MEETING AT NASEBY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 228, 14 September 1877, Page 7

MEETING AT NASEBY.

fFroni the Mount Ida Chronicle, Sept. 6th.) A meeting of those of the Catholic persuasion was held in St Patrick's church, Naseby, on Monday evening last, to consider the Education Bill recently introduced into the Assembly by the Hon. Mr. Bowen. Mr. Brookes occupied the chair, and there was a goodly muster present. The Chairman explained the object for which the meeting had I^een called, and requested Mr. Kelly to read some remarks made by ' . Fish at a recent meeting of the Dunedin School Committee winch had reference to the question. Mr. Kbi.lt then read the report of the Committee meeting, from which it appeared Mr. Fish thought the Catholics had been misled with regard to the Bill, and asserted that they could confidently expect the forbearance which the Committee was at all times willing to give them. Mr Fish was of opinion that parents, instead of being fined forty shillings for a breach of the Act, would only be relieved of the nominal penalty of one shilling. The Chairman then called upon Mr. John Dillon to move the first resolution. Mr. Dillon said the resolution he had to propose was a copy of one passed at the recent meeting of Catholics in Dunedin, and was as follows : — That in the opinion of this meeting, the BUI introduced into Parliament by the Minister of Education is a gross insult and a flagrant injustice to the whole of the Catholic community, seeking, as it does, the compulsory support of a system of education which is in direct antagonism to the faith they profess, and is an outrageous violation of both civil and religious liberty That it is, further, a gross injustice to Catholic teachers, who would thereby be debarred from having charge of schools towards the support of which their co-religionists have been forced to contribute. He expressed his opinion that the Catholics of Naseby were justified in being guided from the head of the diocese. Education was a question which had been agitated in the colony for a long time, and had been nobly agitated since Bishop Moran took charge of the diocese. That gentleman had been outspoken and frank in his opinions with regard to this great question, and the Government could not shelter themselves with the excuse that they did not know the views held by Catholics anent this vital matter. Their belief was that religion and education could not be separated, but that the one must be interwoven with the other. By such a system they would train law-abiding and good citizens. No Government had a right to put their hands into the pockets of the parents and take therefrom the amount of £4 for every child of the prescribed age by the proposed Bill. In fact, he denied the right of any Government to educate the people according to its will. They knew from experience that undertakings (such as railways and other public works) managed by the State had been expensive and not as well executed as they would have been by private enterprise and he be- j lieved that private enterprise could and would educate the people far cheaper and better than the State j hence they said to the Ministry — " Keep your hands out of our pockets ; pass a Bill if you desire, and make it as penal as you please against the parents and guardians who neglect to educate their offspring, but give them the right they undoubtedly have of being the sole guardians of the faith and morals of their children." With reference to the remarks made by Mr. Fish at the recent meeting of the Dunedin School Committee, to the effect that the Catholic meeting had promulgated ideas contrary to the spirit of the Bill, he had a short statement to make. Mr. Fish had said that Catholics would not have to pay the full fine, but would generally be let off with the nominal penalty of one shilling. It appeared to him that Mr. Fish had assumed the character of a " Cheap John " at a fair, who said he would not take forty shillings for an article, nor even twenty shillings, but he'd let them have it at one shilling ! Now, what was the article ? It was the humiliating position of bowing under the yoke of magisterial jurisdiction — a position he hoped no Catholic in this free land, this land of liberty, would ever appear in. So far as the guarantee that in the majority of cases only a nominal penalty would be imposed, and the overture he offered of the " forbearance " of the Dunedin School Committee were concerned, one of his colleagues (Mr. Sherwin) might, without any great strain being brought to bear upon his memory, have brought under his notice, as he did under his (the speaker's) some thirteen years ago, a passage in a speech of a Mr. Patterson, member in the Provincial Council of Otago at the time, where he was reported in his place in the Council when alluding to a request that had been made by the Executive for the use of the Court House for Catholic worship to have indignantly said — " No ; not only would he deny them the use of the Court House, but the right of Popery to land on these shores." That portion of Mr. Patterson' 3 speech, by Mr. Sherwin's own desire, was read to him abthe public meeting of electors in Dunedin, and Mr. Patterson did not deny having spoken in the manner reported. He was hooted at the meeting, but to show how insincerely the expression of public opinion was carried out, he was returned on the polling day, which was a plain proof that they could not put much faith in Mr. Fish's volunteered forbearance, which they as Catholics looked upon as impertinence on his part. If Mr. Sherwin had the paper containing Mr. Patterson's speech, and presented it to the Museum, he (Mr*. Dillon) would undertake to find a glass case for it. In his opinion, the Catholics were in the same box as the Jews. [A Voice : So we are.] Aye, and they could look back with pride at their land being the only country in Europe where the Jew had never been persecuted for his religion. Mr. M'Cluskey seconded the proposition, treating his subject in an able wanner. The resolution was then put and carried unanimously. Mr. Kelly had much pleasure in proposing the second resolution: That a great wrong is offered to the Catholics Of New Zealand by those clauses of tho Bill in question which relate to certificates of exemption, because such clauses, if carried into law, would result iv tbo abolishment of our Catholic schools, and the

