ARCHBISHOP MANNIX ON BIGOTRY

New Zealand Tablet, 16 May 1918, Page 39

ARCHBISHOP MANNIX ON BIGOTRY

Speaking at the opening of the Jubilee Fair at Clifton Hall, towards the end of last month, Archbishop Mannix said:

A big meeting was held recently at the Exhibition. All the bitterest partisans, \fho would trample—and are tramplingon defenceless people, were there. I would ask one question about that meeting: Was it really organised to help the Empire and to stimulate recruiting ? If so, did that meeting held in the Exhibition get one additional recruit for the army ? Did its rowdyism bring any aid to the Empire or any credit to Australia? (Voices, No!) It effected no purpose whatever beyond vilifying and calumniating the Catholic people, and your humble servant in particular. (Applause.) A section of them is more interested in crushing the Catholics than in winning the war. (Applause.)

Conscription for Ireland.

Now, one of the great charges against me is that lam an Irishman. (Laughter and applause.) 1 cannot help that. (Laughter.) Being an Irishman through no fault of mine, I have endeavored, from time to time, lo talk like an Irishman; that, really, is the root of all or most of my perversity and wickedness. (Laughter.) 1 have always tried to keep Irish matters in their proper perspective in Australia, so far as 1 could. (Applause.) You have to depend here for a knowledge of. Irish affairs upon daily newspapers, whose impartiality and veracity are the least of their virtues. (Laughter.) Now, I have sometimes endeavored —what else could you expect from a perverse Irishman with the Celtic temperament ?—to throw a little light upon Ireland from the other side. (Applause.) At present the papers are making a deliberate attempt to represent the Irish as the most ungrateful and the most disloyal people that the world ever saw. and all because the people of Ireland are not prepared tamely to submit to conscription, which was rightly rejected in Australia.

But surely, if the Irish people are to get a satis-' factory measure of Home Rule, they should be allowed, like Australians, to say whether or not they are in favor of conscription? For months past a Convention has been laboring to devise some form of Home Rule that would satisfy the North of Ireland Orangemen ; but the Convention, as we a* knew, was simply a waste of time. It has been a complete fiasco. (Applause.) It has done nothing whatever substantial to advance the solution of the Irish question. Now, the Irish people are asked to submit to conscription imposed by the British Parliament, and a promise is made that some form of Home Rule will be granted on a date not determined.

An Apt Illustration

I have mentioned the Irish Convention. There is one thing about the report of the Convention which is well worth your notice. The Unionists in Ireland are a small minority. But let us say they are about 25 per cent, of the population. The other 75 per cent, is Nationalist, and mostly Catholic. (Applause.) The Convention has as you know made no recommendation. But the report of its proceedings goes to show how far

... , • . ;\y A ? " « the Nationalists and Catholics were inclined to go in their desire to effect a settlement. The Nationalists, who are, in the main, Catholics, agreed, apparently, that in the Parliament to be set up. in Ireland 40 per cent, representation should be given to the Unionists —that is, practically speaking, to the Protestants— Ireland. Imagine that! The Catholics and Nationalists are about 75 per cent, of the population, and their representatives at the Convention were apparently ready to give the-Unionist Protestant minority 40 -per cent, representation, instead of the 25 per cent, to which they would be entitled. They even went further, and agreed that, if necessary, the 40 per cent. Unionist representation should be secured by nomination of the Crown, if it could not be secured otherwise. What was the result ? The result was, that the extravagantly generous offer of the Nationalists and Catholics was rejected by the Unionists and Protestants of Ireland. 1 think that one fact throws a flood of light upon the justice, equity, forbearance, and tolerance of the Unionists or Protestant minority in Ireland. Let us further examine the position. In Australia, Catholics also have their grievances. Here the Catholic people are something approaching 25 per cent, of the population. In the Parliament of Victoria at present there is not a single member we can call our representative. If 1 got up, with my Celtic temperaipent, some morning—(laughter)—and called upon the Catholics of Victoria to move heaven and earth—to go almost to the verge of rebellion—to secure representation in Parliament corresponding with their numbers, it would be said that Dr. Mahnix should never have come to Australia. (Laughter.) At the Pleasant Sunday Afternoons there would be hysterical cries from loyal Protestant ladies that I was a menace to the State and to their liberty. (Laughter.) But suppose I asked, not for 25 per cent., but for 40 per cent., representation, the same gentle ladies would suggest that I was a fit subject for restraint in a lunatic asylum. (Laughter.) But. if I were to say that Catholics would not be satisfied with 40 per cent, representation if it were given to them that, in fact, they would never rest satisfied unless they got absolute control and domination in the Victorian Parliament, then the whole of Australia would rise up against me and say that I was an intolerant and impossible person, who should be interned, or, better still, banished out of Australia. (Laughter and applause.) Ah ! we know these people in Ireland, and their idea of fail play, and we know them in Australia, too. (Applause.) A proposal that would be laughed to scorn if made for the protection of the Catholic minority in Australia is rejected with scorn when it is actually offered to the Protestant minority in Ireland. I have dwelt on this matter because I think it will help you to understand better some of the obstacles to the settlement of the Irish problem, and perhaps also to realise better your own position in Australia. (Applause.)