THE '98 CENTENARY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 39, 28 January 1898, Page 20

THE '98 CENTENARY.

TO THE EDITOR N.Z. TABLET.

Sir, — The letter of Mr. P. J. O'Regan in your issue of the 14th instant shows clearly that he regards Nationalism as " a trifle light as air " compared with " Nationalisation," the gospel -which he never tires of advertising. The fact that his countrymen, with rare exceptions, hold the opposite opinion, is doubtless to him but a trivial matter also. Be that as it may, Mr. o' Regan's peculiar views on the subject of which he writes are his own. He has a perfect right to hold and express them, but what is there in Mr. P. J . O'Regan to justify the '• Daniel come to judgment" air he adopts in doing so ? It is not surprising that the bugbears conjured up by P. J. O'Regan and the dizzy attitude of his viewpoint have " flusthered " him, and rendered a common-senee appreciation, on his part, of the proposed Ninety-eight celebrations impobsible. Mr. P. J. O'Regan knows, or should know, that so far as the said celebration is concerned, the Irishmen of New Zealand are as the fly on the wheel. The matter lies not with us. Our fellowcountrymen in Ireland have decided that the centenary of Ninetyeight be celebrated, and they are the best judges whether it is fitting so to do. To us is given to decide whether it is meet to assist in the celebration — whether we shall join our countrymen in other lands in honouring the memory of the men who "rose in dark and evil days," fought, and died nobly, in what they deemed our country's cause ; or whether we shall hold coldly aloof, because forsooth we are colonists of I^ew Zealand. Men like Mr. P. J. O'Regan think it expedient for us to do so. Expedient, forsooth I Expediency has ever been low down in the scale of human motives. Let us rather to ourselves and our traditions be true : "When it follows as the night the day. We cannot then be false to any man." Mr. O'Regan also knows that the forthcoming celebration is in no sense a glorification of the insurrection of Ninety -eight — that event we regard as a deplorable blunder — but it is a tribute to the patriotism of those who died resisting intolerable tyranny during that red drama, and to the manner in which they played their parts. These are the attributes that give Ninety-eight a claim to reverence, and to Irishmen the rahim iV&tre of its celebration ; and whether it be the peasant dying for freedom on a Wexford hillMde, or the legislator in the prosaic but safe field of a colonial Parliament, Mr. P. J. O'Regan may rest asbiired that his countrymen will honour fittingly their respective memories. — I am, etc., T. Me. Dunedin, January 18th, 1898.