AN HONEST CANDIDATE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 510, 19 January 1883, Page 18

AN HONEST CANDIDATE.

(From the Dunedin Evening Star.) TO THE EDITOB. Bib, — As I am told there is an impression in some quarters that Mr. Donnelly has been badly treated, I write, as one of that gentleman's earliest and most ardent advocates, to explain why my own mind became changed towards him. Had Mr. Donnelly, then, only declared that he would support no measure for the alteration of the secular Education Act for the ensuing two years, I should have felt that such a declaration was inconsistent with the sentiments I bad frequently heard him express. It was common, for example, for Mr. Donnelly to come into this office and speak " like a book" on the education question, professing a conviction that a bold, unhesitating, rational statement, such as he felt himself capable of making, would at once convert the popular mind, and render it favorable to the Catholic claims. In fact, I have felt it more than once necessary to warn him, in connection with bis contest of last year, not to make the subject too prominent, for although I had no doubt as to Mr. Donnelly's ability, I did not quite share in his confidence in the fairness of the public. My consternation, therefore, was extreme when I found, on the gentleman's own acknowledgment, that all the time he had been speaking so edify ingly, and all the time I had been exerting myself in every way possible to me in his cause, he was quietly resolved to take the first opportunity that offered itself to him of making a practical condemnation of the Catholic claims — for all this was involved in his declaration that he would not have supported Mr. Pyke's amendment — a declaration which, moreover, be went out of his way to make, with at least the stroDg appearance of a desire to add insult to injury. How, then, the people who have been so treated by Mr. Donnelly can be accused, with any degree of reason, of dealing harshly with him in marking their sense of his perfidy towards their cause, and his insolence towards them personally, I cannot conceive. —I am, etc., John F. Pebbin. N.Z. Tablet Office, January 12. TO THE EDITOB. Bib, — In reply to Mr. John F. Perrin, of the N.Z. Tablet office, I can only say that his imagination and inventive faculties do him much more credit than his sense of honor or his veracity. The glowing conversational phantasms which he so dramatically depicts are due entirely to his fervid imagination. However, I readily pardon him for his questionable tactics, knowing the pressure under which his veracious effusion was written ; and the public, knowing whence it came, will, under existing circumstances, have no difficulty in appraising it at its proper value.— l am, etc., M. Donnelly, Dunedin, January 13. TO THE EDITOB. Sib,— We have read Mr. Perrin's letter in Friday's Star. The statements made in it concerning Mr, Donnelly's professions were true. Mr. Donnelly has spoken, as described, in our presence more than once. We have also read Mr. Donnelly's denial in Saturday's Star. It is a shameless, though confused, denial of the truth. — We are, etc., John Murray. Dunedin, January 15. John J. Connor.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — My contradiction of Mr. Perrin's statements would necessarily include any emanating from the fag end of the Tablet employes. It is scarcely necessary, therefore, to honour Messrs. Murray and Connor's " official " manifesto with a special refutation ; but as silence might not have a good moral effect on their honour and veracity in future, I must answer them as I did Mr. Perrin, by giving once for all an unqualified denial to their statements. — I am, etc., Dunedin, January 16. M. Donnelly. [Neither Mr. John Murray nor Mr. John J. Connor is an employ^ of "the Tablet," at any of its ends or commencements. — Ed. N. Z. Tablet.] TO THE EDITOR. Sib,— l have just read Mr. Donnelly's reply to Mr. Perrin's letter which appeared in your issue of Friday evening, and in which Mr. Perrin sets forth his reasons for withdrawing his support from Mr. Donnelly. r I must say that I was surpiised to find Mr. Donnelly endeavouring to make the public believe that he has not in the past been a zealous advocate of the Catholic claims on the education question. I have known Mr. Donnelly for a long time, and have always held a Tery high opinion of him. I have had frequent opportunities of speaking with him on the education question ; and I always thought I had reason to admire his manly view of how this and other questions should be canvassed by Catholics. I have often quoted Mr. Donnelly to our friends as an example of bold, manly, and uncompromising honesty. In fact, the purpose of his conversations would seem to be to get Catholics to throw off all reserve, and demand in a bold and above-board style what they were so manifestly entitled to — viz.', some participation in the educational expenditure of the colony. Now, sir, although I was sorry to see that Mr. Donnelly's anxiety to get into Parliament had induced him to forswear bis lifelong convictions on a question affecting the domestic and financial interests of 70,000 of his co-religionists, still I was not prepared to find that he would have the hardihood to also forswear His " professions of faith " on this great question, made in the Tablet office from time to time. I desire to bear testimony to the correctness and truth of Mr. Perrin's statemnts in his letter in Friday evening's paper.— l am, etc., ~ ' , • John J. Connor. Dunedxn, January 16.