BISHOP NELIGAN AND PAGANISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13798, 10 July 1908, Page 7

BISHOP NELIGAN AND PAGANISM.

The following letter, addressed to the chairman of the Auckland Board of Education by Bishop Neligan, has been handed to us for publication: — Campden Hill, London W., May 25, 1908. Dear Mr. Bagnall,— The New Zealand Associated Press in London has sent me copies of New Zealand Herald containing (a) short summary of portion of a sermon 1 preached in a London church on February 16; (b) report of an interview with you in connection with that summary. The editor of the agency in London asked me for an interview to reply to your reported criticism of my reported remarks. This I declined to grant. You may possibly be aware that ever since I landed in New Zealand my rules have been—(a) to disclaim responsibility for any and all summarised reports of what I have said or may be supposed to say in public; (b) to acknowledge responsibility only for what I have myself written and printed, or for what may be reported verbatim and complete by the press. My custom has been when requested by the press to supply it with notes or MS/ of a sermon or speech, to ■ refuse such request unless the MS was to be printed in fnil. Your custom possibly may bo the sinie, and, therefore, in the report of your lemarks—Herald, April 12the qualifying words you may have used may be omitted. 1 note, however, that once you are reported as saying "if correctly reported;." when alluding to the summary of my remarks in London. I would fain hope that this qualification was repeated by you, though omitted in the reported interview. While I decline to be interviewed by newspapers on points for which, when divorced from their context, I disclaim responsibility, yet I feel that when a public" man such as you are is reported to have passed strictures on a reported statement of another public roan, it is due to ' you and your position that I should communicate with you on the matter. Hence this letter, the entire contents of which you are at full liberty to use. publicly, as you may desire. There are a few things that scent to me to be worth saying:—(1) When two men in public life have worked together and have not, in such co-operation, experienced reason to distrust each other, would it not be better for the national life, the welfare of which both xnpn have given proof of baring at heart, if they refused to pass any criticism on each other based on a summarised report in a nawspaper? You and I have worked together for university education.. I have worked for education in every gradn. hv the fullest sense, ever since I landed in New Zealand. Is it asking too Much from you and other men to judge me on my- work and authorised statements, instead of on the summarised reports of a nessp .-er? (2) Did I care to enter into controversy, based on the newspaper report of your I iterview, I would call attention to the next column af the Herald of April 2, headed "Juvenile Crime." To do so, ihowav-r, would be as wholly alien to my purpose in writing to you as it would be contradictory to what I have already written. , (3) May I ask you to be go.id enough to obtain from Mr. Cochrane, diocesan office, copies of the charges I have delivered -t the Diocesan Synod each year from 1903 to 1903? If you will do me the favour of reading the parts of those charges which have to do with education, I have little doubt that, r-o fur from being in reported antagonism to my reported summarised public utterances, you will be generally, if not absolutely, in airrcr--ment with my authorised and responsible public utterances on education.

(4) Every public statement on New Zealand education I have made in England since J came Homo I have made many times in New Zealand. They are published in my charges. So long as I have to do with New Zealand I shall continue to make the same sort, of statements. But equally long shall I use every endeavour to secure that in our national system of education—so admirable in many ways—the interpretation of the term education may become complete, instead of, as I regard it now. incomplete and partial. (5) Should you care to inform me that the report of your interview in the Herald is accurate in detail T. shall be quite willing to discuss the matter further with you ; but I prefer to believe it to be a summarised report, and, therefore, one that is net useful for public to discuss. Should you consider it wise to communicate this letter to the press, I must ask that it be published in its entirety. With kind regards, yours faithfully, M.R. Auckland. I JWe are at a loss to understand Bishop ' Neligan's somewhat enigmatical letter. It is obscure where it should be illuminating, and elusive where it should be direct. He does not deny the accuracy of the report which we published of his sermon in London; neither does he frankly admit using the words attributed to him. All he does is to' disclaim responsibility for summarised re- ! ports of his public utterances. In all courtesy we would remind him that that is not the point. Did Dr. Neligan tell his London congregation that the country people in New Zealand were in danger of lapsing into paganism because of the system of public education in the Dominion? That was the passage which Mr. Bagnall criticised, but, though the Bishop has felt constrained to address a letter to that gentleman on the subject, he neither replies to the criticism, nor throws any light on what he actually did say.—Ed.]