THE REFERENDUM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 58, 30 June 1914, Page 4

THE REFERENDUM.

The Otago Daily Times, in a recent issue, thus comments on the suggested Bible in Sciiools Referendum :—-A» the principle of the referendum seems to us to be soundly democratic, we cannot view with disfavor the proposal, embodied in a Bill of which the Minister of Education has already given notice, that the voice of the people should be taken on the Bibie-ia-schools question so long as the issue is stated in terms that will admit of a fair expression, of popular opinion. The controversy on the subject has unfortunately not been free from a certain amount of confusion any more than it hag been free from a manifestation of personal feeling. The objections that have been urged in opposition to a referendum have in many cases wholly missed the mark. These have been cogent, arguments against any abandonment of the principle that the State shall preserve its neutrality in the matter, of th ' religious instruction of the young. They are arguments consequently that may be appropriately applied to the pioposals which the Bible-in-Schools League desires to have submitted for an expression of the opinion of the electors. But they arc not arguments against the referendum. To the proposal fer a referendum we can see no reasonable objection; to the proposals which are to be submitted to the referendum, if the claim for a popular vote is acceded to, we can see distinct objections. It is important that, the public should discriminate between the method which it is proposed to adopt in order to ascertain the popular will and the subject upon which an expression of the popular will is desired.