THE REFERENDUM

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 16, 18 July 1914, Page 15

THE REFERENDUM

.WHAT ARE THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT? TO THB EDITOR. Sir, — Mindful of your admonition not, to trespass on your space during the session of Parliament, I intended to keep to myself any opinion I had formed on the question of the Bible in schools, being willing to leave the issue to Parliament. But so much that has been published lately shows such a vast ignorance of the fundamentals 'of this question, ignorance, too, in quartern ■where it is inexcusable, that 1 have ventured to trespass with a request to be allowed to publish some opinions which are as fresh and sweet to-day as they were when they were written, seventyfive years ago. . From which you will understand that the opinions are not my own. No, they are the opinions of one of the keenest and sanest intellects that have adorned the history of the British nation. The words of Macaulay I shall put 'n inverted commas, in order to distinguish them from the few comments I shall take the liberty of appending to them. Writing of the late W. E. Gladstone's book that purported to defend the position of the Church of England us a State Church (which was its real object), Macaulay, among other things, says some things which seem to illustrate not only the matter but the manner oF the folk in these far-off places whoso efforts at the moment- are given to the very same purposes that Gladstone defends and " 'Macaulay reprobates. ''Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and" prejudices. . . His rhetoric, though oftdn good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should illustrate.", Which seems to me to explain' why Bishop Sprott, beginning "with demanding the touchstone of the referendum, comes out plump antf plain at last with the demand for Bible teaching i» the State school as, the solo acceptable residuum. " But the doctrines ■which are put forth . . . appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would inevitably produce the dissolution of society." An opinion one may fairly recommend y to the' consideration of Bishops Sprott and Julius and of Canon Garland. "It would' be as unjust to accuse us of attackirig the Church, because we 'attack Mr. Gladstone's doctrines, as it would be t6 accuse Ikicke of wishing for anarchy because lie refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical property because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was derived from the Levitical law." Which seems to me to be .worth the mental digestion of the thousands who are being provoked to argue that the* referendum is the only way out of our present " godless " system of education. " Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests On this great fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends bf government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone " (Doctors Sprott and Julius and Canon Garland and the tens of thousands of signatories to various declarations and denunciations) "has not proved this proposition his system vanishes at once. We are desirous before- we enter on the ' discussion of this important question to point out clearly a distinction which, though very^'obvioufc, seems to 'be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual is tantamount to saying that the temporal Welfare of man is of more importance than his spiritual welfare. But this is an entire mistake. The question is not whether' spiritual interests be of be not superidr in importance to temporal interests, but whether the machinery which happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery as is fitted to promote the spiritual interests of that society. Without a division of labour the world could not go on. It is of very much more importance that men should have food than that they should have pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every piano-forte-maker ought to add the business of a baker to his own ; for, if he did so, we should have both much worse music and much ' worse bread. It is of' much more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be widely diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it by no * , means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its present functions that of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to distribute theological tracts, to send forth mm 4 s-< sionaries, to turn out Nollekens for being a. Catholic, Bacon for being a Metliodist, and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. ,For the effect of such folly would be that we should h&ve the ■worst possible academy of arts and tht worst possible society for the promotion of Christian knowledge. The community, it is plain, ( would be thrown into universal confusion, if it were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for one good object to promote every other good object. "As to some of the ends of civil government all people are agreed. That it is designed to protect our persons and our property, that it is designed to compel us to satisfy our wants not by rapine but by industry, that it is designed to compel us to decide- our differences not by the strong hand but by arbitration, that it is designed to direct, our whole force as that of one man against any other society which may Offer us injury, these are propositions which will hardly be disputed. " Now, these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which > can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be murdered, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery . . . these are evils from which men of every religion and men of no religion wish to be protected ; and therefore it will hardly b© disputed that men of every religion and of no religion have thus far & common interest in being well governed. " But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to this visible world- He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power and wisdom higher than his own; and in all ages and nations, men of all orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton ilown to the rudest tribe of cannibals, have*""believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one God or many, what may be his natural and what his moral attributes, in what relation his creaturesstand to him . < . whether his revelation be contained in any permanent record, how that record should be interpreted . . . these are questions' respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion. . ." Which at least implies a doubt of the propriety of making schoolmasters and schoolmistresses the interpreters of the Divine will, as undoubtedly, whether the four sect 3 choose to ignore op to blini: ojr tof

