Untitled

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 102, 7 December 1878, Page 2

We have before us a report of Ihe last Wednesday's meeting of 'he south Canterbury Board of Education, and we are sorry to say tilings are not mending, it is the same old story, Barclay versus Gillies. On a previous occasion it was the Gillies party in office, now that party isousted, and theßarclaypartyhasthereins of Government. We have heard certain parties, who are named as probable candidates for the vacant seats in the Board say that if the two rev gentlemen remain in office they have no wish to enter such a bear garden. Were any cue to recktn up the time occupied by these two rev gentlemen at Ihe Board's meetings, he could not.help exclaiming, " Save us from our friends." In the present instance the opposition benches have the best of it. When the Gillies party introduced their measures some time ago, the Barclay party a>ked for, and were allowed, time to consider them, the result being that they and the district committee condemned them. The party now ruling ha\e introduced their measures, and the oppostion very naturally asks time to consider the Bill. No, say the party in power, you must swallow it as we present it to you, and having a majority of the House at their back, they ni;ike them do so. This would be nothing remarkable, as the whole proceedings of the Board have become a farce, notorious all over the provincial district of Canterbury. What we object to is the arbitrary proceedings of the party in power towards the local committees Are they not to have a voice in the matter as well as in the last Bill? We, ourselves, see grave objections to the Bill We are verv much mistaken if committees will not have grave objections too. The Gillies party may, as well as the Barclay party, look" at these Bills through jaundice:! eyes. We expect more than human nature is capable of if we expect it to be otherwise, it is different*; with the committees ; they can look at them with infinitesimal ly less prejudiced eyes. They are consequently more likely to come to a more impartial decision. In any case it is out fair that the same latitude in the matter should be given on the one side as was given on the other, but which it seems is not to be allowed. How the committees will receive this treatment we we cannot tell. One thing we can say, that every respectable settler south of the Rangitata must by this time be heartily tired and ashamed of these clerical wrangles. As for ourselves, we are of the same opinion as we expressed at the commencement of these meetings, that no clergymen ought to be on these Boards at all. A great cry was got up by the clergy when the Denominational Bill was introduced that so much time be allowed each week for the clergy of the different denominations to instruct the children of their congregations in the doctrines of their church. We are curious to know how many applicants presented themselves for this privilege in Canterbury. One thing must be said to the credit of the various bodies, that excepting the two Presbyterian clergymen, no others have come forward for election, and we think these two would have been better employed in instructing the young of their parishes, than bringing disgrace upon the bodies to which they belong by such unseemly exhibitions as we so often hear and read of. We wish they had the good taste to resign, but this wish is useless, and unless they retire of themselves, their election is always a certainty. Clergymen can easily overawe illiterate parishioners into voting for them. The age of clerical tyranny has not yet wholly gone by. There are still some who think it next to a crime to speak even the truth about a minister. The world is advancing, and intellect will very shortly make this remnant of superstition disappear.