THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1905. REV. F. W. ISITT AND THE MISSING 'TWO HUNDRED'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 13, 30 March 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1905. REV. F. W. ISITT AND THE MISSING 'TWO HUNDRED'

E direct the attention of our readers to the letter frtnn fcne lßev - F - w - Isitt, which appears on the sixth page of this issue. &<£» nS/*j£ The substance of our reverend friend's <fl»p§Sr?*J^» commiunication may be summed up in the three following statements : (1) That S.jf l y W «ff^ leather Hays, the noted temperance lecturer, is about to come to this Colony to conduct an ' independent ' campaign financed by, and under the auspices of, the New Zealand Alliaatce 3 (2) that! the Rev. Father was ' prohaJbly ' inftuence'd to pay this visit by an ' appeal ' or ' petition ' from two hundred Catholics in this country ; iartd (3) that tihe writer (Rev. F. W. Isitt) did not! see a certain outrageous calumny on the Catholic body in tTic aforesaid ' aflpeal ' until 'some time after its publication ' in the 1 prohibitionist organ, of which he is editor ; and that, had he seetfi it, he would ' probably have askdd permission to omit fr.om publication the paragraph referred to.' m (1) As regards Father Hay,s's visit : this is a question an which our reverend correspondent is, we beliove, fully entitled t,o claim more information than the whole Catholic body of New Zealand. For reasons which we do not pretend to fathom, Father Hays and his friends of thfliNjew Zealand Alliance" have, since Hhe forthcoming camjpiaign was mooted two years ago, kept the facts relating thereto from the knowledge of the responsible heads of the Catholic Church in this Colony. The Rev. Mr. Isitt is aware that these have been studiously flouted and ignored. And now, at the eleventh hour, they are besought by the Alliance (through the newspaper press) not to throw away ' this great opportunity ' ; and, a few days ago, they were (as we understand) curtly notified from another source that ' Catholics ' shall have a ' right ' to fall in with genqral arrangement's which have been made o\er the 'heads of our episcopate, without reference to tihem, and without any of the courtesies that are due to them by weiT-known and old-established custom and ecclesiastical law. - To this hour, so far as we know, they are unaware of the precise nature of the campaign in which they are informed that ' Catholics ' have been conceded a ' right 'to assist. It nray be, as asserted, an ' independent ' camipaign— whatever that may be. But the general p,ublic can hardly be blamed for the widely prevalent suspicion that a crusade carried ouf almost on the eve of the general elections, and financed by what is, iperfoaps, the keenest, best-knit, and most energetic political organisation in New Zealand, can hardly fail to have a strong political and party tendency. In all the circumstances, the Melbourne 'Age' of March 11 may well be excused for 'its statement that the coming campaign is 'in connection with the triennial Local optiojn poll in October next.' (2) We confess ourselves somewhat puzzled at the Rev. Mr. Isitt's uncritical keenness in accepting dis-

—— ■ — — — — «' proven anTd ungrounded statements to the effect thatFather Hays is coming to New Zealand at the invitation of some unknown and undiscoverable members of the Oatholic laity. Is this advanced as a sort of setoff to Uhe marked discourtesy shown in the matter to the Catholic body, in the persons of their chief representatives ? iifl the very same letter raur reverend friend explicitly states that the new temperance orator is coming to the Colony at the invitation of the New ZeaUmd Alliance. Moreover, his misinformation regardin X the two Hundred Catholics thiat are lost or mislaid, stolen or strayed, lias undergone considerable modifications of late. At the Methodist Conference in Wellington he (as reported in the local papers) declared tthat Father Hays was coming to our shores ' in consequence 'of an appeal ' to him siigned by two hundred Wellington Catholics in December, 1902. Now, our committee of investigation emphatically describe as ' a fabrication ' tlhq statement that two hundrdd Wellllngtkm Catholics signed the attdress (*hioh was not an anneal ) to Father Hays referred to above. Tihe history of tKat illiterate, ill^pellefl, ungrammatical, and so-called ' Catholic ' address has already been told by us. The author and ohief promoter of that literary freak ia an individual ' whose claim to be a Catholic, 1 says our committee of investigation, ' would be laughed &T in Wellington.' When directly challenged, he could not name so miuch as ane member of his alleged « commit tee.' There may, indeed, have been two hundred ' names ' on the address when it reached Father Hays ; there may e\en su,ve been two MinOired ' signatures '—which ia not necessarily the same thing ; but we emphatically state that there were not the signatures of tw 0 hundred Wellington Catholiqs upon it at any time. At the moment of its despatch it contained the signatures of eight practising Catholics-placed upon it under a total misapprehension as to the offensive nature of its contents. The closest investigation failed to discover any more. And the eigfot referred to, when they saw the illiterate barbarism in the columns of the ' Prohiibitidnist,' had the manhood to publicly .disavow an 4 repudiate, through the newspaper press, the scandalous falsehood in it that was concocted by the author to blacken the Catfholios of New Zealand in the eyes of Father Hays. The slander to which we refer was this : that Catholics hiave been officially certified by the Government statistician to furnish two out of five of all the drunkards in New Zealand. It was maintained that this glaring fa&dttofdd was signed by two hundred Catholics of Wellington. Thanks to our keen-eyed investigators, this statement is now perforce -abandoned. The Rev! Mr. isitt's informant now Shifts 'his 'ground ,*nd -pleafls that the missing two hundred were rakad in from all parts of New Zealand ! But what evidence Is offered to us in siu|pp,o;rt of this new statement ? Not so mmc_i as a scrap. Wo Hnow, "thorough our committee of iiwestigatidn, that the 1 document in question w,as hawked through the State 'Departments in the Empire City as ' a Wellington address ' to Father Hays. And, until satisfactory evidence is tendered to us in siupport of the new contention, we aha.ll continue to regard it aa an afterthought. The same remark applies to the statement, how made for the first, time, , that $htj allied signed address? Was accompanied ' by an appeal talFatiher Hays to visit New Zealand.' There was no • appeal,' ' Pfetitiofn,' or invitation in the bogus ' Catholic ' a ddress ; and no 'appeal,' 'petition,' or invitation was shown, or siubrmitted for signature with the address in question. If tfoe author of, and prime mover in, that address to Father Hays feels himself aggrieved by our remarks, he has ready to his hand an extremely easy and pbviojus means of Temoving Uhe heavy cloud of suspicion which hangs arouriS hrs so-called ' Catholic ' address. Lqt him send to us, or publish in the ♦ Prohibitio)nist,' tjhe information which we have been, for nearly two years, vainly challenging him to produce. Or, if nefttjhfir of those (Courses appjeals to 'hj/S ooy faiucy

