ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

New Zealand Tablet, 8 January 1920, Page 17

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

As wo were absent until after Christmas, and as no mail was sent to us while away, we take • this . occasion to thank our numerous friends for' their good wishes and kind messages during the past two weeks, and "to wish to every one of them a New Year , rich with peace and blessings. "We thank all Tablet readers for their loyal support in the past, and it is a compliment to them to say that wo feel Ave may count on it in the future. It is not at all unlikely that we shall want it, and that we shall all need to stand fast together. The Editor regrets that he has been unable to deal personally with a great number of letters addressed to this column during his absence. On looking through the innumerable communications awaiting him, he found that in nearly all cases the questions had an actuals interest about election time, and that there is nothing to gain by going back over them now. If any letters that needed an answer were mislaid, the Editor hopes that the writers will be considerate enough to remember that there was an accumulated mass of letters, papers, and MSS. dating back over two months to bo dealt with, and that some tilings may have found their nay into the W.P.Ii. which did not belong there. D.B.—Letter received : thanks for enclosed verses. A Happy New Year to you. Inquirer.. —Yes, it is not unusual to grant a dispensation from abstinence from meat on occasions on which a largo number of people might suffer considerable inconvenience if no dispensation were granted. I’.J.M. — To tell the truth, wo did not. worry about the Prohibition vote at all. Like most people, wo took it too easy. Of course, it is a woman’s vote, speaking generally. The voting of the soldiers last April revealed that fact. It does seem a strange thing after that revelation that the men of this Dominion should so tamely submit to bo governed by women. No matter what pledges Ave get, no matter what other people say, we would never for a moment consent to put it in the power of politicians to control the right of a priest to celebrate Mass. As for the attacks made on us by the person whom you mention, Ave only laughed at them and him. They supplied their own best answer and were beneath contempt. They. were exactly what wo should have expected from that quarter. The only Dry District mentioned in the Bible (as far as wo remember) is Hell. And from all accounts -- Dry Districts in the United States are a rather fair imitation of the original. Our Lord and Master made wine and gave it to others to drink. That is surely good enough for ordinary Catholics to go on with. No doubt, did He live to-day. Prohibitionists would denounce Him as they denounced Cardinal Gibbons. Archbishop Ireland was decidedly not a. Prohibitionist. In the volume he published as containing his mature opinion on questions of the day, he said clearly that right reason and religion prevented him from having anything to do with the extremists, . and he made it clear that his strictures on saloons referred to the abominations peculiar to America. No second-hand Prohibition quotation is of any value against tho firstrate evidence of tho book to which he put his name, with the assurance that it contained his deliberate opinions.