forcing: of Catholic children into Government schools in violent opposition to the conscientious convictions of their pareatet As the resolution said, a great wrong was sought to be inflicted on Catholics by the Bill it was proposed to make law, and against which they were assembled to protest, because it would ultimately succeed in closing their schools. How did it do this ? First, by depriving them of all Government aid ; and in the second place by the prohibitory clauses in the shape of exemption certificites, as no child whose parents or guardians lived within two miles of a Government school was allowed to enter a private school until he had obtained a certificate from the committee of the Government school or the teacher thereof, which placed such embarrassments in the way as would fioally abolish Catholic schools altogether. People told them there would be very little trouble in obtaining these exemption certificates from their Protestant neighbours. If not trouble, however, there was much humiliation and annoyance, which should not be imposed upon them in a free country like this. Was it not humiliating for a parent who happened to reside within the prescribed distance, and who wished to send his chiidren to a private school, to be compelled to go to the authorities pray, ing for liberty to do so, and then possibly to be refused ? For these gentlemen must be satisfied that the child would receive efficient education elsewhere before the law entitled them to grant a certificate. Perhaps they would tell them the child was not receiving education equal to their standard, and that therefore the parent would have to send his child to a Government school, where the Committee thought he would get sufficiently taught, and where, if the parent was'un willing that he should read a Protestant Bible, he could grow up a heathen for all they cared. Was not that a step towards the abolishment of Catholic schools ? Was not the law which tended to fledge a man with such authority an insult to Catholics ? It was a gross injustice, for Catholics maintained that instead of religious education being denied their children altogether, it should "form the chief part of their daily instruction. While they valued secular education equally with their fellow-colonists, they esteemed religious instruction more, because without it secular education was deprived of its real and true advantage. Therefore they could not raise their voices too loudly or too vehemently against a law which sought to deprive them of the means of giving practice to these convictions, which were the dictates of conscience. The frauier of the Bill had ignored them altogether, or otherwise had anticipated that he could trample under foot their mo3t sacred and cherished rights of civil and religious liberty. It was provided that a parent living within a radius of two miles of a Government school who refused after he had been remonstrated with to send his child to a Government school was amenable to the law to the extent of forty shillings— yes, fined that sum for keeping his child away from that place against which his soul revolted ; punished for not sending him to a place where he would receive no religious education, not even a word about the great God who made him, unle33 he dropped across it in the school-books, which they might be sure would not contain much t 'atholicity in their pages ; in a word, fined for refusing to have him proselytised. Placing such weight on the possession of religious education, in the absence of which immorality and vice and many other evils were sure to.arbe. Catholics would persist in and submit to no other system of education than one they were able to produce, — such a system as they had already inaugurated by their own entire and unaided exertions, and solely at their own expense. When the Government sought to abolish their schools altogether, it was treating them ignominiously, cruelly, and tyrannically. He had little doubt that the resolution he had proposed would be unanimously carried. Mr. Gallagher regretted that the meeting had not been able to find a seconder more fit than himself to do justice to the resolution. Mr. Kelly had not left him much to say. If the Bill were made law, it would deprive them of the liberty they had hitherto enjoyed in New Zealand, and deal a deadly blow to the Catholic religion. The Minister of Justice — or rather, Injustice had attempted to deprive them of their freedom, and, ju the event of the Bill becoming law, it would have to be forced on them in a manner which would reflect little credit oa the authors. If the ballot-box went round he believed the Catholics would be in the majority, as there surely was not an Englishman in the colony who would see them branded in the way attempted in the Bill. The resolution was then put, and carried with cheers. Mr. B. Gordon moved the next resolution, — That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to Mr. De Lautour, the member for Mount Ida. He had no doubt Mr. De Lautour would do his best to oppose the Bill. When he (Mr. Gordon) landed here he thought he was in a country where he would be free, but he was mistaken. Were they going to be degenerate sons of noble fathers ? No. Why should they not protect the faith of their children ? They had a battle to fight ; there was a trying time coming. He was as ready to serve his God as his noble ancestors were many years ago. Mr. A. M'G. Brown, who seconded the resolution, said the Bill was an insult to the flag of Britain. Ha did not believe the Bill would pass. Hon. members had constituencies to look back to, and he was sure, if they voted for the Bill, they would be greeted with mor.e groans from the electors than cheers. The resolution was put, and carried. Mr. Kelly then, by request, read the speech delivered by Bishop Moran at the Dunedin meeting. Mr. Dillon then proposed, Mr. Cogan seconded, and it wa3 carried with acclamation, "That a vote of thanks be passed to the Chronicle for the impartial and unbiassed reports it had always furnished of Catholic meetings." Mr. Dolamobe briofly acknowledged the compliment The customary vote of thanks to the chair brought the meotin*. which was of a most orderly character, to a doge.