A Deplorable Speech.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17409, 21 March 1922, Page 6

A Deplorable Speech.

Nobody can be at all surprised that the remarks made by Bishop Liston at the St. Patrick's Day concert in Auckland last Friday have . called . forth entphatio protests from the Mayor of Auckland and others. We assume, of course, that the Bishop was correctly reported. Perhaps the Mayor of Auckland has used terms stronger than are properly applicable to the Bishop's words and the intention of the speech, but we can think of no point of view from which the speech is not utterly deplorable. If his Lordship had not used the phrase "murdered by foreign " troops'' in his reference to the men who were engaged in the rebellion of 1916, his speech mighi have aroused much less indignation, -tor it is obviously by this wrong and bitter phrase that the Mayor of Auckland and others have been chiefly moved. Even if that phrase had not bee'n' employed, protest would have been necessary. In the first place, nobody can do a greater disservice to the cause of Anglo-Irish amity than by reviving or seeking to keep alive the old antagonisms which Irishmen and Englishmen combined last December to overcome and bury beneath the structure of the Treaty. It is grievously unjust to speak as if the people and statesmen of England ido not as keenly as any Irishman desire to see Ireland contented and prosperous, and it is much more than unjust to take such a lino in circumstances favourable to the persuasion of many others to hold fast to the old, bitter and vengeful prejudices'. The people of this country, like their brethren in all the other Dominions, rejoiced when the Treaty was arranged last December, hailing as the best of news what seemed to be the beginning of the end of " the Irish question." They will have only indignation for any attempt to keep "the Irish question" alive here. Moreover, as New Zealanders, they are mindful to their duty to the Crown and to the Empire of which their country is a part. Whatever views any New Zealander may hold, or may have held, regarding the government of Ireland, he cannot be a loyal New Zealander and at the same time either applaud antagonism to the Empire and enmity to Britain, or hope for any weakening of the solidarity of . the Imperial structure. Nobody need doubt that Dr. Liston loves his native New Zealand, but we should have thought that no friend of New Zealand would wish to stir up old animosities and affront the loyalty of the people. We can but hope that this is the last speech of the kind that will be made in this country.