THE following resolution by the Dunfermline Protestant Defence Association has been sent to the principal members of the Government and His Majesty the King:—”That the Dunfermline Protestant Defence Association strongly condemns the action of the present Government in handing over the government of Ireland to Popish priests, and bringing Sir Antony MacDonnell, a bigoted Papist and Home Ruler, from India to act as Under Secretary for Ireland; that his merciless treatment of Constable Anderson is on a par with the priestly persecution of Dreyfus; that we deeply sympathise with the priest-ruled Protestants of Ireland; that the advent of Cardinal Vannutelli—travelling in his Papal robes and accompanied by his suite—as the Pope’s legate to this Protestant country (being the first since the Reformation), and his repeated visits to and dining with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as also the constant honour shown him by the Under-Secretary, as well as the Chief Secretary, for Ireland, all demonstrate a Government intrigue with the Vatican; that the Government having sown the wind will ere long reap a Popish whirlwind; that this Papal legate journeyed through Ireland as a sovereign receiving greater enthusiasm, honour, and glory than our King; that the Corporations, including that of Dublin, which openly ignored and showed disloyalty to our King, ostentatiously displayed their allegiance to the Pope, and presented loyal addresses to his legate, and honoured him with banquets, at all of which the Pope was first toasted and the King insolently ignored; that at a banquet at Armagh on Sabbath, 24th July, attended by a thousand guests, including the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Antony MacDonnell, Under-Secretary for Ireland; Sir John Ross, Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, the first toast was that of the ‘Pope,’ and the ‘Catholic Herald’ boasts that the King was deliberately passed over and ignored, never being once
mentioned. ‘The Tablet,’ ‘Freeman’s Journal,’ ‘Catholic Times,’ &c., confirm this, yet the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Antony MacDonnell, and Sir John Ross made no protest, and thus connived at sedition; that on 11th August the Papal legate, on his return to London, held a royal Court, surrounded by his suite, when seated on a gilded throne, resting on a dais, ‘the great majority knelt to receive the Cardinal’s blessing and to kiss the fisherman’s ring;’ that the same evening, at Norfolk House, the Duke of Norfolk gave a dinner in his honour, no Royal toast being mentioned. Among those present were the following members of the Government, which strengthens the charge that the Papal legate was connected with a Government intrigue with the Vatican, viz.:—The Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Privy Seal; the Marquis of Lansdowne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Mr. George Wyndham, Secretary of State for Ireland, &c.; that, fearing an outburst of public indignation, on 9th August, an inspired announcement appeared in the newspapers that ‘the Cardinal will not visit the King,’ and that we rejoice that the King kept on the move, and thus prevented the Government getting His Majesty to make further humiliating homage to the accursed Papacy, and so weakening the stability of the throne.
“In name and on behalf of the Dunfermline Protestant Defence Association,
“JACOB PRIMMER, President.
“WM. WALLACE DRYSDALE, Secretary.
“Dunfermline, 13th August, 1904.”