RELIGIOUS EXERCISES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 25, 29 July 1926, Page 10

RELIGIOUS EXERCISES

INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS

OPPOSITION TO HON. L. M. ISITT'S BILL.

Two petitions have been lodged in the Legislative Council raising objection to the Religious Exercises in Schools Bill, introduced by the Hon. L. M. Isjtt.

The first petition is signed by T. A. Hunter, of Wellington, and six others (Hugh Mackenzie, I. L. 6. Sutherland, E. J. Boyd-Wilson, A. C. Hall, F. P. Wilson, and A. R. Atkinson, all of Wellington). They state that for many years past, through the foresight of our pioneer legislators, no sectarian friction has been possible in connection with our national system of education, and that during those years nothing has occurred to discredit the equitable system of free, secular, and compulsory education. During those years every attempt to introduce religious instruction into tho schools had been defeated, and records showed clearly the grounds on which tho present system had boon maintained. At the last General Election all political parties accepted as part of their political platforms the , maintenance of the education system now obtaining, and this subject was not an issue. Tho petitioners ask that before the Bill is considered by the Council they shall have an opportunity of showing why it should not be allowed to pass. EOMAN CATHOLIC VIEWS. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland (tho Rev. H. W. Cleary), in a lengthy petition, states that the Scripture lessons and exercises proposed to bo read in schools were derived from a sectarian version of the Bible,_ and from forms of religious exercises unacceptable to the conscience of a considerable section of the taxpayers. The teachers would conduct thesa lessons irrespective of their rejjgious beliefs, and in the event of conscientious objection, the duty devolved upon the local school committee. Petitioner states that this is in effect a scheme to enable the clergy of certain denominations to abdicate, in part, one of tho chief duties of the Christian ministry, and to impose it upon tho State officials or school committees. Teachers who are adherents of the Boman Catholic faith, he says, are among those who cannot in conscience conduct .such religious lessoub as are contemplated by the Bill. In thoir case, and in the case of objecting teachers generally, the assumed protection of the conscience clause would be illusory. The petitioner complains that the Bill provides no protection for conscientiously objecting taxpayers, and submits that it would levy compulsory contributions from objecting taxpayers of various beliefs to satisfy the requirements of only one kind of religious conscience. The Bill, if passed into law, would thus legalise unequal treatment of religious conscience. It would place some in a position of '. :gnlised inferiority before the law, and put into practical effect the evil principles of taxation without the fact or hope of benefit. The conscience clause for pupils in the Bill was the notorious one devised for proselytising purposes in Ireland, which, in that country and in Australia, was made the instrument of grave oppression of consciences, and it was long ago abandoned in the land of its origin because of its evil results. The only fair conscience clause would be one permitting attendance at the proposed religious lessons and exercises only to those children whose parents bo requested in writing. These exercises, being devoid of definite religious instruction, and the still more vital matter of religious training, and carried out in a non-religioug atiliosphere, would fail to leave any definite or lasting religious impression on the children in the schools. There were serious objections, too, on the part of some of the clergy of denominations other than those represented by the petitioner. It is asked that opportunity be given for objections to be heard before a Committee of the Council.