Bigoted Attack on Puhoi

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 11, 25 March 1925, Page 30

Bigoted Attack on Puhoi

(By Rev. D. V. Silk)

The great " statesman and orator, Edmund Burke, had a straight-minded man's contempt for the baser kinds of slanderer.. Yet he declared that there are occasions when "the insignificance of the accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation." It seems to me that such an occasion has now arisen. It is a case of an insignificant, though notorious, accuser who has launched an accusation of magnitude against the great-hearted Catholics of the Puhoi settlement. The record of their early hardships and of their gigantic labors made a glorious epic of colonisation in the public press of this Dominion on the occasion of the diamond jubilee of the settlement in 1923.

The Accuser. The accuser's name is on the list of ministers of the Gospel of Truth and Brotherly Love. His name is the Reverend Howard Elliott. He acquired an unenviable notoriety at a time when the pick of Puhoi's splendid Catholic manhood was gallantly fighting and bravely dying on the sands of Egypt and the hills of Palestine and amid the horrors of the trenches of Picardy and Flanders. At that very time—when Puhoi's men were fighting against men the reverend accuser of Puhoi was —in the safety and comfort of New Zealandwaging a war . of defamation against (among others) the flower of Catholic womanhood. Before a Parliamentary Commission he admitted (and sought to justify) his having concocted a series of abominable bogus lettersso abominable that they shocked the New Zealand Parliament into shouts of protest, and moved the disgusted Speaker to order the cessation of their perusal. That bright, particular adornment of the Christian ministry did not even spare dead women in their graves. He slandered a saintly dead nun, of proven innocence. A Court of Justice approved, and public sentiment from end to end of New Zealand, applauded, when the dead nun's wounded soldier brother publicly horsewhipped her traducer in the streets of Auckland. It is difficult to imagine any methods more highly calculated to discredit religion in this Dominion, and to give to ".polities a deeper degradation.

The Accusation. The author of those atrocious bogus letters chose The X.Z. Sentinel as the medium of hi.s attack on the Catholic manhood and womanhood of Puhoi. It was an entirely appropriate choice; for The N.Z. Sentinel is the- extremest and most vitriolic type of sectarian journalism, and it has to its discredit .the publication of numerous misquotations and spurious murder-oaths that have been, time and again, exposed in the public press. The core of the accusations against the Catholic men and Catholic women of Puhoi is represented by the following extract from The N.Z. Sentinel of February 2, 1925:

SLANDERED CATHOLICS DEFENDED BY PROTESTANTS

"... have an example ready to hand, at Puhoi, in North Auckland; there • is a population wholly alien and Romanist. A priest landing at Puhoi is reported to have said: Thank God! I am at last where the Church is supreme.' The Protestants have been bought out and driven out. The writer had from the lips of the settler himself the story of his eviction, since he was the last remaining Protestant in the district. His fences were cut, his cattle driven off, his best bull killed, his sheep mixed, until it became impossible to live there, and he had to sell out for what they chose to give. him. If we are to keep New Zealand for the Englishspeaking race, and we ought, then every reader should bestir himself to create a powerful public opinion against allowing the dumping of these undesirables in this country. . ." • A Protestant Settler Replies. The story of "the last remaining Protestant in the district" and his persecution as a Protestant can only be described as itn outright fabrication. So far from the unnamed informant being "the last remaining Protestant in the district," there are at least fifteen or twenty Protestants—five Protestant families—in Puhoi, some of them residents for over half a century past. I give hereunder the testimony cf two of them. The first is that of Mr. Ernest W. Barker, one of the most popular and most highly esteemed, residents of Puhoi: "My father settled within two and ahalf miles of the Puhoi township fifty- • eight years ago. Practically every day of his life he was in the closest touch with these Bohemian settlers; they worked with him .and : for " him; he mixed .with ■ them and shared in their sorrows, and their joys; and his religious beliefs were never at any time questioned, nor did his religious beliefs prove an obstacle to him among these Bohemian settlers in even the slightest degree. "I, myself, have lived here all my life. I went to school with these settlers T have grown up with them to manhood; and neither had I nor any member of my family the slightest difference with these people in religious matters or in business. I have nothing but the highest of respect for these Bohemians—both as Catholics and as settlers in this Dominion. As Catholics they practise their religion and they feel proud of it, and for this I honor them. They never at any time interfere with the religious beliefs of others—neither with the Protestant residents in the • district nor with Protestant strangers > visiting the district. I could not possibly wish for better neighbors than I have always found in the men and women of Puhoi. I am' here voicing not only my own sentiments, but those of every member of my family.

