BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3824, 28 July 1928, Page 3

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS

A PRIEST’S OFFER. “MASTERS” OF LABOUR PARTY. Auckland, Thursday. Mr. Norman Burton, who just recently retired from the editorship of “The Church Gazette,” writes with reference to the Gondringer millions: —“My sporting instincts are stimulated by the offer of Father Gondringer and his Amcrican multi-millionaire uncle to bet £250,000 to a duck’s egg that it is impossible to prove Canon James’ assertions that the Roman Catholic authorities are masters of the Labour Party. I think it can be proved, and here is the proof. It is the will of the Roman Catholic authorities that the Religious Exercises Bill shall not pass, and that there shall be no referendum on the Bible-in-schools proposal. The Labour Party relies largely on the Roman Catholic vote. The Labour Party is doing its utmost to block the Religious Exercises Bill, and has gone out of its way to make the opposition to the Bill a party matter. It also strongly objects to a referendum being taken on the Bible-in-schools question. This means that, as regards this one question and only this one question, the Labour Party jettisons the referendum, which is one of its fundamental principles and one of the chief planks in its platform. “As far as the Bible-in-schools question is concerned, the Labour Party’s policy has been brought into line with the policy of the Roman Catholic bishops, and when the Labour Party achieved some success in 1922 Bishop Liston exclaimed: ‘Thanks be to God, the Labour people, our friends, are coming into their own, and please God we, too, a minority, will come into our own.’ As people naturally support their friends, we may safely assume that the Labour Party received the Roman Catholic vote.

“The only rational conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that the policy of the Labour Party, as regards the Bible-in-schools question, is controlled by the will of the Roman Catholic authorities, The dictionary states that a master is one who directs or controls, therefore it is right to assert that the Roman Catholic authorities are the masters of the Labour Party. Q.E.D. Have I won the bet?”