P.P.A. AND ARCHBISHOP

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10659, 4 August 1920, Page 4

P.P.A. AND ARCHBISHOP

CRITICISMS kM ATTACKS COMPLAINT OF QUESTIONS. UN* ANSWERED. Mr H. Syduey Bilby, Dominion secretary of the Protestant Political Association, writes as follows to the ''Times'': — '"ln replying to criticisms of his attack on the P.P.A., Dr. O'Shea ignores tho questions 'which were asked hira, and otters no explanation of thg disloyal and anti-British utterances quoted from the 'Tablet,' and on thia omission your readers are entitled to assume that the Archbishop, having no answer to offer or explanation to give, 'admits the soft' impeachment.' 'lhia being so, the reverend gentleman leaves little more to bo said: he,'however, asks a question, and though, under tho circumstances he is not en-< titled to do so, I have no hesitation in stating in reply that Protestants would be loyal to a Roman Catholic So\ ereign us long as that Sovereign was loyal to tho British Constitution. As to whether a Romanist King, who owes allegiance to a foreign potentate, who is diametrically opposed to thoso free institutions which have made Britain first among the nations," can bo loyal and remain Romanist is for tho Archbishop to explain. In the Archbishop's suggestion of tho possibility of tho British Sovereign becoming Ro-. man Catholic, the wish is no doubt father to the thought, but it would bo quite a? sensible for me to ask Dr. O'Shea if in tho event of the Popa becoming Mohammedan, he would still be loya.l to the Sovoreign Pontiff? MATTER OF LOYALTY. "The Archbishop states"'that it is significant that his critics have left unchallenged his statements about the wholesale robbery- and exploitation of the people—it is significant, and the significance lies in the'fact that Rome's consistent disloyalty, as evidenced by tho utterances of her clergy and Press, gives reason for legitimate doubt as to her bona fides when suddenly she becomes solicitous' for the w elf are of the nation she has so consistently maligned, and we do not desire to discuss the well-being of the nation with those who apparently wish that nation ! ill.

STANDING FOR THE WORKER. ' "Tho P.P.A. has consistently stood for the worker. In private np organisation has done more to gather evidence of profiteering and exploitation and place this before the proper authorities, nor has any organisation pleaded the right of the worker to healthier conditions of life and better remuneration more sincerely than _ has tho P.P.A , noi* has any organisation mora frequently, or hi less-measured terms, publicly denounced the tactics of those people' or those agencies which have operated to increase the cost of living and make the lot of the people mora difficult. v "The Archbishop woos the worker —why? What are the conditions un< der which the people live in those countries wliere his co-religionists predominate? What, has Rome done the workers she has wooed and won in Australia or in Ireland? If ho desires to justify his apparent concern for tho worker and to show that his zeal for him is in reality something more than a desire to make use of organised Labour for the advancement of Romans (sm, let'the Archbishop answer these questions in addition to thoso to which, he has up to the present failed to repJy-" ; . - , .