THE PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17326, 28 May 1918, Page 4

THE PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, Your sub-ltader reierring to myself which appeared in your columns ol tlie 21st is so una-uthiul and malignant and so suited to the desires of the iiotuan Church that it has been glad to avail itself of it as an advertisement. \ou do not know the facts concerning which you write, or if you do, • you misstate them. May I say again that I never made a charge against the t j-j nUn * n le etters published ? • I not say tliat the inquiries contained in the private test letters were true in fact. I used the inquiries and reports reoeived for the purpose of testing the purpose of the censorship in four private letters. I subsequently read portions of the letter relating to the nun, at a public meeting to illustrate the kind of letter tho Post Office censored under a military censorship. It was to demonstrate that tho censorship was in the interests of the Roman Church. I have not. therefore slandered a dead nun. Moroover, I have expressed regret repeatedly that use was made of the particular kind of material embodied in tost letters. The members of tho P.P.A. know the ircts and also my regrcta 11 the matter and are not likely to be affected in their devotion to their cause by your unfair attack. Tt may, however, weaken the enthusiasm with which they have canvassed your paper. If you wish to attack the Protrstant Political Association and to make advertisement for tho Roman Church, the Tablet, and Truth, why not do it fairly?—l am, etc.,

A Howakd Elliott. [Tho suggestion that wo have any k ' wish * to attack tne .Protectant Political Association and to make advert.somerit for the .Roman Church, the Tablet, and Truth " is so absurd as to call for no remark. But the tact that Mf Elliott makes the suggestion possesses a significance of its own. When ho twists tho reierences we havo made to himself in order to place upjn them such a construction as this, it becomes difficult to accept all his other statements quite unreservedly. Wo do not pretend to know whether any quibble is involved in the assertion that he " did not say tliat the inquiries contained in the private test letters were truo in fuct." We have yet to learn how an inquiry can bo " true in fact." But when Mr Elliott dec'ares that he "never made a charge against '.he dead nun in any of tho letters publ shed" we remind him that ho has said not onco only that the inquiries contained in the "private test letters" were founded on facts or on "a substratum of fact." In view of this, wo can only say that ho does not attach tho same meaning to terms as wo do if he persist® in saying that he has '' not slandered a dead nun." Wo note with satisfaction, how ever, that he regrets that use was made of the particular manorial which was embodied in tho test letters.—Ed. O.D.T.]