EDUCATION RATES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 160, 2 June 1876, Page 8

EDUCATION RATES.

To the Editor of the Colonist. Sic, — In your leader on Tuesday last I noticed the following sentenoe concerning the education rates : — "Though objections to pay on the ground of conscience are practically unknown in Nelson, another spectacle is presented in Auckland." As the above might mislead many of the present population who have not been long settled in the Colony, I wish to refer them to what took place some years ago here in Nelson. In the year 1856 great debates were agitating the commu»ity concerning an Education Bill. An education rate was proposed by the Government, and great opposition was made ; a petition signed by all the Roman Catholic ratepayers, 62 in number, was presented to the Provincial Council of Nelson, and another petition headed " Religious liberty " was presented to his Excellency the Governor of New Zealand, against the rate, declaring that such a syatem was an absolute violation of religious liberty. This petition was signed not o > ly by the Catholics, but also by a large number of Protestants, altogether 335 adults, which number at that time represented a large majority. Besides, there were public meetings throughout the Province, protesting against the rate on account of its being a violation of religious liberty. Placards were affixed in town and country, several ratepayers refused obstinately, objecting on the Bame principle to the payment of the rates, and the resistance was so strong that some had their goods seized and sold, while some were imprisoned for refusing to pay. It is only a year or two since the Church of England clergy, in their Synod, endeavored to obtain religious teaching in the Government schools. The ' Nelson Examiner,' in its leader of June 14th, 1856, said, " The Education Act passed by the Provincial Council in itß last session has become all at once exeessirely unpopular, to judgej udge by the correspondence on the subject which has appeared in our columns, the memorial against it lately forwarded to the Governor, and the public meetings which have been called to concert steps by which the operation of the act ma/ be defeated. . . ." After this narrative I fail to see that " objections to pay on the ground of conscience are practically unknown in Nelson." It is true that on account of the impossibility of obtaining their object, the opposition are for the present obliged to remain inactive ; likely also many, by their great desire of seeing the Abolition of Provinces become a fait accompli, consider the time inopportune ; but the moment that the Government undertake to establish a purely secular system of education, it is pretty certain that the old embers (now apparently extinguished) will be re-kindled, for long experience has shown that the establishment of purely secular schools means an increase of immorality and crime, while the religious system unquestionably has the reverse effect.— l am, etc., A. M. Gabin, P.P.