MEETING AT HOKITIKA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 228, 14 September 1877, Page 15

MEETING AT HOKITIKA.

On the evening of the 27th August a numerously-attended meeting of members of the Catholic body was held at St. Mary's school. The Rev. Father Mabtin was voted to the chair, and introduced the business of the meeting as follows : — The Education Bill now under consideration by the Parliament of New Zealand contains more dangerous provisions than most people were aware of. Catholics were entirely ignored, although no one would fancy that such was the case, seeing that they formed a little over one-tenth of the population of the whole colony. Should it come into force, the Bishop of Dunedin had stated that it would inflict irreparable injury upon the rising generation. The resolutions of the Hill were calculated to effect nothing short of that. The Catholics were free citizens, and under any Government Bill should have their share of the revenue, to which they contribute in rates and taxes. Under this Bill they were forbidden any benefit whatever in respect to education. Catholic teachers could not accept employment under it, and the schools put up at much expense by Catholic committees would be shut up. It was quite unfair. He believed there were certain resolutions to be proposed, and urged those present to express their views freely. If they disapproved of any of the resolutions, let them, as free citizens, exercise their free will and say so openly. Mr. D. Lynch rose to propose the first resolution, which was as follows : — That in the opinion of this meeting the Education Bill now before the Parliament of New Zealand is unju&t dud oppressive to the Catholic community, as it purports supporting only a system of education m which Catholics canuot participate—it beiug in dnect antagonism to their faith -and also debarring Catholic teachers from accepting- offices m the Government schools. The mover : There are clauses of the Bill which have my strongest opposition, and in the face of the unanimous expressions of opinion of the Catholics of Dunedin, Wellington, and elsewhere, it is unnecessary for me to say much. The clauses are alike unjust to parents, teachers, and children. One clause states that the school shall be opened with the Lord's Prayer and the reading of the Bible. This is against the conscience of Catholic teachers, who would thus be driven from the colony or have to seek other employment. It is a blow against the liberty of Catholics, and, should it become law, will they abide by it ? (No, no, and applause.) The consequence will be endless rows and fines, unless we send our children to schools where the Bible is read without comment. (Hear, hear ) The speaker read several clauses of the Bill. There is nothing of this kind in the National Schools of the North of Ireland, and the system there works with harmony. I hope that the Government will remove the objectionable clauses from the Bill. Mr. Jas. Mulligan seconded the resolution. He said : It is a very hard case if, in a free country, we are compelled to support a g^jKfess system of education. Now is our time to upset the Bill, and not allow it to become law. We want to share in the money to which we pay. I hope that all Catholics will combine and carry euch strong resolutions, that the Bill will never come into force. Mr. M. Houlahan rose to speak to the resolution : I came twentyfive miles to-night to enter my protest against this iniquitous Bill, as I regret that no meeting has been held in my own district, and I had no chance of attending the meeting at Kumara ; so I came here to-night. I hope that not only Catholics but all liberal-minded Protestants will give a hand to upset this attempt to force upon us a godless system. In the colony of Victoria, one-fourth of the population are Catholics, and it has been found that they are as* good colonists as the Protestants, and should have equal privileges. The gauntlet has been thrown down ; we must assert our right to educate our children as we like. We pay for education, and want a fair proportion of what we pay. A leading prelate (long may he live !), the Bishop of Dunedin, has said that this Bill was an attempt on the part of uneducated men to force their views down our throats. We will not have it; we will never swallow it. (Applause.) Mr. Crofts (Catholic school teacher at Kumara): I rise to support this resolution condemning one of the most unjust, iniquitous, and insulting measures that was ever submitted to a British Colonial Government. I need offer no apology for coming down to Hokitika after my day's work to assist at your meeting — to denounce this cruel measure — for the Church may be likened to the human body : when one of its parts is affected, the whole is grieved.

