THE EDUCATION BILL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 439, 13 September 1877, Page 3

THE EDUCATION BILL.

(To the Editor of the Mount Ida Cheontcle.) Sib, —It is not unsatisfactory to note that Catholicg throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand, with but very few exceptions, are, as with one accord lifting up their indignant voices against the cruelly illiberal, almost, it might be said, tyrannic Education Bill the Government (mis-Government!) of this Colony is attempting to forco upon them. A few places, though, yet remain without making any sign in this regard, and amongst these is the locality of Hyde. Now Hyde has a majority of its population professed adherents of the Homan Catholic communion—most of them fathers of young and large families. They surely up to this time, under the old regime, have had bitter woeful experience of Government schools. The new system, from all that can be learned with regard to its contemplated provisions, is not likely to be an improvement on the existing one. Will these Catholics tamely prepare themselves to sit under its baneful influences P Or will they, like their other confessing coreligionists in this New Britain of the South, go in with might and main against any Governmental tampering or tinkering with their civil and religious liberties in the way designed by the glaringly unjnst framors of this iniquitous measure. I hope and almost feel sure that they will not be renegades—most of them hailing from the land consecrated by the' great St. Patrick to the service of the Almighty, tlio land in which the faith has been transmitted, pure and unbroken, from sire to son /nathless a persecution Draconian in its severity. Again, I must say, I believe they .will not prove degenerate descendants who battled against the fearful deathly odds of the penal laws, and who, by doing so, gave to their children a heritage which neither "rust nor moth can corrupt," n dowry numbered amongst the imperishable things, and not of this world,'but of the kingdom of Heaven. It remains now for them to speak out on behalf of their creed, and that too, quickly, for time is precious, and the devil stalkcth about in the'secret places of the Legislat are, eager for the sore heart or destruction of my Catholic confreres.—l am, &c., Catholioos. Hyde, 11th September,