GOVERNOR'S OPINIONS

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 31 July 1914, Page 5

GOVERNOR'S OPINIONS

His Excellency Sir Harry Rawson, Governor of New South Wales, in a public adorcss on October 15, 1906, said :— " The Public Education Act showed that the statesmen who framed it had considered it very care-

fully, fairly and discriminately; for although they had very strictly laid down the rule that religious instructiou in State schools was to be nonsectarian, they had, at the same time, opened tho way for clergymen of every denomination to teach the children of their own church. Whatever may be said about State aid in religion, there Wuld be no doubt that religion of any sort or of any denomination, in teaching the young, was the chief factor iv moulding the moral character of a nation, and morality, in the end, meant prosperity. There was not a case in'history where a nation had continued great after its religion had gone down to a low ebb."

Hard-pressed for arguments, the opponents of the referendum on Bible in Schools find themselves obliged to do some inconvenient somersauliiug. For instance, the Prime Minister has pointed out that in 1905 the Roman Catholic members of the House supported, in the division lobby, the second reading of Mr Sidey's Bill, under which a plebiscite would have been taken. A more general advocacy of the plebiscite by the Rou.an Catholic Church was referred to in a speech by Canon Gailand, who stated that a referendum in Switzerland on this subject was taken in 1882 actually as the result of a request in which Roman Catholics had joined, and upon which they united with orthodox Protestants and other religicus people generally, to vote as against the minority composed of German Radicals, Freethinkers and Socialists. Th© motto a,dop;ed by Roman Catholics and orthodox Pro"testants throughout the whole of Switzerland was *!Qodin the Schools.'' It was opposed by a bogus cry against Roman Catholicism and with a denunciation of tho danger of clericalism, He asked;' If it were right for Roman Catholics to demand aud take, part in a referendum under the cry " God in the Schools" in Switzerland in 1882. how could they iind the principle of the referendum wrong in New Z'-vland in 1914 ?

Parliamentary candidates are realising that the Bible iv Schools question is too much of a live to ho oyeilonkpd at t\\e present juncture. Mr Q. M. Thompson, Member for Dunedin J^orth, in ad,d resting his constituents recently, made n,a apology f-r handling tips subject. P[e \yas able to .-peals with t^« advantage of knowledge gained in a. visit to Australia, and he declared in favour of the (It maud for a referendum as submitted by the 53ihle iv Schools League. He quite candidly vein irked th it clergymen, as a rule, were not touchers, and that they wer '. blind as a rule to the merits of any hut their own partio ilar >l doxy," but h<< ad'.b-d : "The .noi'ale ol' o"]----[ivililic schools is very 'hiyli, and no suspicion oil sectarianism exists. 1 am an old Jiible class leader myself, and want to see the Book on which our whole system ol morals is based in the hands ot.uur children. 1 lind by Jiist-haud ibfurmation that the scheme wonts well in (iueeusland and N.S. W., therefor I iuteud to sy-.-port the refeveuuum." ' " ■ ■ ' ■ . ■■:■■■)