THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3020, 17 October 1908, Page 4

THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

A cablegram from London the other day stated that in a speech at Leeds, the Prime Minister (Mr Asquith) announced that in amending the Education Act the Government would assent to no settlement which left unredressed that greatest and most sorely felt injustice, the Act of 1902. The present education controversy in England arises from opposition to the two Education Acts passed by the Conservative Government in 1902 and 1903. The general election of 1906 was largely fought on their alleged defects. The Liberals and Noncon : formists object to those Acts on the grounds—That rate-aid is granted to denominational instruction—a State endowment of religion; that the voluntary school managers are four in number against two appointed by the education authority—taxation without representation —and that the teachers are not appointed by the representatives of the ratepayers, who pay them, but by the voluntary school managers. So strong was the opposition to there Acts, that it took j the form of refusal to pay the rates, which it was alleged were devoted to the payment of sectarian education. This was termed passive resistance, and many went to prison rather than pay, and this resistance is still maintained.