THE NEW ZEALAND TABLET.

North Otago Times, Volume CV, Issue 13936, 19 July 1917, Page 8

THE NEW ZEALAND TABLET.

A QUESTION, IN PARLIAMENT. WELLINGTON, July 17. In the House of Representatives, this afternoon, Mr Nosworthy gave notice to ask the Prime Minister whether his attention had been drawn to certain words used in an article published in the New Zealand Tablet, the official organ of tho Roman Catholic. Church, on Thursday, July 0, 1917, under the signature of "Edward Thomas, Bishop of Limerick," and whether the Government would take steps to prosecute the above-men-tioned journal for sedition, The words used are as follows; "The evil work of statesmen and newspaper writers has produced a coarse', black; brutal hatred of Germany and Germans that makes the war -iiiore like the deadly struggleof wild beasts than a combat amongst men. That temper is now the great obstacle to peace in the present frame of mind of 'the English people, and, I am sorry to have to say, of many Irish. No abuse, no insult, no falsehood is considered too gross to hurl at the Germans. Wo hear no admission that there is anything to be said for them—that they arc of the same nature as ourselves, that in'their immense industries and growing commerce they have given pledges to the peaco of the world, that possibly there may be some truth in their claim that they are fighting a war of selfdefence, that for forty-four years—from 1870 to 1914—they had never done any act of aggression against any country, a claim which neither England nor France nor Russia can claim for itself."

. In a note to the question, Mr Nosworthy says: "The timo has arrived when the Protestants of this Dominion demand of the Government that it take steps to deal drastically with this sort of literature without further delay."