Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1874. "MEASURES. NOT MEN." •

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 338, 14 March 1874, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, MARCH 14, 1874. "MEASURES. NOT MEN." •

The pressure of other matter has prevented us from calling attention at an earlier date to the results of the triennial elections to the Education Boards in England . The seats at these Boards have been very eagerly contested in all the great centres of population . From the glimpses that have reached us, there seems to have been the same recklessness of assertion ; the same display of comic etchings; the same abandonment to resurreclionary slander ; the same smartness of attack and repartee, that usually accompanies parliamentary and municipal elections. The education measure of 1870 for England, which in its worst features our own legislators have been eager to copy, lias the effect of throwing the community every three years into a state of feverish excitement, and something like the old contests of Guelph and Ghibhelm comes to be repeated. We have not that education measure before us, but from the attention we have been able to give the history of its working, we can endorse the following description of it as given by Mr. John, Bright : — "The Education 'Bill was supposed to be needed because the system that had existed up to* 1870 was held to be insufficient and bad ; and the fault of the Bill, in his mind, is that it has extended and confirmed that system which it ought to have superseded It was a Bill to confirm denominational schools, and where that was impossible, to establish Board Schools. It ought, in his opinion, to have been to establish Board Schools, and to offer inducements to those connected with denominational schools to bring themselves under the control of the Privy Council." But as, instead, .of this, it tries to gratify the rival sects, the mode of election seems to be the worst possible. To continue the quotation, • " When a contest comes for a School Board, the real question of education seems hardly ever to be thought of : it is a squabble between church and chapel and secularist, and one does not know how many besides ; and when the School Board meets, there are the priest, the parson, and the minister, and their partizans, but no free breeze of public opinion passing through them ;" and all because a measure was forced on the public that had not been properly considered" or properly discussed — just as was sought to be done with the education measure of last session in the New Zealand Parliament. There ia a feature of the English measure, viewed in the light of its denominational character, which is responsible , for no small amount of the difficulties connected with its working, viz., that of rating to support denominational schools— which, in so far as they are denominational, are placed beyond tbe control of the ratepayer. Feeling the injustice of this, many have refused to pay the rates, and been exposed to all the evils of distress warrants. This "bad feature has also . been aped in our New Zealand' measure, and if ever the day comes when denominational education is i established in Otago, we will be subjected to a similar wrong. From what we have advanced, our readers will now have some idea of the points at issue when the triennial election for the Education Board comes round, and of the interest attached %o. the j issue. In the elections that took place three years ago, the results may be pro- j nounced favorable to denom}nationa,lisjn j .

In the recent elections, the balance ia much more in favor of Board schools. In Birmingham the triumph has indeed been complete ; and a resolution has been passed which, in effect, withdraws the payment of " fees on the part of the Board for poor children from the denominational schools..^ The denominations may do so themselves if the question is a vital one to them, but the Birmingham Board refuses to do it, except as to Board schools. In London, though the denominationalists think they have suceeded, the success is very questionable. In Manchester, by means of better organisation and greater zeal on the election day, there has been a temporary triumph to the denorainationalists. But at Bradford, Brighton, Hanley, Leeds, Middleborongh, Nottingham, &c, the results have been decidedly in favor of the unsectarian candidates. Already the note of war has gone forth against the objectionable features of the measure. The Birmingham Education League is prosecuting its designs, which are to confine education to secular subjects, with liberty to ministers of religion to attend at certain hours to give religious instruction ; and at Nottingham they have had a great public meeting, and " passed resolutions calling upon Government to so amend the Education Act as to do away with sectarian contests, so that all may unite in a common crusade against ignorance." With such lessons as these coming from the old country, we ought io keep ourselves posted and ready to meet any similar attempts to foist a system upon us which shall renew in our midst all the bitter feelings of sectarianism when thrown into public contests. Bigotry, whenever it has a chance, does not scruple at the means it employs, as is abundantly proved by the facts of the last election, and it w^ll be as well for us to keep it out of our New Zealand politics.