let him slubmilt the evMence in point, which we have demanded or shall demand, to a committee of inquiry jointly named by the Rev. Mr. Isitt and "tine editor of this paper — tihe findings to be published in the ' Prohibitioiju>st ' and the ' N.Z. Tablet.' Do our reverend friend aJnfd his informani accept our challenge ? If tihcy do, we thinik we can safely promise interesting developments. The extent to whuch Father Hays was l influenced by the n'otoriioius Wellington address may he gnagqid by the two Hollowing facts : he publrcly repudiated it in our isisfcie of February 11, 1904 ; and in a letter before us (Hn re'tply ty) the eight Oatholic signatories referred to above) he ,states that he had decided, if he could see his w»ay, to visit New Zealand, in consequence of invitations received by him long before the extremely suspicious commlunication from the undiscavarable Wellington ' two mrnttred ' was ever dreamed of. (3) There is one, and only one, thing in the Rev. Mr. Isitt's letter that has given us real disappointment arid pain. It is the nonchalant way in which he dismisses the flagraint falsehood, published in his journal, that Catholics have been officially certified by the Government statistician to furnish two out of five of all the drunkards in New Zealand. Surely, such an outrageous inntruth calls for more serious reparation than a halting statement that, if our reverend friend had seen it in time, he would ' probably have a^ked permission to omit ' it when publishing the now notorious Wellington 1 Catholic ' address. What becomes of his promise to ccrfrrect that statement in his paper ' even now -at the eleventh hour ' ? We ha<d expected and expected better things from our reverend friend. lie, at least, has shown himself capable of rising abo>\e tlhe bitterness and pettiness of mere sectarian feeling. But Cathblics haVe been taught by long cxpkrie-woe to expect, from the bulk of his coleaJderjs anW co^-workiers in the Prohibitionist movement, only insult amd outrage to Dheir most cherished religious semtimepts. The Rev. Mr. Isitt's lay and clerical confreres are themselves responsible for the suspicion with which tlhe Prohibition party is viewed by very many Catholics in New Zealand. It is not thus in Victoria. But in this Colony that suspicion has h-eon created apfd burned in by the extraordinary violence— not to say savagery — with which a number of Ihe leading a>dvaaates of Prohibition attack the Catholic Church and body; by ihe ostentatious offensiveness with' which they head every no-Popery movement ; by the shameless manner in which many of them lend themselves to the filthy campaigns of impostors like the Slatterys Mid of 'degraded gaol-birds and fallen women like Margaret Shepherd. We have reason to know that all these coarse, mianifestations of sectarian rancor are putrfd carrion to the nostrils of the Rev. F. W. Isitt. But Catholics are neither Seaf nor blind nor devoid of common hAnman feelings. And this crying scandal of mtempera/te anti inflammatory no-Popery, that clings around so large a part of the personnel of Prohibition officialid'om, Curoishies one explanation of the difficulty ■which even Catholic advocates of No-license find in cooperating Jn the 'social or political work of the New Zealand Alliance.