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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 8, 12 June 1885, Page 19

An editorial article in the Liverpool Weekly P*st says :—ln: — In the name of peace and good-will I must protest against the flaunting of the banner of bigotry in Liverpool on St. Patrick's Day by the Iriah Church Missionary Society. The Irish Catholics of the city appeared to have kept the festival of their patron saint in on exemplary manner. It was remarked on all hands that there was little or no drunkenness amongst the votaries of the national feast, and the peace and goodwill that prevailed so largely, in contra«t to the shocking disturbances of ten or fifteen years ago, were a creditable .md pleasing result of the influence brought to bear by the priesthood on the " Little Ireland "of Liverpool. Such being the case on the one side, it is all the more deplorable that the group of foolish fanatics who are connected with the "Irish Church Mission" (an entirely chimerical and useless institution) should of all days m the year select St. Patrick's Day on which to hold forth in abuse of Irish Catholics, and in praise of a preposterous society the chief object of which appears to b<j the payment of the salaries of these blatant Boanerges. Their mission (upon which they acknowledge they spend — or receive — almost fabulous sums of money per annum) has been proved long ago to be an impudent failure. Mr. John Yates, of Liverpool, offered them a substantial contribution if they would produce a single convert, and although he accompanied them to Ireland, along with an impartial reporter of the Daily Post, they miserably failed to show any result of their operations. Yet this is the society in which one of the speakers acknowledged that the increase in contributions alone at the end of last year was £10,000. Will the Irish Church missionaries produce a full balance-sLeet showing their list of salaries and expenses ? I, for one, would like to peruse it.