A REMARKABLE ADDRESS BY CARDINAL MORAN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4893, 21 September 1901, Page 4

A REMARKABLE ADDRESS BY CARDINAL MORAN.

In the course of a speech when opening a bazaar, Cardinal Moran said : ' At the present day we in Australia had a genuine republic' He was not going to speak as a rebel, but as a eommonsenee speaker. Comparing America with Australia, he said that if the same treatment were extended in Australia for one month as that which had guided the Home i Government in the past in regard to America, before another month Australia would be an independent State, and ' she would have my fullest blessings in being so.' . Begarding the suggested change in the Coronation Oath, about which the Catholics in Australia had sent a very energetic protest, they were greatly indebted to the Commonwealth Government for the prompt manner in which they had forwarded their manifesto to the Home Government, bnt they saw, to their chagriu, how cavalierly Mr Chamberlain, as representing the Home Government, had treated the question. He seemed ignorant about the whole question and its being endorsed by the entire Commonwealth. He would tell Mr Chamberlain that Australians had too much sense to be beguiled by such effrontery. They knew their rights, and were determined to fight for them, and one of those rights was that when the Coronation Oath was an insult to the great body of Catholics the wording of it should be amended. When the Sovereign came forward and insulted one-fourth of the citizens of Australia, they said to the Government of Great Britain, who forced such an Oath on the King .» ' If such a thing goes on we know our rights, and an independent Australia will startle them Borne day sooner than they expect.' He did not think a more liberal-minded man than the King existed, or that anyone more abhorred the Oath he was supposed to take. But the King was, unless he objected, forced by the law to make a profession of what he did not believe and to insult citizens whom he would rather honor and respect. All they wanted was that the British Government should not impose any such unpleasa*nt duty on the Sovereign.