“PROMOTION OF PROPAGANDA”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 34, 3 May 1927, Page 12

“PROMOTION OF PROPAGANDA”

EDUCATION MINISTER CRITICISED FOR OFFICIAL ACTION BIBLE-IN-SCHOOLS (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. “Why should the promoters of political propaganda be given access to official records which would be denied a tradesman, lawyer or debt collecting agency” asks the “Evening Post” in a direct leader on the Bible-in-Schools issue to-night, with particular reference to the Bible-in-Schools League attaching the name of the Minister for Education to a pamphlet canvassing for parents’ votes. “In a free country,” it says, “there is not the slightest objection to a straw vote as long as its straw and its unofficial character is strictly preserved and does not claim, or seem to claim, any higher standing. “On the face of it the Minister was making himself a party to a singular procedure and entitling promoters to claim, and inferior education authorities to believe, that the poll w-as being taken under his auspices, but it is surely obvious that the capacity in which he was consulted was not that of a draftsman or reviser, but that of a Minister of the Crown, who had executive responsibility in the matter, and that whatever approval or sanction he gave to the draft voting paper was naturally and inevitably taken, as covering the substance of the paper and the propriety of the whole procedure. “This almost inevitable inference is confirmed by the absence of any suggestion on the part of the Minister that he has been misrepresented, and by the fact that the very form of draft, which he approved, must have included the formula ‘approved by the Minister of Education,’ which sets no limit to the scope of his approval. Whether the approval went to the form or the substance, why should not head masters be left free to exercise their discretion in their own way ?” It is with a view to ascertaining their opinions on the Hon. L. M. Isitt’s Religious Exercises of Schools Bill, which will no doubt make its reappearance during the coming session of Parliament, that the Bible-in-Schools League is arranging a plebiscite of the parents of school children. A ballot paper has been prepared, and in the various centres league representatives have been approaching headmasters for permission to copy the names and addresses of parents the school registers. The ballot paper contains the statement: “This voting paper is approved by the Minister of Education."

When the attention of the Hon. R. A. Wright was drawn to the subject on Saturday, he stated that he had been approached in the matter by Mr. L. M. Isitt, who had submitted the proposed voting paper to him for his perusal, and had asked whether he (Mr. Wright) had any objection to it. He then replied that he had no objection to the form of the ballot paper as far as he was concerned. He had pointed out, however, that he had nothing at all to do with the question of the ballot paper itself and the desire of the league to secure permission to copy out the lists of parents’ names and addresses from the school registers; those were matters entirely for the Education Boards themselves. If their approval were secured, all would be well, but if the boards disapproved there was no appeal from their decision. The Minister added that, as a matter of fact, he had been informed that at least two boards had refused to give the league access to the school registers for the purpose desired.