New Zealand Tablet Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1874 EDUCATION BILL—AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 59, 13 June 1874, Page 4

New Zealand Tablet Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1874 EDUCATION BILL— AUCKLAND.

On this subject we have but little to say to-day. Public opinion in that Province has compelled the Provincial Government to withdraw the rating clauses, and substitute something more reasonable in their place. This appears to us as the beginning of au end not very remote. The idea of taxing the entire community to educate the children of well-to-do people may be a very fine theory, and realised for a time ; but as soon as an extravagant demand for this purpose is made on every individual in the community able to pay taxes, the beauty of the theory ceases — as in the case of Auckland — to be apparent, and the justice of the demand is no longer looked upon as evident.

The Secular Education theorists are riding their hobby to death, and it is now only necessary for their opponents, whilst doing all they can as private individuals to torward denominational education, to give these gentry rope enough. The ntttr impossibility of free secular education, arising from its enormous expense to the State, is making itself felt in more quarters than one. The entire revenue of a country would not suffice to carry out their theory. "Where is a Government to find the means to educate every child in the community nolens tolens 2 And this is uhat conies of Government usurping paternal rights and duties. We have heard of late many songs of triumph at the great success of freesecular education, as in Victoria, and vi a secular system though not absolutely free, as in Canterbury. The number of schools has, we are told, increased wonder

fully, and so has the number of pupils, under these systems ; and their advocates never tire of contrasting- the state of things under the denominational system with that which obtains at present But these gentlemen, in their enthusiasm, forget that it is hardly reasonable to expect £200,000, or thereabouts, to produce the same effect as £500,000, or thereabouts. In Victoria, under the denominational system partially prevailing, the Government spent £180,000 annually for some years on public education. Last year she spent nearly £400,000, and then her public writers sing a song of triumph over the increase of schools and scholars. But has the increase been in proportion to the expenditure ? There ought to be twice as many schools as formerly — there ought to be trice as many pupils ; yet is it so J The denominational system was starved, in order that it might die by slow degrees ; whereas the secular system is forced into unnatural activity by an expenditure regardless of expense. Under the denominational system, the Government made no provision for superannuated teachers ; now Teachers are civil servants. And notwithstanding these and other advantages ; notwithstanding the enforced closing of private schools, and the denial of even the least aid to denominational schools, what is the result! With the exception of the increase arising from the increase of the population, -there are not many more children at school in Victoria at present than there were under the former system ; certainly not nearly as many as might be expected, when the enormously increased expenditure is taken into consideration. And so it is also ia Canterbury, positis ponendis. In this Province the public treasury is full to overflowing from land sales, and the liberal grants of the Government to secular education supplement aa education tax. At this moment expense is not a consideration much attended to by Government, and consequently the secular system, built up on a foundation of gold, flourishes. But the people who are paying the tax for schools are not so very well pleased as secularists would fain make the world believe. By and by another tale will have to be told. Land sales cannot last for ever — and leave, over and above all expenditure for the year, hundreds of thousands of pounds to the credit of Government, whilst in the meantime the population will be increasing. And what then ?

If at the present moment Victoria spends nearly half a million a year ia exercising pcrental rights and discharging parental duties, what will be the amount of expenditure in years, should this monstrous secular system continue so long] The expenditure will be on the increase, whilst the ability of the people to bear taxation must necessarily diminish, inasmuch as the revenue now derived from the sale of Crown lands will have almost altogether ceased, and the amount thus lost will have to be made up from increased taxation. There can be little doubt that the secular system cannot be maintained except at an expense ruinous to the Government, or most oppressive to the people. Whilst in the case of danominationalists, who maintain their own schools at their own sole expense, it will bt , as it is, the vilest tyranny recorded in history.