ARCHBISHOP MANNIX COMES BACK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18321, 11 August 1921, Page 8

ARCHBISHOP MANNIX COMES BACK.

WAILS FROM THE PROTESTANT SECTARIANS. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 1. We have, in New South Wales, a gang of small-minded Protestants who are just as noisy and bitter in their sectarianism as any bigoted gentleman who ever come ftom Rome; and these gentlemen, despite the smallness of their numbers, are making a tremendous hubbub over the Federal Government’s decision to admit Dr Mannix, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, without demanding that ho take the oath of allegiance. This stormy petrel of Catholicism, after a visit to Britain, is now returning to Australia, via Japan He is on a Japanese steamer, having announced before leaving Europe that he would not travel on any vessel flying the British flag. Whatever the Federal Government thought about it before, that last insult settled the question ; Dr Mannix would not be allowed to land unless he subscribed to the oath of allegiance to the King. _ / ■ Everyone knew that this decision—it was not announced, but was correctly guessed—would start a first class row, and probably cause riots. The extreme Roman Catholics in Australia are almost fanatical in their regard for this prelate, and if Authority said that ho must not land, it was practically a certainty that an attempt would be made to remove him from the Japanese liner by force. Foreseeing this, the Fedral Government arranged a coup, to be effected as soon as the Japanese vessel reached Australian ,soil —Thursday Island. Two Customs officers were sent north, to the island, arriving there two or three days before the Japanese liner was duo. and at tho sn.ni.ct time a.’ small navy vessel, the Geranium, appeared out of nowhere and unostentatiously dropped anchor. The idea, it seems, was —with tho connivance of the Japanese authorities—to remove Mannix from tho liner to the navv vessel, and, assuming, of course, that he would not take the oath, ship him out of harm’s wav. A few hours, however, before Dr Mannix arrived at Thursday Island, there came the last of a scries of cables from Mr Hughes. In view of the Irish truce. Dr Mannix was not to be asked Jo take the oath. It was a fair and just decision, promptly approved by all the' newspapers and all decent-minded people. Dr Mannix is pot here vet. but bo was interviewed at Thursday Island as he passed by. and he refused to talk. Apparently he also will observe the truce. Tims what threatened to be a very ugly sectarian row ends amicably.