L—l3b

28

[H. W. CLEAKY.

Mr. McC'allum: This is iill matter for cross-examination. Jt is oleverly put in there to discount Bishop. deary's evidence before the matter came before us. That is all good crossexamination, every bit of it. It is must improper it should be there, but it is proper for you to bring it up and confront Bishop Cleary with it. Witnest: May 1 point out that 1 and my fellow-Bishops arc accused of playing a double part and not being straightforward with your Committee. I am prepared now to stand any amount of cross-examination by Canon Garland or by othei members of the League in regard to our past and present declarations upon (his subject, and to give him the fullest opportunity of testing whether we are straightforward in this matter or whether we are not; and when the proper time conies 1 will compare our fixity of principles and our fidelity to principles with the contradictions and the shifting of positions which have marked the League and the League's propaganda as long as I myself have been acquainted with the League's methods— from 1893 onwards. Cai/iiii Garland: 1 regret if we have been guilty of a breach of privilege, because we would not deliberately do that. lam quite sure that when that was inserted we did not know that we were doing anything improper for a moment. Mr. McC'allum: We do not suggest that for a moment. 24. Canon Garland.] The only point 1 wish to make is thai we did not comment there on the evidence given. It was on other statements that were made prior to this. As a matter of fact that article was actually written by Mr. Wood a week or more before this Committee sat. I should now like to ask Bishop Cleary a question arising out of a question which he has already answered. The Bishop said, if 1 understood him rightly, that the Roman Catholic Church is the only body which has spent money in biblical instruction !— My studied statement on the matter is that the Catholic Church is the only body which has made continuous and steadily increasing sacrifices for the instruction of children in religion in primary schools. 25. Does Bishop Cleary think that all the Sunday .schools of all the other Churches represent no sacrifice of money, or labour, or energy—l refer to the buildings, and the teachers, and the material/ 1 recognize the work which is being done in the Sunday schools. Apart from this question and apart from my evidence I now recognize, and have recognized in the past, the work done in the Sunday schools by the people of other faiths as well as by our own. My answer referred exclusively to what is being done in the primary schools. I did not refer to Sundayschool work at all. 26. 1 am anxious to draw attention to the fact that it is not the Roman Catholic Church alone whi'jh cares for the religious welfare of the children, but the other Churches care in their own fashion —that is. in Sunday schools, the only opportunity that is available to them, they spend tens of thousands of pounds and an enormous amount of energy .'--1 was dealing exclusively with this question of what work is being done in the primary schools. The campaign that is going on at present, in regard to which you are seeking evidence here, is not a campaign in regard to Sunday schools—it is a campaign in regard to primary schools; and 1 think that in regard to these there has been, apart from the work of a small body of men, gross neglect by the great body of Bible-in-schools clergy. To prove that I have shown their great neglect of the opportunities winch they have under the present Act, and I have quoted a parliamentary return of the 2nd November, 1903, pages <S and !). Another tiling I have proved is this: that the clergy's work in New South Wales under the religious system has simply gone to pieces; that the schools, so far as the clergj are concerned, might almost be pagan schools, or, as one man said, they are resulting in materialism. 27. May I ask if His Lordship regards the Roman Catholic schools, which are under Koman Catholic control, as part of the State school system of this Dominion? —That question involves a distinction, and the distinction is so obvious a one that I think it might easily have occurred to Canon Garland. It is a public-school system in one sense —that we are doing work on the very same lines as the public schools, following the public-school programme in every detail, and being subject to public inspection. In that respect we are doing a public work and our schools are public schools. But officially they are not classified as public schools. That is the distinction. 28. What I want io get at is the fact that the other Churches outside the Koman Catholic Church do spend money for the religious instruction of their children, but they do not spend it by opening schools in opposition to the public-sohoo] system of the Dominion. May I ask the Bishop another question 1 He spoke of the Roman Catholic teachers in Australia as violating the principles of their faith by handling these Bible lessons. I for one cannot imagine such a thing, because of the immense numbers of Roman Catholic teachers who give these lessons. Ma\ I ask the Bishop if he has any evidence that his own Bishops in Australia have ordered the Stair school teachers who are Koman Catholics not to continue violating their faith?—l do not exactly know what position the League organizer is taking up in connection with this question. I do not know, in the lirst place, whether he is questioning my statement that these so-called iinsect arian Bible lessons are opposed to Catholic principles. 29. No; I accept that?— Now the question he puts is. Why do Catholics go into the schools in New South Wales? 30. I want Bishop Cleary's explanation of the fact that the Koman Catholic teachers do give these lessons, notwithstanding the fact that it is against the principles of their Church?— 1 have the answer to th<' question in this statement that T brought this morning. It sets out the whole thing clearly, and distinguishes those who know our principles and those who do not; those who know our principles and carry them out ; those who know our principles and defy them (j e f y them because they are being practically bribed by public funds into infidelity or disloyalty to their faith. In my statement I say this : Catholics ignorant of Catholic principles and Catholic