AN OLD SLANDER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14972, 19 April 1909, Page 6

AN OLD SLANDER.

It is a pity that tho advocates of Bible reading in the State sohools should imagine that they arc helping their cause by decrying tho present system of national education. Tho Wellington gontloman ivlioso letter wo publish this morning provides a very good illustration of their methods. "New Zealand," he writes, " banished tho Bible from tho Stato schools some thirty-five years ago, with tho result that there are a great percentage of young men, native born, in our gaols, and tho effects are seen in other directions." Our correspondent does not say in so many words that tho native-born population furnishes a larger proportion of the criminals of tho country than the foreign-born population does, but evidently that is what he wishes tho public to believe. Happily, it is easy to show that it is entirely contrary to fact. In the last Official Year-Book, in the chapter dealing with crime, tliero aro two paragraphs referring to this very subject which will explain tho position more clearlv than would tho mcro figures by which they nro preceded :

Among tho Now Zealand-born population of European descent there is evidence of loss drunkenness' than among persons who have come from abroad. At tho census of 1906, out of the total population of New Zealand over fifteen years of age, 55.75 par cent were found to have been born here; while the proportion of tho convictions for drunkenness of New Zealand-born Europeans to the total convictions was, in the year 1908, about 20 per cent only. While the New Zealand-born formed at the last census 68 per cent of the whole population, they contributed in 19C6 only 33 per cent of tho prisoners received In.gaol. Of the New Zealandhorn population, however, a large number are under fifteen years of age, a period of life at which there are very few prisoners, and, therefore, another comparison is' necessary. It is found that the New Zealand-born over fifteen years formed 56 per cent of the total population above that ago; but, as before stated, New Zealandors contributed only 33 per cent of tho total number received in gaols.

These extracts will dispose of the suggestion that the New Zealand-born population is contributing moro than its sharo to the ranks of tho criminals of the dominion. Our correspondent will contend, of courso, that the nativeborn population would appear in a still more favourable light if it had enjoyed tho advantage of religious instruction in tho State schools, but against this wo may point out that fully 90 per cent of tho foreign-born population has come from countries where this advantage is provided. Far more criminals come from Great Britain and Ireland than aro born in Now Zoaland, and yet in all tho Homo schools religious teaching, of one kind or another, occupies an'important place in tho syllabus. Wo aro not suggesting for a minute that this teaching leads to an increase of crime-there are other causes to which the discouraging statistics of the older countries can be attributed—but wo want to protest very strongly against the reiteration of tho slander that our system of education is "ungodly," and that its effects aro seen ° in a. growing disregard for tho law. a