THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1905 THE BIBLE-LESSONS PLEBISCITE BILL

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 30, 27 July 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1905 THE BIBLE-LESSONS PLEBISCITE BILL

fDITOR PEPPER, of Virginia City, once forgot his own n(ame. The ' Bible-in-schools 'Referendum League ' never kjiew theirs. For they will not hear of the introduction of the Bible into the schools, and nothing is farther from their thoughts than an appe&l to a referendum. For a referendum, as even the Bible-in-schools clerics know, is a popular vote for the purpose of ratifying or vetoing a; Legislative Act already passed by Parliament. A mild rebuke to one of the false pretences in the title of the League is contained in Mr. Sidey's Bill, now before our legislators, amd hearing as its short title ' The Bible Lessons in Public Schools Plebiscite Act, 1905.'

Now, a referendum often is, and even a plebiscite may, possibly sometimes be, a useful resort in countries that are governed by parliamentary institutions. But, with our Bishops, we hold to the sound principle of statesmanship that no question should ever be submitted to eilncr a referendum or a plebiscite that afiects the rights of conscience of minorities. «' The rights of conscience of a minority, however small, are as sacred and inviolable as those of a majority, however great. Gold gave them. Man cannot lawfully ta,ke them away. ! To this the Bible-in-schools leaders made reply to the fojlljowiinfc effect : that majorities must rule at all fbimes and in all things. Ana* they added the callous reminder that Catholic and other objectors are free to turn themsch'es into a majority— if tney can ! Now we are democrats— not of the Atheistic, but of the Theistic, type. And being, moreover, Christian democrats, we differ radically from the Atheistic notions regarding the democracy that were, directly or in effect, formulated by the plumed field-marshals of the Bible-in-schools League We, too, stand by popular government. But we do not, for instance, hold that governments originate in mere convention ; nor do we believe in the doctrine that (as Brownson puts it) ' the people, as the State or nation, are the origin and source of all authority and all law, that they are absolutely supreme, and !b|ou]n'd by no law or authority that does not emanate from themselves.' We hold, with St. Paul, that 1 all power is from God ' ; that He. is above all peoples and States ; that lie is ' King of hings and Lord of lords "; that His law binds the conscience of nations as it does the conscience of individuals ; that the secular authoirity, no matter how constituted, can never

override the moral order ; and that justice should reign in every country as the crowned king by a right which is eternal, immutable, and divine. A government which holds not from God has no ultimate moral support, and can rule only by brute force. The will of a people organised as an empire, kingdom, republic, commonwealth, etc., when such will is constitutionally expressed, is to be obeyed when it is not incompatible with the supreme law of God, Who is the source of all authority and law. But the will of even a democracy is limited by moral and divine right. It is bound, for instance, to treat rights of conscience— which are rights of God— as sacred and inviolable. These are not of conventional origin, and can never be lawfully treated as if they had no existence. The democracy of New Zealand has never sought to override rights- of conscience by submitting them to the decision of majority votes. That proposal has come from a coterie of clamoroius clerics, who desire to create and endow a State creed, to -, shift their own proper duties to the unwilling shoulders of public officials., and to pick the pockets of objectors to meet the expenses of the process.

The voting-paper of Mr. Sidey's Plebiscite Bill is In its way a gem of purest ray serene. Here it is :—

' Are you in favor of the proposal that the public schools of the Colony shall be opened daily with the Lord's Prayer, and that in such schools Bible lessons Shall be taught to the children by the teachers during school hours, subject to a conscience clause for teachers and scholars ? YES. NO. 'If the voter desires to vote for the proposal he must mark a cross on the square opposite the word "• Yes." If he desires to vote against it he must make a cross in the square opposite the word " No." * That voting paper is heavily laden with ways that are dark and tricks that are vain. On reading it we can well understand that it is the voice of the Bible-in-schools ' Referendum ' League speaking through the mouth of Mr. Sidey. (1) The proposal contained in the question involves a complete subversion of one of the three fundamental principles of our Education Act. But the terms of reference are so worded as to sug- 4 gest to the unwary voter that the new scheme would be simply something added, by way of extension, to tho present system of State instruction. (2) The ballotpaper supooses that a radical alteration in the Act has already been decided on— namely, that the following fundamental Question has been answered in favor of th« sectarianism^ party : ' Are you in favor of the Efluca> tion Act remaining free, secular, and compulsory, as at present ? ' (3) And it is furthermore taken for granted that the only matter to be now determined is whether one particular change in the Act — out of some dozens that have been or might be S'uggdsted— is, or is not, to be accepted by the people,

Moreover : sundry leading terms in the reference are shrouded jn what loofcs like studied ambiguity. For instance : (4) It is not even hinted that the Lord's Prayer cf the schedule is the incorrect and discredited Protestant version, with all its unauthorised additions, and that, in its form and in its uistory and associatioms, it is as sectarian as the Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Confesslion of Faith, (5) Take, again, the term ' Bible lessons.' The aivcrage voter is, so far as the baillot-piaper goes, to be gulled and confused by the apparently deliberate withholding of the following vital items of information : (a) The ' lessons ' are not to be given frtfm the ' Bible.' (b) It is proposed to impart them, from a ' text-book '— whiqh text-book, having aroused very considerable opposition and deadly

«r4<Koisin— is sneaked out of view oft the free and *6<tepei*aetit elector, (c) The tex:t-baok (an importation fey the way) is 'an emasculated caricature of the Bittfe ' ; it throws overboard, for instance, the history «t the Virgin-Birth of the Saviour of the World— a concession to the ' views ' of certain lay and clerical members of a Victorian Commission who drew it up, and who, a« it turns out, do not believe in one of the fundamental mysteries of the Christian faith, (d) The TTOSHSpeeting elector is, moreover, not informed that this .©o*wMerised an-d rmittilaleil compilation of Scriptiiro lessons is taken from the Protestant (Authorised) Version of the Bible ; that it is packed with dogmatic teaching and bristling with imauthorised doctrinal headings ; an-d that ' in what is omitted, as well as in the general tone of what is expressed, the lessons are made as Protestnant as they could well (be m-ade in the circumstances.' (c) The term ' teaching,' too, is a word of Protean meaning. It may mean anything and everything from the merest grammatical explanations, on to the most exaggerated forms of unscientific ' hjigher criticism, ' and the wrangling contradictions of Reformed denomiaationalism. And (f) underneath it, all there lies, all the way, the bed-rock principle of Protestantism—the all-sufficiency of the Bible, a doctrine that is rejected by the vast majority of all uhat bear the Christian name. • # Mr. Ssdey's voting-paper is, briefly, a flagrant and clumsy attempt to hoodwink and mislead electors. It places before them, not one false issue, but several. It is studiously vague, reticent, and ambiguous It amply merits the following se\ere reproof administered by our Hierarchy to another and substantially similar referonce : 'It is difficult to avoid the conviction that the form of ballot-paper to which we allude was den'berately Jintended to confuse the electors of the Colony, and to snatch a victory by a ruse de guerre rather than by a, straightforward appeal to the country on a clear-cut and definite issue.' Questions itnolvin-g rights of conscience should, for reasons already stated, nc\er be submitted to popular vote. But if this matter of the Bible-in-schools should e\er be forced by the clamor of clerical politicians upon the democracy of New Zealand, it should be on the one fair and straight and honest issue that lies at the root of the whole question. We Catholics have no love for the secularism of our Education Act. But, as our Bishops said, 'we would rather sec it retained in its integrity until modifications are "forthcoming which would confer a substantial benctit on the rising generation, without endangering the faith and exasperating the feelings of a large class of children who frequent our public schools.'