POLLING DOWN STATE SCHOOLS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1919, Page 2

POLLING DOWN STATE SCHOOLS.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l notice In your Issue of August 23, another characteristic letter from Mr. John Diggins, which Is altogether too absurd to call for any detailed reply. Indeed, the whole effusion is really beneath notice, unless one cared to point out a few of the monstrosities with which It Is strewn. He tries to make out that the State schools ore the cause of whatever crime there Is in the country; but he caretully avoids the fact that it was his own church authorities who sot the Government to suppress the publication of the religion of the criminals put In gaol, because it looked so bad to be 14 per cent,...of the population anu 33 per cent, of tile criminals I Then we And him boldly declaring "that Ireland is by far the cleanest country on the face of the earth from, crime, and as far as grievances are concerned they are non-existent I" No man who was not morally hidebound would dare to make such a statement in a public newspaper. In addition to the large police force that must be kept there, there were 60,000 troops during the whole perlpd of the war, and at the present moment there are 100,0110 armed soldiers trying to help the police to keep order in the country that Is "the clearest of crimo on the faco of the earth," and whose grievances are non-existent I The fact is well known all over the world that Ireland Is a hotbed of treason, and has been nothing else during tho whole time that the British Empire was lighting for Its existence in the lato war. The British Government hands over for education in Irclnnd £2,500,000 every year, but foolishly allows the priests to handle it, and they use it lor the propagation or religious hatred. 111-will, and treachery to England. Mr. Biggins himself Is a Sinn Feiner. He has only sneers for the British Empire, altkough it Is the greatest and most worthy thing that human heads, hearts, and hands have ever built up on the surface of this globe. On July 31st lust, tho New Zealand Tablet referred to King George as being "a dog that rules Ireland." This gross Insult to the King of the greatest and grandest Empire on earth was brought under the notice of the late National Government, but so far no action that we know of has yet been taken. Here we have one of Mr. Digging Irish gentlemen, a doctor of philosophy, and reared and bred In a supposed religious school and atmosphere, throwing a low clownish insult at the leading gentleman of the British Empire.—l am, etc. J. O. TAYLOR. I.opperton, Aug. 26, 1919.