CATION BILL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10859, 31 December 1906, Page 4

CATION BILL

OPINION. ) this day. on a visit to DunGrange, ex-President Union of Great Britain and H° a - This famous preacher is vi-" > colonies at the invitation f ■Ptralaman Baptist Union. WHir representative and asV ■as likely that the F n t Pould appeal to th* to ■Hi© Education r ; . .. d the Khe U Go?i L °' y think ■fe*U<-. .-" likely to appeal XvK v - > V *W bring m another ■t -'i. a more stringent Bill, ! ■»• „al Bill. The whole trouble ' mP* -«*»" Ye arrangement by which the eMul 'ch. schools were dumped on B J" c fates, while ratepayers were de■Jgd control, the outcome being that the P&iMj^eusedfor the teaching of the dogTO^^^^meTsEct. The only logical outcome, so far as I can see, is secular ! education pure and simple. The noncon- ! forniists are all stolid on this question. ! We are quite prepared to accept religious ! teaching such as devotional hymns that ' are common to all churches, and doctrines m which all agree, such as brotherly love, but the Anglican Church wants its own creed and that alone, and what is likely ;to happen is that the Government will say : •very well, you are wrangling amongst yourselves as to what the religious teaching shall be, so we will cut it all out.' The free churches are determined to preserve the Protestant character. They believe that the Anglican Church is honeycombed with Roman Catholicism. The evidences of this are all around. I have been all over Europe, and I cannot see any ri .1 distinction be- ; tween the services ,m, say, the Notre Dame and those that aie conducted m '. many of the English churches. Again, i three years ago an Anglican Bishop asked j the Pope to recognise the validity of their order, and he declined. That apprehen- ( sion that mistrust of the Protestantism of the Anglican Church, is at the bottom of the objection to the proposals. We would not mind if our own English Church was truly Protestant, but it is not, and we do not want to be handed over to the priests. "The passive resistance to payment of the education rate will not drop. It will intensify. Now that we have a sympathetic Government we will make all the use we can of passive resistance. I have had by goods distrained thiee or four times. It was don© politely enough by the constables. On one occasion I deducted 2s from the rate, just by way of protest, and they seized a carriage clock worth five guineas. That protest cost me £2. People say this is clieap martyrdom, but there is not much cheapness about it when it costs a man £2 twice a year. The Act is not only bad m itself, but it is administered iniquitously. For example, it provides that the master and mistress of a school must be from the church, "and that other assistants may or may not be, at the discretion of the managers, . but the managers can fix this < up. Four of them are church representa. itives and the other two are free. It is, therefore, an easy arithmetical question as to how things will be managed. At Bedford an assistant was wanted and advertised for, but the rector- gave it out : that none but a Church of England per- : son meed apply. There were only two applications. The testimonials of the one *. ,i i* . i? « i i_ i_ a.

of these applicants did not touch fitness, but declared that she could play the organ and. was a good parish visitor, and 'she was appointed. A Girton College girl, possessing an M.A. degree, would not have had any chance. You people m the colonies cannot appreciate your freedom from intolerance." Asked as to the prospects of the new legislation on the temperance question, Mr Grange said: "They are much brighter. The Liberals have always been for temperance, and the Tory party always the other way. Mr Balfour forbade the Justices m London to cancel licenses, and openly allied himself with the trade. England might drink itself to the devil so long as the Tories were kept m. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman has promised temperance legislation. I do not exactly know what it will be, but it will not be local option." In other answers Mr Grange expressed the opinion that gambling was not guch a. public scandal at Home as it is here ; that the trend of religious. view 6 was to broaden and burst the shells of creeds;, that the struggle between France and the Vatican furnished an object lesson of Jin established cliurch ; and as one who knew France well he was sure' she would not submit.