PARTIES' PLEDGES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 98, 22 October 1927, Page 6

PARTIES' PLEDGES

BIBLE-READING Iff SCHOOLS

At its monthly meeting, tho Welimgton Labour Beprcsentation Committee unanimously passed the following Te-soluton:-"That l this meeting delires ''S BB *J»e fact that at the last General Meetion the three political parties pledged themselves and their supporters to retain the present system of free secular, and compulsory education, and any departure from that pledge deserves .to be sbgmatised as a gross betrayal that indicates unmistakably a total absence of political' morality: that the members of the Parliamentary Labou? Party are urged to continue'to oppose the proposal of Bible-reading in State schools by every means in their power, and thus endeavour to prevent the destruction of our admirable system of education and the curse of sectarianism from becoming rampant in this country; that no fom of religious £B0^ n% n° mat*er Jin what guise SrSV 6 f?iSted °n: the People V a State function, and State teachers should on no account whatever bo placth^TOli^ h6.^l^ ious P°"«°n in which the Bill, 2f it becomes law, wUI place them in; and, finally, that this L.B.C contends that the evidence tendered against the proposal, before the Parliamentary Committee by leading educationists notably Mr. J. Caughley formerly Director of Education, is Unanswerable and, if that evidence is ignored by the Parliament of this country the consequences which must inevitably ensue are too dreadful for any patriotic New Zealander to contemplate "