Evening Post. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1904. THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 133, 2 December 1904, Page 4

Evening Post. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1904. THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FENCE.

With the Rev. Dr. Gibb, we rejoice that the Premier has at last committed himself to a definite statement with regard to the subject of Bible-in-schools. He has shuffled with the question quite long enough". Eight years is surely a sufficiently long period for even, so expert a funambulist to balance himself upon the tight-rope, and it is now far more than eight years that he has maintained an unswerving equilibrium with regard to this question. From time to time powerful attacks have been organised against ihe integrity of the State school System, and its friends have in their turn rallied to its support, but the one man who, amid all the turmoil, could neither be classed as friend nor foe, but watched the course of the battle with calculated indifference, was the Premier of the colony, who latterly has been the Minister of Education also. It has amused us to find on a reference to our files that early in 1896, when the clerical party were making the same attempt with the Irish Scripture Test-book which they are now making with the Victorian Commissioners' manual, we were challenging f3he Premier exactly as we hay« challenged him again and again during the recent agitation, and his only answer was the same Sphinx-like silence which he has succeeded in maintaining till a few days ago. On" 28th February, 1896, our leading article, which discussed the meeting held in the Opera House on the previous evening to support the introduction of the Irish Text-book into the schools, concluded as follows: — "Why is it, then, that with this movement afoot in our midst, the Premier makes no sign? Why is the Ministerial journal silent on the subject? It is hard to believe that Mr. Seddon is trifling with Denominationalism, but if he is not, let him give the public assurance that he will never deflect from the national school system of the country." On 23rd April of tho same year, we again asked : "Is it possible that his moral obliquity is such that h© supposes that he can range himself with the church upon this question without a base betrayal of the Democracy? If not, why this seeming conspiracy of silence- that day by day is giving added courage and increased strength to the Tory reactionaries?" Up to the time of our last discussion of the subject, this "conspiracy of silence" was still maintained by Mr. Seddon, so far as its essentials are concerned. Numerous deputations had from time to time compelled him.' to discuss the demand for a referendum at considerable length, but hi£ own personal views upon the merits of the question to be submitted to the proposed referendum were carefully concealed, and not even at the last general election, when mapy good citizens were imperilling the educational system and the general welfare by subordinating every other issue to this single one, had he a single word of light and leading to guide the doubting voter. But at last the Sphinx has spoken, not, however, in answer to the appeal? oh the chantpions of our State school system, but Iby way of retort upon its enemies, who have proclaimed too indiscreetly their discovery that the Sphinx has been fooling them all the time*. The important announcement was made by Mr. Seddon at Dunedin on Wednesday last that "if ever the Bible-in-schoo'«s question became a" live issue, he was prepared to speak from end to end of the colony in opposition, as he was determined to pievent a return to denominational education." Our patience has 1 its reward at last ; for eight years we have been waiting for an answer, and here we have it. What 'increases the marvel is that the Premier has had the temerity to form and express an opinion upon a subject which has been a burning one for nearly a decade without the aid of a referendum or a Royal Commission. This sudden termination to a long and patient deliberative process is, we think, to be accounted for in two ways ; first, that Dr. Gibb's v truculent reception of what an official apologist appropriately terms the "supererogatory courtosy" with which he replied to the cruel aspersions of the Presbyterian General Assembly has deeply wounded him ; secondly, that his reason, chiming in with his resentment, tells him after all these years of study that the clerical side of the fence is nob the safe one to come down on. It is for the latter reason that we regard the Premier's decision as absolutely sealing the fate of the Bible-in-Schools agitation ; not that we regard his opinion on the question itself as entitled to great weight, or likely to carry great weight, but that *he is properly regarded' as more expert in discerning the signs of the times than anybody else in the country. The justice of Sir James Prendergast's equivocal compliment that "Mr. Seddon eminently possesses the capacity of gauging public opinion and knowing beforehand what is likely to be acceptable to the people" can be denied by no candid critic ; and if Mr. Seddon sees that the game of the Bible-in-Schools party is up, up it certainly is. Fortified by this confidence, the strong man has come off the i fence, and we are glad of it, but we should have thought still more highly of his skill in w political augury if he had made the jump eight years ago.