A REBUKE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 13, 17 July 1885, Page 13

A REBUKE.

TO THB EDITOR N.Z. TABLET. Sib, — After mature consideration I hare determined to cease any farther contributions to your paper. lam of opinion that no communications from me can be of any advantage to the Catholic cause, if published in a journal which by its other articles is damaging the Catholic cause in this colony in the way the N.Z. Tablet is doing. My own position as an Englishman contributing to so bitterly antiEnglish a periodical as yours, is so painful that nothing- but the strongest sense of duty would enable me to bear it. But it appears to me that the time has come when there need be no further sacrifice on my part.of my feelings as an Englishman. — Enough has been published with regard to the supernatural cures by means of the Lourdes water to satisfy any reasonable person, and the remainder of the work may well remain unpublished until a more suitable medium can be found than a periodical which takes every opportunity of insulting my country. You may think it consistent with Christian charity to stir up strife and animosity between persons professing the same creed, but of different nationalities, and to rake up every old Btory of wrongs done in the past. lam quite sure, from what I have heard from Catholic Irishmen of the strongest national opinions, that the course you pursue is not approved of generally by them. I quarrel with no man for beiiig a Nationalist ; — I am an English Nattionalist myself. There is no dearer wish of my heart than to see Ireland severed entirely from Great Britain, and possessed of complete independence, but I should never adopt such measures as you favour for the promotion of that end. In this new country where at least Irishmen have all the liberties they can possibly desire, there ought te be an end of the old quarrels, and out children, natives oE the same coil, ought to grow up together in peace and harmony, knowing nothing of the hatreds which divided their forefathers. You wish to keep alive these hatreds. Your constant effort is to produce and maintain as bitter an antagonism between the children of Irishmen and Englishmen, as there has been between- Catholics and Orangemen in Ireland.

With these views I have no sympathy. I have no wish to disguise or to apologise for the wrongs committed by my countrymen against Ireland, but those wrongs Englishmen have done their best to repair during the last fifty years. At the very worst of times English Catholics were subject to the same persecutions as their Irish co-religionists. Had the large majority of Irishmen became Protestants as the English did, there would probably have been no persecution at all, as then the English Catholics would not have been a danger to the State. The English are not a persecuting people, and bad Catholicism in England and Ireland been entirely divorced from politics, it would never have been persecuted. The average Englishman feels too much contempt for the intellect of any person who believes in the Catholic religion to persecute him. This kind of contempt one has to bear, but there is no need to incur the additional odium of renouncing one's country, as well as the faith of one's ancestors. This will be the last communication you will receive from me on this or any subject. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, B. H. Bakbwell, M.D. Boss Westland, July Ist, 1885. [The writer of this letter wishes the readers of the Tablet at least to know his reasons for ceasing to contribute to its pages. We are ourselves aware that many of our readers will not, regret in the least this cessation. Nevertheless, we publish the letter because the writer desires we should do so, and would probably regard us as afraid of him and his views if we refused. We have another reason for publishing this letter. Not a few who formerly supported this paper have ceased to do so, because we have not been, in their estimation, sufficiently pronounced in our denunciations of England's misrule in Ireland, and we think it well that all concerned should know that there are two sides to. this, as well as nearly every other question, and that in all our writing we merely attend first to facts and then to such views as recommend themselves to our own judgment. We do not write either through fear, policy, or affection, or, when writing on the Irish question, through hatred, as has been untruly stated, of England. But it would appear that some English Catholics, at least, think that, as the mention of the cruel injustice inflicted by England on Ireland hurts their feelings, an Irish Catholic journalist does a very wrong thing in even alluding to such injustice. So far, therefore, as we are concerned, it is expected by Borne of our co-religionists that the penal laws and other atrocities of Englishmen should never be even so much as alluded to in our pages. English and Scotch writers, such, for example, as Cobbett and Macdulay, may state facts, no matter bow damaging they may be to the Englishman's character for justice and fair play ; but for an Irish Catholic to even quote from these authors is an offence that this English Catholic cannot forgive. The role, therefore, that we are expected to assume is that ot a man who affects to forget history when it alludes to England's misdeeds, and to eulogise England as the first and greatest, most liberal and just of nations. We are told that as England has been endeavouring for fifty years to undo the effects of three hundred years ef misgovernment, which has left its impress on Ireland in the destruction of her trade and manufactures, and of her educational institutions, and which has banished millions of her children from their native country after having reduced the nation to beggary, we should forget the past, and be thankful for such favours aB are granted with a niggard tand. Well, we are disposed

to thick that much cannot be said in favour of the justice and repentance of a country, which, having the power to redress grievances and make restitution at once to the fullest extent, has taken fifty years to do so to a limited extent, forced thereto by fierce agitation. Now, again, suppose that English journalists assail - Ireland in the most .unmeasured terms of abuse apd misrepresentation, are Irish journalists to make no defence? .Are they to neglect their duties as journalists and abstain from hitting home in self-defence for fear of hurting the feelings of some English Catholic who is so silly or thin-skinned as to take offence at an Irish Catholic recalling the facts of history to which all other men may freely refer? This, is what the writer of the above letter and such as think with him, expect. Our policy has been that of self-defence. We never wantonly assail any man, or nation, or institution, and in our defence we are never as strong as we might be. . Let English writers cease to calumnia c and misrepresent the Irish cause, and Irish Catholics, and we shall cease to call to mind England's cruel and selfish legislation. Let England even now do justice fully, and Ireland will forgive and forget, the past. But, so long as England's defenders continue to defame Ireland, Irishmen, and the Catholic faith, so long they must expect that Irish writers will never cease to put the finger of scorn and reprobation upon the dark spots of English history. It is natural it should be so, and it is necessary it should be so.— Ed. N.Z. Tablet.]