REFUSING FOOD TO CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 468, 31 March 1882, Page 13

REFUSING FOOD TO CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES.

The following letter to the ed'tor of the Tunes has appeared ia that journal : — Sir, — Baiting seems to be coming in again. Tt is but the other day that we should have thought Jew baiting, in what must, I suppose, be called civilized parts of Europ>, as much out of the question as witch baiting, although stray instances even of that occur now and then to this day in England ; but that— shade of Luther I — Lutheran clergymen should set deliberately to work to bait and drive out of the country Catholic clereymen, as it appears in the Tunes' ot January 11, they have done in Cimaraland, is really unpeufort. The facts are : — Some three years since a Catholic mission was sent, under a hisrhly cultivated and well known missionary, le Pere Duparquer, to Walwich Bay, just then annexe! to the Cape Colony. They were to proceed at once into the interior and commence their labours among tbe Damaras towards Lake Ngami. Oa landing they found but three white men at Walwich Bay, all Protestants, the resident magistrate, a Swedish storekeeper, and a German storekeeper, the latter being the keeper of a store which was connected with the Lutheran Mission in Damaraland, and he wa* in the habit of boarding all comers, there being no other tnians of subsistence in that fearful desert. He refusad, however, to supply the two Catholic missionaries with food, saying that it would not be agreeable to the German missionaries. The other whita men, however, gave him their mind roundly npon his conduct, and threatened to complain to the head quarters of the Mission, and also to expose his conduct throughout the civilized world and to at once withdraw from boarding there and mess with the Catholics. On this he gave way, and as tbe missionaries were houseless, having expected to leave at once for the interior in their waggon, but being detained for nearly a year owing to their inability to procure oxen, the magistrate gave them a small iron house, which he had just erectad for himself, an-i there they resided for about a year, then proceeding about 200 miles np country to a trading station, where, after every sort of opposition ou the part of the Lutheran missionaries, they procured a hou3e from a Prote&tiint Swede, the principal trader in Damaraland. The Lutheran missionaries wrote a strong remonstrance against their mission, :ia I persuaded the Caffre chief of the country to foibid the hiring of thd house to the missionaries ; bat Mr. Erichsen, the owner, had m >re influence, refused to withdraw the permission to reside in his hous •, and threatened to set fire to it and take the in ssiouaries into hiso.vu house, if n cessary. Ii a short tima the Catholics bjcame far mora popular thauthe Germaus, and the migistrtte having translate 1 fir them a German an 1 Damira grammar and dictionary iuto English, they started a school which soon eclipsed that of the Lutheran-*, Ifirw illce lacrymce. Shortly after this, the late Government gave up its attempt to govern and civilize Daraaralaod and to exercise any sort of control over the chiefs tbere, retaining only the flag at Walwich Bay ; and then the Catholics were subj^cte 1 to a regular system of " baiting " by the German missionaries and such of the Damaras as they could induce to join them, until, during the absence of their patron anl protector, Mr. Erichssn, the Catbolic missionaries were driven out, as described in the fimes, by their Protestant brethren. We shall, no doubt, hear more of this anon, and, if it be all true — unless the Jew baiting in Germany has revived in our cousins a taste for the old game — it U to be hoped for the sake of humanity so will the baitera also. What would have been said if the case ha 4 been reversed ? Surely the least that could be done to them would be to be dismissed by tbeir Mission — Your obedient servant, A Protestant.