"In 1913, when the men and women of ; Puhoi were celebrating the Golden Jubilee of this settlement, I was unanimously chosen as their chairman; and at their Diamond Jubilee here on the 29th /u June, 1923 — again did me the honorj l -'. As settlers in the Dominion, I have nothing but the highest admiration. They came here and carved themselves homes of full and plenty out of New Zealand's bush and the ti-tree where countless others would have starved. "In conclusion, I wish to state, and state emphatically, that Mr. Howard Elliott's attack on these Bohemian settlers at Puhoi is a base calumny, absolutely uncalled for, and is unworthy of one who presumes to go under the name of Christian. .'• - (Signed "Ernest W. Barker." A Protestant Returned Soldier. I give hereunder the testimony of a Protestant returned soldier, a • gallant and greatly respected man, who was fighting men when the Reverend Howard Elliott was busy defaming saintly women. I omit some •of the stronger expressions of manly indignation that appeared in the original statement of Mr. J. N. Johnstone: "I am a returned soldier. I settled at Puhoi, and within half-a-mile of the township, in 1919. I have lived with my family there since, and I have no intention of leaving. To say that the above statements re the persecution of a Protestant in this district, is ' an infamous fabrication,' is putting it very mildly. I should like to make use of some stronger languagewarlanguage, if you like, but better suited to express my feelings when I read the above article in the Sentinel. How a man could publish such stuff— matter who was his informant—and expect the New Zealand public to believe it, is beyond my comprehension. "Mr. Howard Elliott, you have been fooled once at least, as far as the Puhoi Catholics and that ' last Protestant ' are concerned. lam a Protestant, and lam still in Puhoi. You are not to worry or lose your sleep over the Catholics at Puhoi. They are not as bad as you would wish to paint them. I have lived with them now for practically six years, and I would ask for no better neighbors or bettor friends. "Judging from my knowledge of this settlement, its people, and its history, and then reading those statements that appeared under your name, I •would strongly recommend to you a vacation. . "We, returned soldiers, have the highest admiration for those who sacrificed both men and money in answer to our country's greatest and most urgent call. Three • times in the history of this settlement that call came to the Bohemian Catholics here, and on all three occasions they bravely answered that call. First, ,on their arrival '! in this country in 1863, their founder, 1 Captain Krippner, recruited all the single \ - men and all the married j. men capable of bearing arms, and with . them fought for this country against the Maoris in .the Waikato.

v"I ask you: Who had. a better right to settle in this country than the men who fought for it Yet you state that we should • create a powerful public opinion against allowing.the dumping of these unv desirables in this country.' % "At the Boer War ] the Bohemian Catholics at Puhoi again went forth to fight and even die to uphold New Zealand's honor and protect the interests of the British Empire. Were you fighting for New Zealand and the British Empire during the Boer War? "Thirdly, during the late war, had New Zealand sent to the front in proportion to her manhood, as the Bohemian Catholics at Puhoi sent, she would have sent 166,000; and had she lost in proportion she would have lost over 40,000. Again, kindly remember that Catholic Belgium, Catholic France, and Catholic Italy were v ) small factors in the Great War. "In conclusion, I kindly but firmly recommend that vacation that I have above suggested. "J. N. JOHNSTONE." - In the N.Z. Sentinel of June 1, 191:3, the following statement is credited to "the local priest" resident among the "Bohemians" (at, of course, Puhoi) "when he stepped from the train at the nearest point to his district" : "Now I am in Catholic territory." In the issue of the same- paper for February 2, 1925, "a priest landing at Puhoi is reported to have said: 'Thank God! I am at last where the Church is supreme'." The last-quoted story bears, on the face of it, the impress of being an "improved" version of the first. The present writer is probably the priest that is aimed at in both stories. So far as lam personally concerned, I can 'truthfully describe both stories as out-and-out fabrications. In the course of a speech delivered in the New Zealand Parliament in 1917, the Right Hon. Mr. Massey said in part that "no more useful or industrious immigrants came to New Zealand than the men and women at Puhoi, and, as has been admitted, they had given proof of their loyalty to the British Sovereign on every possible occasion." _4h>