PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 145, 19 June 1918, Page 6

PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

A HUGE GATHERING. SECTARIAN SCHOOLS. A meeting of the Protestant Political Association was held in the Town Hall last evening. The building was packed almost to its utmost holding capacity. Hon. W. Earnshaw, M.L.0., who was greeted with applause, presided. The Ne Temere decree, he said, alone was sufficient to make the young people of this country rise and.say there should be no more of it. With regard,, to the Marist Brothers, he would challenge any man in this country to say that the Government did not exempt them under coercion from the Roman Catholic Federation. It had been said that the Protestant Political Association was against Labour, but this he characterised as a lie. The Rev. Knowles Kempton also spoke. Rev. Howard Elliott, who was received with loud applause, alluded to the recent schools committee elections, and stated that throughout New Zealand the elections had everywhere resulted in a win for the Protestants. He referred to a paragraph which had appeared in the Auckland Press in which he expressed regret. This, he said, had been interpreted by some as a wholesale apology. It was no such thing. There were some things connected with the Post Office inquiry that had been made public which they would always regret, but they had no intention of apologising. Their only ' regret was that some of the matter was used to the detriment of the individual. He complained that in New Zealand 3000 children were carried every day to Roman Catholic schools, free of expense, to build up their school system, and scholarships had been quietly granted to various Roman Catholic institutions. Every amendment that bad been made'to the Education Act during the past eleven years bad been in favour of Rome The following resolutions were carried: "That this meeting of the Protestants of Auckland, while moat desirous to assist and loyally support the National Government during the period of the war, and especially during' the present grave crisis, does most emphatically protest against the partial and discriminating administration of the law in favour of Romanism in the suppression of Protestant literature on the ground that it may be offensive to Rome. This meeting, while affirming its loyalty to the Government and the Empire, regards such actions by the Government as tending to destroy that confidence in the National Government which is so essential at this time." "This meeting of the Protestants of Auckland demands that the Government shall withdraw all concessions now being made to sectarian ' schools in the shape j of free railway passes to children and to I nuns, scholarships and non-taxation of Roman sectarian schools, as being contrary to the intentions of the Education \ Act and in defiance of public opinion in' New Zealand. Further, in view of the demands which will be made upon our boys and girls to maintain the peace and prosperity of this Dominion after the war, this meeting calls upon the Government to take steps to ensure that the national system maintains its superiorI ity to every sectarian system of educaI tion by reason- of the treatment of the teachers, the provisions made for the children, -and through ' the facilities offered for a modern education, being convinced that thereby the State will secure for the future 'a competent, loyal and progressive body of citizens." _ '• The meeting'concluded, with the singing of the National Anthem.