PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

North Otago Times, Volume CV, Issue 13930, 12 July 1917, Page 2

PROTESTANT POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

AUCKLAND MOVEMENT,

TEACHERS AXD MILITARY BEBVICE, . (Per Press Association.! AUCKLAND, July ]], A crowded meeting at the Town Hall to-night inaugurated the .Protestant Political Association. A resolution was carried expressing hearty approval of ( thp national system of 'education in vogue in Xe,v Zealand, as', opposed to the sectarian system, and its determination to strenuously combat all attempts to interfere with the religious liberty which the national system affords, also congratulating the Minister of Educa- ■ tion on his firm opposition to the grantf iufi of State aid to Roman Catholic Schools.

Another resolution 'affirmed that: "The Protestants protest against the glaring injustice being; done to them, Nip teachers, and the children of the ; Dominion, and especially to the men of the Second Division, by the preferential treatment of Mnrist and Christian Brothers, in respect to military service; further, the meeting- considers the placing of the teachers in the Second Division, in the list of essential workers, when practically the whole of the eligible teachers of the First Division, and 'many of the Second Division, have volunteered, is extending fmUicr protection to the Marist and Christian Brothers, which only adds to, ami intensities the injustice already done by protecting them against service, while hundreds of their,fellow-teachers, whose claim to exemption is just as valid, have been compelled to go to the front. The meeting .therefore calls upon the Government to take action to ensure that these private school teachers render due service to the Empire, before the men of the Second Division are called upon to the places that jingle men of the Marist and Christian Brothers oii"ht to fill."

A copy of the resolution is to be for warded to the Prime Minister.