THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN ON THE POLICY OF LYING.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 13, 22 July 1887, Page 23

THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN ON THE POLICY OF LYING.

(The Nation, May 28.) ON Monday the Most Bey. Dr Walsh paid an episcopal visit to Carlow where he was enthusiastically received. Replying to an address from the Carlow town commissioners, his Grace emphatically condemned the coercion policy of the Tories. In reply to an address presented by the Carlow, Tmryland, and Bennekerry branch of the National League, in which the thanks of the members were conveyed to his Grace, "for so often silencing our country's slanderers," his Grace ■aid —Mr President and members of the Carlow, Tinryland, and Bennekerry branch of tne Irish National League, I feel confident that, having spoken at such length upon the question which just now is of such especial and, indeed, all-absorbing interest to the members of your great constitutional organisation, you will not expect of me that I should now do much more than briefly express my thanks to you, as I wish to do with the most grateful feelings for your special kindness m coming to me to-day with this welcome of your own 1 will, then, with your permission, refer but to one passage of your address— a paragraph which, as it hapoens, claims from me to-iav a word of specie 1 notice (hear, hear). You refer, and I thank you for it, to the efforts that on more thau one lecent occasion I have felt it my duty to make for the silencing of our country's slanderers, and more especially for the exposure of the shameless system of open lying to which our enemies have at length been driven to have recourse as a last and forlorn hope iv taeir final assault upjn the impregnable stronghold of Irish nationality, You must have noticed that this system of giving currency to utterly baseless statements detrimental, or supposed to be detrimental, to the cause of Ireland finds its most frequent opportunities for expression iv the letters of the Roman oomspoudents of certain daily London newspapers More than once I have thought it right to notice the mendactous statements thus put in circulation, and so far as they had reference as they very frequently had reference to myself, to give them the amplest and the most absolute contradiction. I have, indeed, taken it as a principle— following in this the wis? example of your trusted political leader, Mr. Parnell (cheers)-never to take notice of any Btatement, however slanderous it may be, which is slanderous only as against myself. But I have felt it encumbent upon me to expose the falsehoods of the statments to which I now refer in so far as their nnchecked circulation might give success to the unprincipled tactics of those opponents of your cause who seek by means of them to drag down our Holy Father, the Sovereign Pontiff, from his exalted office, irreverently exhibiting him m the role of a political partisan by insinuating, nay, by openly stating, that your peaceful, constitutional, political organisation has fallen under toe condetnnation of the Holy See. The most dan ng effort that has vet been made in th s direction was made, as many of you must know, in the Daily Chronule of Thursday last. Toe statement was so circumstantial that to the most ably conducted of the Dablin Tory newspapers it seemed overwhelming in its conclusiveness. The statement T,k 8 £*'/• r e^?, ir On - the Irish <l ueßtion has now been drawn up by the Irish College in Rome," and that in this memoir, prepared of course, with the concurrence, if not by the very hand, of the venerated and saintly Irish prelate, Dr. K.rb/, (loud cheers), who so worthily presides over our national college in the Eternal City the connection is rlearly traced between " Parnellism " and arime" 'and the Holy Father is thus informed, from a souice of unquestioned and unquestionable sympathy with the cause of constitutional freedom in Ireland, that the present national movement deserves the reprobation of every honest anu law-abiding man. The correspondent, remember spoke m the most confide .t tones. His wa* not a hearsay evidence He led bis London employers.iuto publishing in the columns of their widely circulated newspaper his statement that he had himself seen an actua copy of the document. Well, here, it occurred to me, we have at length a decisive case. Confident, of course, that the statement in w> far as it regarded our college in|Rome, was utterly without foundation, 1 wrote at once to the worthy rector. My letter cannot atallevenr* have reached Rome until yesterday. But the answer has already come (lo.d cheers). With a promptitude which showed atq keen a appreciation of the importance of the case, the rector, Dr

Kirby, without waiting for the ordinary coarse of post, replied to me by telegram (renewed applause). I have bis Grace's message here it was sent from Home this morning at ten o'clock, and reached me just as I was leaving Dublin. Here it is— tv"/ • v"/? 1 }? memoir attributed by Daily Chronicle correspondent to the Irißh College is entirely and absolutely false. mu a t v ,^ • "(Signed) Abchbishop Kirb*." (Cheers). I should, mdeed, have been able to tell you this in fewer words than I have used m my narrative. But you will p-irdon me. I t&aak yoa then, moat bincerely for the imorest with which you have listened to me. I thank you, toj. for all your other kindness ; and now, m conclusion, 1 will only give you (be renewei assurance so long as your great movement keepg within its present limits —and why should it ever overstep them ?— its presanV limits of crimelessness and peace-so long may you ount upon my warmest sympathy, and, so far as it may ie within the limits of the duties of my sacred office to extend it to lyou, my practical co-operation and support (loud cheers). His Grace was entertained at dinner in Oarlow College, where a large number of guests, both cleric and lay, enjoyed the hospitality of the president. * *