BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS EXECUTIVE METHODS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1791, 2 July 1913, Page 3

BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS EXECUTIVE METHODS.

Sir,—ln a recent issue of, your esteemed jounirfP there appeared a series of resolutions by tho executive of tho Bible-in-Schools League. These resolutions purported to lie a "reply" to protests by me against tho misrepresentations which fill both editions of tho Leaguo Executive's official. leaflet, "Methods of Opposition." Hie following is my first rejoinder to tho executive:— "It is to mo n matter of profound regret tliat your executive has thought tit to add to and aggravate, in a second edition, tho swarming misrepresentations of tho first issue of your official leaflet, .'Methods of Opposition.' For these grave misrepresentations your league is socially and ' morally responsible, whether your official -untruths were devised directly by your executive or by your proper agents for you. You in no way extenuate .your offence, or escape from your duty of re■traction, or honourable' meet my protests, by tho pica that your relation "to this or that paid servant of your executive 13 0110 of. trust. "1. Your executive has officially stated, in both editions of your leaflet, that I accused your Bible-in-Sehools League of 'seeking to revive* legislation 'which prohibited the Roman Catholic religion/ For about the tenth time, I declare that this official statement of your exeeutivo is a fabrication. "2'. Your executive has officially stated, in both editions of the same leaflet, that I treated 'as a revival of tho penal code' the right of the Catholic clergy to enter tho public schools of Now South Wales for the purpose of imparting religious instruction to Catholic children. For about the tenth time I also describe this official statement of your executive as a fabrication. Hundreds of times over I nave publicly, specified the four penal proposals of j-our league; but this and the previously mentioned one—never. "3. Your executive has falsified a series of New South Wales official statistics in order to hold me up to public oontempt as a prevaricator. You falsified tho9a returns for tho express purpose of 'disproving' the two statements numbered (1) and (2) above—statements invented by your executive and by your executive falsely attributed to me, in order to attack in his personal honour one whose arguments you dared not'squarely face, (a) For this purptiso your executive took seven separate and independent sets of 'official statistics of New South .gales'; (b) in each of tho soven documents you struck out tho words 'Number of children enrolled' (in tho public schools); (c) in each of tho seven documents you substituted, for' the words So struck out, the widely different words, 'children , instructed' ('by Roman Catholic priests'). The words thus substituted were coined by your executive. I will not here use th© harsh term which, in law.and literature, applies to such a. manipulation of even one document, much less of a series of seven. "Here are nine outright untruths, devised by your executive for these three obvious purposes: (a) to' hold an honourable opponent up to public odium; (b) thereby to discount his opposition to certain of your J league's proposals; and (e) to capture sympathetic votes by misleading your readers into the belief that these are sample 'methods of opposition' to what you wrongly dcscrme, in the same leaflet, as 'liberty of conscience and an open Bible.'" Your oxecutivo now aggravates this deplorable scandal by 'resolving' that this nine-fold outrage upon truth and justice is an airy 'nothing' or. a matter of 'very little' account. Your executive's code of morals is clearly not the eodo of tho Christian Revelation. "Driven at last by repeated public exposures by indignant Protestants and others, your executive, after prolonged delays, made a pretence of 'correcting' those nine flagrant mis-statements in a second edition of your 'Methods of Opposition.' (1) You have 'corrected' your first two fabrications (mentioned above) by "Repeating them word for word. You have not given so much as a hint that they have even been questioned or challenged, much less that they have been described as fabrications to your executive and through the press (Protestant, Catholic, and secular) of this Dominion. • "2. In your 'corrected' leaflet your ex-' ,ecutive ; li;i.s, it is' true, cast aside- its falsified' words,, 'children."instructed'' .('by Roman Catholic priests') and substituted therefor tho words, 'children enrolled.' But (a) you' have (as pointed out to you by me) done this in small, thin typo; (b) in thick, black type, and by tho' word 'valued,' and otherwise, your executive (as also pointed'out to you) has cuiuiinsly suggested the same seven statistical falsifications as before; (c) in its 'corrected' leaflet, your executive has retracted nothing—nay, you have not given even the smallest hint that any one of your nine previous untruths has been questioned, challenged, or exposed, or that any error whatsoever has been committed by you. All this was duly pointed out to your executive. The chief difference, between the two editions of yonr official leaflet is this: that the second edition is an even graver scandal than the first. "3. (a) In extenuation of your executive's conduct, one of your paid officials has described as 'accidental' your seven set, alterations of seven official documents for the purpose of injuring an honourable opponent. Such a plea is a slur upon the common Nsense or sanity of those to whom it is addressed, (b) Your executive, furthermore, states that its 'errftr' was 'plainly acknowledged' , and 'corrected" in the Dominion of . March 27. This statement is contrary to fact. Your Dominion paragraph (written by one of your officials) is before me. So far from being a 'plain acknowledgement' of error, even its scrappy statistical reference is so studiously vague that very few readers coul'd gather to what, precisely, it "refers; whilo there is not so muoh as a hint of 'correction' of your two above* quoted attacks on my • personal honour, and to sustain which attacks your executive falsified those seven separato sets of official statistics, (c) In both editions of your executive's lamentable leaflet, yon declare that the public avowal and corrcctiou of even an inadvertent error should not be delayed 'for '0110 single minute.' In the same shocking leaflet here under consideration, your executive: is still-' officially circulating somo scores of untruths that were exposed to you and throughout New Zealand from six weeks to seven months ago—and that without so much as a "hint 011 your part that your mis-statements -have even been questioned. In tho present letter you have somo glaring instances in point. You and tho general public shall hear of numerous others at au early and opportune moment.' So, too, shall you and they have melancholy details of other vote-catching misrepresentations which have filled earnest lay and clerical members of your own several faiths with shame and indignation, and evoked protests by reputable secular and other journals in this Dominion. It pains me to the heart that your executive'has left 1110 110 choice but to denounce in such plain terms the policy of employing, in the supposed service of religion, niethod-s from,,which men of politics or of commerce would recoil. This sort of scandal is not to be combated with kid gloves and lisping accents and rapiers of gilded bul-i-iish." That, Mr. Editor, is my letter to the executive of the Bible-in-Schools League. It lias been delayed through my recent absences from home.—l am, etc., liENRY W. CLEARY, D.D., Bishop of Auckland. June 19, 1913.