CATHOLIC SCHOOLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 48, 26 February 1923, Page 7

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS.

THEIR CLAIM ON THE STATE. REMARKS BY BISHOP LISTON. (By Telegraph.—Special to "Star.") HAMILTON, this day. The refusal of the New Zealand Government to grant assistance to Catholic schools, was referred to by Bishop Liston at the opening ceremony of the new Marist Brothers' school at Hamilton, yesterday. While England, Scotland, Canada, and other countries under the British flag subsidised or helped in different ways their Catholic schools, New Zealand and Australia, he said, were the only places in the Empire that declined to assist them. In Ireland Catholic framere of the law laid it down that nonCatholic schools were to receive State assistance along with Catholic schools, and this decisoin met with the approcal of the population, which was almost entirely Catholic. If this could be done in a country where non-Catholics were only one in fifty, surely the Catholics of New Zealand, who numbered one in every seven, had a right to expect Government assistance for their schools. Catholic ratepayers, added the bishop, would like to see their money spent in their own schools rather than in schools which they in consequence could not use. It was only a matter of justice that this should be, and that the present anomalous position be altered. Catholics were not opposed to State schools as such, and in many ways they admired public school teachers and matters pertaining to these institutions; what they wanted wae more of a national system of education under which their schools would be recognised as being of just as much importance in the educational advancement of the country as State-nin schools, and receive State assistance accordingly.

In countries in which God had been banished from the schools, continued his Lordship, there was an appall'ng lack of knowledge of things spiritual noticeable amongst young people. It was small wonder that immorality and lawlessness were so prevalent. Catholics, he said, realised that their children must be educated as far as practicable in a religious atmosphere, and accordingly they were determined to have their own* schools and to continue building them despite the fact that they received not a penny from the State. The tide would turn, remarked the bishop in conclusion, when matters would be looked at in a mor«, broadminded way, and the rights of Catholics as contributors to the welfare of the country would be more fully recognised.

COST Or EDUCATION

ROMAN* CATHOLICS' BURDEX. (By Telegraph.—Press Association^ WELLINGTON, this day. Opening a new Roman Catholic school at Seatoun, Archbishop O'Shea said Catholic of the Dominion contributed in taxation about £360,000 annually towards the State education system, and were also educating nearly 20,000 children in their own schools, thus saving the Government about £200,000. It seemed to him that some at least of the money paid by Catholic taxpayers should be spent on their schools.