THE IMPOTENCE AND BOASTS OF SECULARISM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1222, 2 September 1911, Page 14

THE IMPOTENCE AND BOASTS OF SECULARISM.

Sir, —About two years ago, all Now Zealand,w,as\ wondering at. tlio audacity exhibited ta Kir .Robert Stout in telling a "Daily. NpVs" representative ' that "denominational schools produce twice as many criminals as the secular." Statistical tables wero searched by his fellow secularists, who, however, .were compelled to.take refuse, behind .tlio absurdly improbable statement that Sir' Robert had and would produce the wonderful figures. Perhaps now they hope lie will not attempt to produce them. It is understood that he denied something after his return, but. not precisely''tlio language the "Daily News" attributed to him. At any rate, ,tho "Daily News",l'oport .of Sir .Robert Stou't's representation >of the-case in New Zealand is now being tfsed with"great glee by English secularists, as an article oil lialley Stewart in tlio Nineteenth Centurv for April will show. Ilis friends thought they could justify Sir statement and'fallacious conclusion 'bv Roman Catholic criminal statistics. "But grant that the alleged statistics prove the of even lioman teaching, how does secularism-it«elf stand? lload the "Spectator" of May_G;.'l9ll, page GB7, whero a correspondent, Evelyn Hubbard, gives the result of his inquiries from French correspondents on the subject of the substitution of secularism .for lioman religious teaching in France. 'He is told: "It is certain thatith.e want of religious education greatly affects the morale of those educated in Government schools, and if these youths do not belong to sonio family whose good principles counteract the disastrous influence, they will fall an easy prey to the passrons and to vice. The godless schools, as they nro called, are ■ the worst evil due to tho Republic, pud specially to , the Government of the last ten'or fifteen years. Our youth is now deeply imbued with bad principles by masters who have 110 principles themselves for us to expect any rapid recovery from this depltfi'able sfcuc of things. Our country is not indeed wanting in honest folk. CrimitfSls, thank God, are still a minority in our land, even though tho statistics published by the Minister show, an alartujug, .increaso of crime. "Wo do not v/ant to blacken our country, but wo must recognise, that thoso progressive evils are ominous for tho futuro of our country. Every ago and every country, unfortunately, have their black sheep, and though one must not. generalise from particular instances, our country seems to be more exposed to the contagion than others* by reason of .our famous 'State morality/; so'niuclrextolled by the schoolmasters and- educationalists of todaw" ■ '.Now, tho moral deterioration that. is happening in secular France is happening in secular New Zealand. Mr. W. T. «Tennings has just declared in Parliament: "I regret that there is a development of a national trait that to me as a fsow Zcalander is painful. I do not intend to refer .to it at any greablength, .because •what is going on is but too well known to thoso who aro watching tho papers. I Tcfer to the various cases of peculation that are becoming too rife everywhere in the Dominion,' and there -.are many cases that aro hushed- up, and those we do not hear about or see probably ex-, ceed thoso we read of." From Parlia-ment-let us go to.the Supreme Court. From your "Law Reports" of this morning, we 'learn that at the opening yesterday of the criminal .session, Mr. Justice 'Chapman was "sorry _ to say that session after session in this cqurt they had before them in a marked decree a number of ofFonces of a sexual kind, ami added: "In some parts of this province there must bo a very unhealthy state of affairs, morally speaking. Mr Robert Stout did not inform the Daily News" representative of th?so bad symptoms. Yet plague spots have unmistakably appeared of such an lrrarticabln character that «ven severe sentences did not appear to have the desired effect of reducing them to any extent. .Our fcaro'het'(should it not be a capital B? and Sir' J;. Findlay have spoken wildly -in EiV'lahd and Sir Robert Stouts cry of "False, absolutely false," in answer to charges made against the morals of ISew Zealand, fed 011 his specific of secularism is by facts 'referred to in Parliament or on the Supreme Court Bench, seen to be wild also. 'A false ,r inception. is created and on the authority of prejudiced' remarks is published and repeated in order to reduce the better system of England to the more than doubtful ono of New Zealand.—l am, etc., '. . PHYLAX August 15, 1911.