ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

New Zealand Tablet, 13 January 1921, Page 17

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

N. W. —Whatever we think of your opinions ■<■ there is no ; doubt rat ;all.about your infallibility. We told you { that ; our rule 7 regarding anonymous " letters -was : made by a man who is now Heaven. With marvellous modesty •- and courtesy that 'is worthy of the€hinese Court you say :r "I : take the liberty of saying that -I think you were not correct - ; in saying" ; ; so. You then assure us that Dr. Moran made no. such rule. But is Dr. Moran the only man; in ?a7 position 'to have made it who had a chance of-getting to Heaven? For your information we beg to say that Rome appointed the Right R ever end ' Michael. Verdoii, Bishop of Dunedin, ,: m 1896, and that he : lived until 1918, during a period of twenty-two years, and that he was all that time chairman of the N.Z. Tablet Co., in which capacity he made the rule of which 'you disapprove. We thank you for your quotation from Donald Hankey (Long may the road rise to him !). That note on Cromwell's clear recollection of having been in the state of grace when he slaughtered the people of Drogheda is a gem. Probably .we shall next, hear that Lloyd George got his Balbriggan inspiration after receiving Communion in an Anglican church, that he gave his father-in-law the "Dope" job. after appointing the Dean of Durham to a bishopric, and that his breakfast with Cardinal Gasquet gave him the grace to murder poor Terry Mac Sweeney.

U.K. (Southbridge).— regret that we have not space for your articles. Until, it is possible to enlarge the paper we are compelled to discourage correspondents. We cannot change any of our present features, and we have all too little room for reproducing the best and freshest articles wo can find in our exchanges. For a long time past we have had to exclude short stories, very much . against, our own inclination. We have even had ■ .to insist % that our : poets should : attend . strictly, to ; the rule that quality comes before quantity. And, . as far as v articles; on Ireland are'concerned, we do K; our best/."to keep our. readers up-to-date, .and in , -order to do so as well as we can it becomes necessary now and then to refuse contributions which, however much we would like to publish them, would encroach too much on our space.

Seagiian. — lt is not seditious to advocate a republic whether in Ireland, England, Australia, or elsewhere. That has been decided more than once, by, „ competent authorities. Of course it is probable that lawyers like Sir Francis Fell, judges like Sir Robert Stout, and statesmen like Lord Liniavaddy might -say otherwise, but that only confirms the truth. We have come to such a pitch of confusion now that we . are content to be ruled by men and not by laws, and the men who rule (or misrule) are incapable of framing- a decent law. Hence the N.Z. Parliament is a football kicked hither-and thither by every rau- ' , cons parson, every portly profiteer, and every big- . i oted paranoac who is able to collect a crowd and make noise enough to be a nuisance. As for Con- ■ / - scription, we always held and still hold that no -.-. r. Government on earth has . a right to send a man to fight unless he is willing to go, and, , holding that, what can we hold but that our Brithuns who forced Conscription ,on * the people areymandlaughterers ? ' A just war ? What did Lord Lbreburn say about it? C.J.P.—We have certainly seen , the '. statement , that ■■ the early I Christians were - Socialists,-- but : it is a v- case where seeing is not believing. We -have also seen it stated by the editor of a Labor . paper y _ that neither the Pope nor the editor of the Tablet Iknows anything about Christian principles. '•" (We do get ijnto good, company now and then.) One . of these days we will deal at some length with the alleged Communism of the early Church. Talk-

ing of our good company reminds us that we were told of a pious and fair spinster who recently proclaimed in a hotel (no insinuation intended) that if she had her way she would take Dr. Mannix, Dr. Kelly, and her parish priest out in a boat and drown them. How nice! We mean of course how nice of her to put us in the same boat as Dr. Mannix. The parish priest whoever he may be ought to be as proud as we are. Compare these statements concerning Christians and clergy with Cromwell’s as already quoted and it will help you to realise that the old Irishman who said that he never saw a crowd without a few Square fellahs” (or “quare wans”) in it, was right. We do get a deal of fun out of the ex cathedra pronouncements of those folk among us who have the reputation of beikig more Catholic than the Pope and more loyal than the King. The lady in church, with a traveller on her hat, was not the only one to suggest—--0 wad some power the gif tie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!