NONCONFORMISTS GAIN WHAT THEY WANT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 124, 24 November 1908, Page 7

NONCONFORMISTS GAIN WHAT THEY WANT.

"MALVERSATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY." DR. BOURNE'S OPINION. (Received November 24, 9 a.m.) LONDON, 23rd November. The Bishop of Manchester (the Riglit Rev. Dr. Knox) insists that the Nonconformists have gained every principle which they contended for under the education compromise. There has,, he says, been no such malversation of church property since the Reformation. The Bill will cause a bitter, protracted war in the village, and it is probable that some of the schools will not be transferred without physical force. The net result is the church's profound humiliation. The Rev. Dr. Clifford, the well-known Nonconformist divine, says the Bill is a solid gain to the educational work of tho nation. The Most Rev. Dr. Bourne, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, expresses a hope that he wall find the Bill the foundation of a peaceful settlement. The Rev. 3. Scott-Lidgett, president of the Wesleyan Conference, has declared that so long as the right of entry and right of assistant teachers to give denominational instruction is safeguarded by adequate regulations, there can be a settlement of the education question without any breach of Nonconformist principles. Sir J. H. Kennaway, M.P., and president of the Church Missionary Society, states that nine-tenths of the Anglican laity strongly support the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mr. Runciman. In a speech at Wooler, Northumberland, last month, Sir Edward Grey said : — "We have endeavoured to deal with the educational question in the spirit and on the lines laid down at the general election. Our policy has been this — that where there has been public money which pays the whole of the current expenses of tho school, the control of the school ought to be in the hands of a representative authority, and the appointment of the teacher ought to be in the hands of the representative authority, so that they could appoint teachers without tests and without regard to denominational belief. We have not succeeded in solving that question. Why? Because the House of Lords threw out our first Bill. Now we have another Bill, and we are doing our best at a solution of the education question. If we can solve 't by agreement and we can pass the Bill, then we shall have done a great work in removing the education question from controversy, and in enabling this country, for the first time for many years, to deal with tho question of education as a really educational interest, without mixing it up with sectarian differences and disputes. But in any case it remains the most immediate object of Liberal work, and an article of Liberal policy, that we shall not let the education question rest until we have secured a national system which is free from sectarian coi'trol."