FATHER HAYS' VISIT.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 31, 30 August 1905, Page 2

FATHER HAYS' VISIT.

. «. 10 THE EDITOR. Sin, — I have to congratulate the Mayor in connection with the stand he has taken with reference to Father Hays' reception. lam sorry to see that the citizens of Feilding have resolved themselves into such personages as Messrs G. Bartholomew, Willis, Mclntyre, J. C. Thompson, and Bowater, in conjunction with sundry parsons. Quite in keeping with a want ad., which it seems the " citizens " can only afford ! How about the three tailors of Tooley Street after this? Their history must now be certainly one of the past! What right have these persons to suggest themselves as representing the citizens of Feilding ? By whoso authority and for what purpose ? Are the people of our district so degraded and intemperate that our local clergy are not capable of keeping ? them under control If Father Hays wishes to do good there should certainly be room tor him in his own country when he describes himself as the apostle of temperance from England and Ireland. It certainly appears on the facts that it is money, not reform, that his mission is in pursuit of. Truth at all times should guide temperance. Did his address in Palmerston prove so? Too many of such agitators of Father Hayes' type are finding New Zealand a a happy hunting ground, and it is time the people of the Colony treated them with the contempt which they so fully deserve. " Charity in all cases should begin at honae." I am, etc , W. Dickson.