Series 01 Part 02: Hughes family correspondence, 3 April 1917-22 September 1918 - Page 225
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[Page 225]
4.
three children in all, the other day. I don't know what moved John to call on us 'on his own'. I was wondering if he had anything on his chest that he couldn't get off, owing to the presence of the Mullinses, or perhaps he only wanted to talk over the Mannix row that is going on now in the Sydney papers.
Since I last wrote to you events have been moving rather rapidly, but to let you understand the real position, I must go back a little. Shortly after Archbishop Cattaneo, the new Papal Delegate, got to Sydney, Dr Mannix the Archbishop of Melbourne, began to resume his campaign against conscription, and incidentally advised his people in Melbourne to put Australia first & the Empire second. He had some months previously talked about the present war as a "sordid trade war".
Some people came to me and urged me to get Charlie Heydon the Judge of the Arbitration Court to go with me to Cattaneo & ask Cattaneo to suggest to Mannix to moderate his ardour. Now I don't want this part of the story to leak out to anybody. Heydon & I talked it over, & ended by going to Rockleigh Grange & having a solid hour's hard talk with Cattaneo. We put it to him quite apart from politics, & expressed our fears that if Mannix went on as he was going, there might be serious trouble, & the loss would be to the Catholic Church. We told him that Sheldon & I had gone to Archbishop Cerretti last year when the last Referendum on conscription was on, & that Cerretti