic majority elected as their vice-

chairman, the Rev. Victor J. Cotter, M.A., Presbyterian clergyman. The Catholic Electors of East Cork.

And now, Sir, let your readers learn that the Catholic electors of the Parliamentary Division of East Cork, of which Queenstown is by long odds the largest voting unit, have been presecuting the Protestant minority in the division for the past nineteen years, by electing a Protestant gentleman to represent them in the Imperial Parliament, and during that long period his strongest supporters and most ardent admirers were the intolerant ' Roman Catholic Religious Authorities ' at Queenstown. Comment on these facts would be superfluous.

In conclusion, permit me to say that I trust I have adduced sufficient facts in this communication to convince the most sceptical of your readers that the allegations made in the article styled ' Sinister Side-lights on Home Rule ' against the Catholic Religious Authorities and the Catholic people of Queenstown are utterly baseless. If I have written at greater length than I intended it is because. I feel that I am "discharging a public duty in exposing the untruthfulness of your correspondent's statements by the ample material at my command, and in the hope, too, that it will deter other over-zealous but indiscreet bigots from embarking hastily in a crusade of misrepresentation and calumny.