[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Siii,—After you published, on 'November 13th, a letter of mine under this heading, the postman brought me .many anti-Popish tracts, together with earnest advice on the salvation of my soul ; but no Protestant has joined in the pursuit of truth by sending me investigable particulars of the Church of England Newspaper's dreadful statement that General Franco's forces have shot or burned alive many Evangelical workers in Spain.
As it was Dr. Inge who used your widely read pages to give more extensive currency to these charges, I have asked him to co-operate in clarifying them ; but he returns the amazing answer that he has not " associated " himself with them. Meanwhile the Editor of the Church of England Newspaper flatly refuses to put me into communication with the con- tributor to his pages who declared that Catholic priests had- " gathered to enjoy the spectacle of the murder of a Protestant pastor." My letters to anti-Catholics in Scotland and in Ireland (where these awful tales were told to the United Synod, in the Archbishop of Dublin's presence) have brought no answers.
I am entitled to ask that the accusers shall now give precision to their accusations. As reproduced by Dr. Inge, they _did not contain one name or one firm date. Moreover, they abounded in such phrases as "it is reported " and "report says." Not in such terms does English justice allow an indictment to secure a true bill.
Only in. one instance did the Church of England Newspaper give even an approximate date. This was the statement that • "the pastor at Valladolid was, with his family, cast into • prison -in the first days of the occupation," and that "time prison was deliberately fired and the inmates burned to death." This fearful story I am able to refute completely. The only Protestant pastor in Valladolid is. an' Englishman, Mr. Fred Gray. As he is a widower whose' wife never bore him children, General Franco could not have incarcerated' and incinerated him "with his family." Mr. Gray is Still alive ; and his Protestant chapel is open. He has not been arrested or molested. No prison in Valladolid has been burned.
I think your readers will agree with me that the prosecution is hereby placed on its defence and must either substantiate its odious charges or make an adequate apology for them.—
62 Dean Street, London, W.1.
[We have also.received a letter from Col. P. W. O'Gorman, 3, St. Johns Road, :Harrow, enclosing a copy of a signed statement from the .Rev. Edwin Henson, .President of the English College, Valladolid, confirming in every particular the statements in Mr. Oldmeadow's letter.—En. The Spectator.]
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