RELIGIOUS EXERCISES IN SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23299, 17 September 1937, Page 8

RELIGIOUS EXERCISES IN SCHOOLS

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Education cannot be said to have been wholly frank in the reply which they gave yesterday to a deputation from the New Zealand Eible-in-Schools League. The members of the deputation are themselves not likely to have been deceived by the undertaking that their request that legislation be introduced by the Government, providing for religious instruction in the State schools, would receive every possible consideration. Mr Savage had already told them that it " would be madness " on the part of the Government to bring down legislation of this character while other important social legislation had to be passed. That being so, there can be no doubt about the result of the earnest consideration which the request of the deputation will receive, and the Government might just as well have intimated straight away that it had no intention of amending the Education Act in such a manner as would satisfy the League. If this had been done Mr Savage would have been spared the necessity of asserting that it would not help either the Bible-in-Schools League or help the Government—with the emphasis, we suggest, on the Government—if the attempt were made to "sledgehammer " the legislation that is sought through Parliament. The Government is not unfamiliar with the use by itself of the" sledge hammer. It has no diffidence about having recourse to this implement. But it would be unwise to deduce from Mr Savage's reference to it in this connection that the Government is at all favourable to statutory interference with the secular system of education. For our part we cannot regret this.