BISHOP MORAN AND MR GOLDIE, M.H.R.

Evening Star, Issue 8407, 7 January 1891, Page 3

BISHOP MORAN AND MR GOLDIE, M.H.R.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir,—ln a recent issue of your paper I observe that Bishop Moran disputes my assertion that some 12,000 Roman Catholic children are attending our public schools. He states that there are only 13,500 Catholic children of school age in New Zealand, and of these 11,000 are in the Catholic schools. Now, let us see how far tbe bishop is correct. When speaking upon the Private Schools Bill in the session of 1889 I went very carefully into the matter, and had the figures I then submitted carefully checked by a competent authority in Wellington. The conclusions I arrived at were as follow : —Of the Protestant community, the proportion of children attending the public and Protestant private schools to the number of the adult Protestant population was 22.73 per cent.; while of the Roman Catholics, taking into account only the children attending their own schools, the proportion to their adult population was about 10.45 per cent, so that, assuming that the proportion of children to adults is the same in both cases, then there were from 10,000 to 12,000 children unaccounted for. I think there can be but little doubt that most of these are attending public schools. So much for the bishop's first assertion. Now let us look at the second ; and upon this we can speak with greater certainty. The bishop, according to your paragraph, says there are 11,000 Roman Catholic children in their schools. Now, in July last I moved for a return of the number of private schools in New Zealand at the end of ISS9, with the number of pupils in attendance thereat. The Registrar-General has furnished the return moved for. From it we find that there were in December, 1880, 293 private schools in the colony. Of these 95 were Roman Catholic schools, with an attendance of but 9,024 children, not 11,000 as stated by the bishop, there being one school and 322 scholars less than the previous year. Now, it is the boast of our Roman Catholic friends that many of the children attending their schools are the children of Protestant parents. If this be true, then the statement of the bishop is still more incorrect than it is made to appear by the return referred to, —I am, etc., D. Goldie. Auckland, January 2.