ATTACK ON AUSTRALIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13579, 28 April 1906, Page 7

ATTACK ON AUSTRALIA.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN' SCHOOLS. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, April 27. (Received April 28, at 1.40 a.m.) The Western Morning News has published ail interview, purporting In have been given by an unnamed Australian Agent-general, and warning Englishmen not te adopt Mr ]!irrell's Education Bill, which is described as being simply a so]) to Nonconformists. The interview states that all talk about plain liible teaching awl about telling murals without a dogma was tlit? veriest nonsense. The experiment, had been tried in Australia, and the result was that Ihe State schools were not merely unchristian, but were anti-Christian. Another result was the empty cradL l . People here had no conception of the condition ut' ati'airs prevailing among Australian young people. Modesty and lcfinement had vanished, and the Australian girls and young ladies were very different lo those in the Motherland. The streets of Australia were iilled with larrikins with no morals, who were a danger to the community. A mighty revolution was setting in in the colonics, and parents were demanding a referendum in favour of definite religious instruction. Wherever the referendum has been granted a threefold majority had been obtained.

The Agent s-geut't til have published a signed statement repudiating the interview as a gross attack on the Australian education system and on the morality of the people of the Commonwealth. The Western News thereupon withdrew the article, and expressed regret that it had been inserted. The paper stated that the report had been received with credentials, and intended to make further inquiry.