disguise the fact or not, will, given the Bible in schools, remain the fact. And here I may tell a little story. Years ago, before the passing of the Act of 1877, I lived with a schoolmaster, a State schoolmaster, who, of course, by his office was obliged to inter- | pret Scripture to the children as, if he were living now and in the came employment, he Would have to tlo again, supposing the four sects get what they ask for : let us put aside for good the pretence of the referendum-plebiscite. When the Bill passed, my friend — I tried to be his friend though he was pretty wayward — regretted the fact. I knew him to_ be an atheist, and expressed surprise at his concern. " Oh," he laughed, " I've had such larks explaining the Bible to the youngsters. It's quite necessary, you know, to Explain everything. I just take the chapters as they come, and do that." He. was a profound fcholar and of exceedingly irregular life. He had the most complete library of pornographic literature I have seen. I often had to desist from arguments with him on serious subjects because he would never admit the Bible as a serious ground of argument and persisted in ridiculing it — he had the only copy I ever saw of the comic Bible, by the way — and so I could imagine how he 'would- deal with the explanation of the "second chapter of Joshua, verse 'one, for instance, or Genesis xxxviii. 9, or the story of Uriah the Hittite's wife. Yes, I know how he would be limited now ; but if Doctors Julius and Sprott think they could shackle a man like him they are mistaken. And I know all three. Macaulay goes on : " Now, here fre two .great objects : one is the protection of tho persons and /estate's of citizens from injury ; the other is the propagation of religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can well be imagined. The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in which we live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond the reach of our senses. . . Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance of the fornler object, and as to the way of obtaining it. differ as widely as possible respecting the latter object. We must, therefore, pause before we admit that the persons . . . who are entrusted with power for the promotion of the former object ought always to use that power for the promotion of the latter object. __ . "Mr".' Gladstone conceives that the duties of Governments are paternal; a doctrine which we shall not believe till he can show us some Government which loves its subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as superior in in- | telligence to its subjects as a father is to a child. . . If Government be indeed 'to pan' ■ in ' moral science, we do not understand why rulers should not assume all the functions which Plato assigned ,'to them. ( Why should they not' take away the child from the mother, select the nurse, regulate the school, overlook the playground. . . ? Why should they not choose our wives, limit our expenses, and' stint us to a certain numbet of dishes of meat, of ' glasses of wine, and of cups of tea?" Theft Macaulay goes on to expose the fallacy of 'Gladstone's arguments in favour of a State Church, right or I wrong, true or false. A State Church is not the question here ; so I pass his exposure over, except to remark that a- State' religion is very decidedly the question here. The freedom Of thought, especially religious thought, that so much | of the best blood o? England has been shed , to seotire, so much of otherwise good government has been wasted in trying to bridle, that overthrew the best Government, the most powerful Govern- ■ merit, religious fanaticism ( apart, that ever made the English " name respected; in whatever quarter of the globe it was heard, is now offered in this playground of the experimentalist for curbing and bridling bythe'will of a majority." Let' | these experimenters know that they are tryirig no new thing : it is as old as history, and apparently, to judge by their acts, history is as futile of lessons as it, after years of misunderstanding and embitterment, if it come to pass, will prove to be. But to go on. Macauky, quoting Gladstone, writes: " The -doctrine which ' must surely command universal assent ' is this, that every association of human beings which, exercises any power whatever, .that is to say, every association of human beings, is bound, as such association, to profess a religion 1 . Imagine the effect which would follow if this principle were really in force during four-and-twenty hours. Take one instance out of a million. A stage-coach company has power over its horses. This power is the property of God. It is used according to the will of God when it is used with mercy. But the principle of mercy can never be truly or permanently entertained in the human breast without continual reference to God. The powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals, acting as a stage-coach comuaiy, can only be secured for right tises Dy applying to them a religion.

Every stage-coach company ought, therefore, in its collective capacity, to profess some one faith, to have its articles, and its public worship, and its'tests."' Sir, I am afraid you will not stand any more. But I can reasonably hope, in consideration of the august company in which I present myself, that you will give me leave to offer so much as the foregoing to tho cogitation of my fello\v-citiz3hs.— l am, etc., W. Wellington. 15th July, 1914.