PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2013, 22 September 1892, Page 32

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

"The Bible-in-Schools Advocate" is the title of a paper with the subheadiug " Mental Mutilation of the People's Children by Exclusion of the Bible from Public Schools," issued by Mr P. B. Fraser, M.A., Waiareka School, VVeston, for free distribution. Of the first edition 4250 copies were distributed, and of the second 5000 copies have been printed for distribution. The paper is vigorously written, and even those who cannot endorse the opinions of the writer cannot fail to be interested in his method of stating his case. Mr Theodore Napier, hon. treasurer of the Scottish National Association of Victoria, has just issued a pamphlet entitled " Scotland's Demand for Home Rule, or Local National Selfgovernment : An Appeal to Scotsmen in Australia." An idea of the arguments advanced may be gleaned from the following extracts :—: — " We are quite willing to admit all the benefits owing to a union betweeu the two countries ; but we maintain, all those blessings would have resulted as well from a federal as from an incorporating union, and without the manifest disadvantages of the latter. And this is where the mistake has beea made. Had the old Scottish Parliament followed the advice of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, and provided for a federal union between the two nations, each retaining its own Parliament in their respective capitals for the management of local matters relating to each country ; and advocated besides a United Federal Parliament for the mauagemeut of the affairs of the United Kingdom, there would have been no necessity for the present agitation for Home Rule; and, moreover, each nationality of the Uuited Kingdom would have had lawß passed by their respective Parliaments in accordance with the expresseed wish of. the peoples of those nationalities . . . Over and above this Scottish Parliament, there would have been a uuited federal one, probably sitting alternately in London and Edinburgh, and having more equal representation than is at present the case in the Imperial Parliament. . . . If Scotland has prospered so much in spite of the one-sided Treaty of Union, how much more would she not have prospered, one may reasonably ask, if the union had been a federal instead of an incorporating one ? And does anyone mean to say that the increased contentment and prosperity of Scotland would tend to cause her to separate from England and Ireland ? Surely none but fools would argue in this strain.

" It behoves all who love their country to remember that the principle now at stake is — Whether England shall for ever rule Scotland, and she become a province of England ; or whether the liberty and rights of Scotland are worth preserving and struggling for to maintain ? Through the cupidity and traitorous action of our ancestors, who 'sold' their country's liberties for • English gold,' we have lost our noble old Parliament— a Parliament thafc framed Iftws <jhat were in advaape of those

— h. 4 of England by two centuries; and, instead thereof, we have to face a Parliament of which there are nine stranger votes to every one of Scotland's, and that, too, in questions that refer only to Scotland."

From the head office of the Agricultural department wo have received copies of the Drainage Bill and the Codlin Moth Bill.

The little work on " Prescribing and Treatment for Children," by Philip E. Mushetb, a notice of which appeared in these columns a year or two back, has been so well received throughout the colonies and at Home that the publishers have found it necessary to issue a second edition, revised and enlarged. The colonial publishers are Messrs Angus and Robertson, Sydney, to whom we are indebted for a copy of thi3 useful brochure.