We might reasonably aav, as Irishmen, that we have had our full share of persecution. We thought we had drunk the dregs of the " bitter cup" previous to 1829. and that we should never experience a revival of the 300 years of persecution which ended in emancipation. But religious intolerance, which has become an exotic in England, is about to be introduced, cultivated, and fostered in the parliamentary hot-house of New Ze iland. One of the youngest and most democratic of English colonies is goin» to have her future history darkened and disgraced in the first session of her consolidated Parliament by a man who, by some mysterious design of Providence, has glided into the position of such serious responsibility as Minister of Justice ! who libels the name of justice in framing an Aot of Parliament to rob a large section of the community of their just share of the public revenue for the education of their children, and attempting to entrap Catholic teachers to re» nounce and violate their faith. If he ever studied history, he should know that England was only wasting physical, moral, and pecuniary strength for three hundred years on the same object to no purpose; and after repeated attempts at even extermination, when all other means failed — by hanging and disembowelling, by the sword and famine —she gave it up in despair ; and the Irish are more numerous to-day than ever, and their faith as sound and strong, and their love of learning as intense, as in the days when their missionaries went all over Europe to teach and evangelise. But what the mighty parent of that great empire upon which the sun never sets has. failed to accomplish in three hundred years by the unscrupulous use of all her resources, of men and money, of power and patronage* of cajoling and intimidating, of pen and tongue, the Hon. Mr. Bowen, the Liliputian Bismarck of New Zealand, is about to attempt. Luckily for the Catholics he has neither the ability nor the support which the famous German Chancellor has at his command, as this Act would, no doubt, be succeeded by more vigorous measures for the total suppression of Catholicity in New Zealand. I tell the hon. gentleman plainly, that, if ever this Bill becomes law, the Catholics of New Zealand will not obey it. We are peaceful citizens, but if any man attempt to coerce our conscience, and force us to comply with the law of man before the law of God, we are bound to offer all the resistance that prudence and expediency may nictate. "We will give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's." AH statute law should be founded on the moral law, and Catholics never did and never will obey the creature in opposition to the Creator. (Great applause.) How is it that we are thus subjected to exceptional tyrannical enactments ? We live peaceably. We pay our just dues. We contribute by our strength and energy in developing the resources of the country ; and still we are treated as Pariahs or outcasts. I say it without hesitation, no body of men of any nationality have undergone more hardships as pioneers of this colony than Irish Koman Catholics Take the whole of the West Coast, from Ross to Westport, including the reefing district of the Inangahua, and the pioneers were nearly all Irishmen and Roman Catholics. (Applause.) It has been often said that we are opposed to education. But it is a vile calumny. There is no o r ganisation — classing for a moment the Catholic Church as a hu r *" organisation— which has done more for education than the O fc u£i: c Church. Her mission was to educate— her mission is to / te She loves, she glories in the triumphs of the human inU* ■e f S u sees God in all its struggles after truth. She has ble* , & a a jfnc tified science and discovery on that account. Colu r . «■ „ and Vasco de Gama were her children ; Coperau>- \ Jla ? c . llan ' Tasso worshipped her ; Vesalius was an anaW • ! who discovered the circulation of the bloc V _. ff? n civilisation that exists all ovec t u a ,„„„]? • v. V t thrnriL CO anrno,% Pr^°V nd the scaffold. She corseted the pride and power of Feudalism, and brought the feudal lord under the chastening vafluence of her divine teaching. She decked f^^r^V R VVeStments ' affcer haviQ S fi^fc manumitted him from Greek or Roman master. (Great applause.) She preserved Omar n th e CaH^f 6 °^ wrld whea * woul * have Len lost ?£ w£ Wi rr VV ™ d the gveafc librar y of Ptolemy at Alexan™d Urtv 2 Church preserved a greater library at Rome, and enriched it, and laid her anathemas on all who should be its violators, and told them that if the.r profane hands were raised to desecrate the sacred shrines of her future education of the world, they would be accursed and abhorred of her children for ever She taught the painters and the sculptors of the middle ages, when books were worth the price of a kingdom. She guided the peerless hand of Michael Angelo, and developed the unequalled skill or litian. And who made Home, not the city of military conquest, but the city of mental conquest, to which all men looked as the metropolis of genius, the mother of poetry, and music, and painting, and reasoning. (Loud applause ) All Europe was eclipsed in her electric light of unclouded brilliancy. Jhe Medici rose under her auspices; the merchant republic of \ enice was her sole creation ; and when her influence ceased at the palace of St. Mark that first-born creature of the aspirations of modern liberty died. In every domain of human intellect she stood supreme because her mission was education. She taught from the philosophy of Greece and Rome, and from their poetry and their history, and she preserved the remnants of the elder civ.lisationa to show how glorious was hers, the civilisation of the new and brighter time. Of course the world is ungrateful to her ; of course the world says that the Catholic Church is against education, and the world is bo ignorant that it forgets that all the education \t has

is derived from her. Its most gorgeous poetry and eloquence, and soundest law are hers; and the greatest painters and sculptors of the world blessed themselves as Catholics as often as ever they drew a line on the immortal canvas which they left behind them. Let them go on and say that the Catholic Church is the foe of popular education. She has stood for 1877 years, resisting all the attacks of the world, the -flesh, and the devil, and will continue the rime immovable rock until the end of time, when she will be prepnted without spot or wrinkle to her Divine Founder. (Tremendous cheering.) The resolution was carried unanimously, with loud cheers. Mr. Jamks Clarke moved the second resolution: Thai this meeting considers that, in those clauses of the Education Bill relating to certificates of exemption from attendance, unjust and tyrannical measures are Bought to be forced on Catholics. By the adoption of. such clauses the Catholic children would be compulsorily forced to attend the Government schools, and thereby the abolition of their own would be effected. The mover said : I must protest against compulsion, a word which has always been a thorn to my mind from the earliest age. No power shall compel me to act against my conscience. I have children, and should think it hard for any person to interfere with their education. They might as well try to force me into the Protestant Church as to send my children to a Protestant school. I will not say much about the Bill, but this compulsory arrangement I feel sore on. It is strange in this enlightened nineteenth century that the Government' should make such a set upon the Catholics, who are hardworking, persevering colonists. I myself have been an explorer here, and we were the men who opened the country. It is curious, seeing that we worked for the money to pay our passages, and achieved our present position, — why not allow us to live peaceably as hitherto ? This compulsory arrangement might suit some people, but the Government must have been either dreaming, mad, or drunk if they thought we would stand it. It is too wholesale an onslaught. After all, what is the Government but a body of men who hold a fine position for which the poor man pays them ? Few of its members were born with silver spoons in their mouths ; they have been pitchforked into the position, and are now trying to do a great injustice. Why cannot Catholics be allowed to enjoy their schools quietly, and, as usual, they do not ask anything more. Catholics themselves will not obtain justice except by chiming in with the most liberal minded of the Protestants, and then they may do so. (Applause.) Mr. W. Kenny seconded the resolution, saying : — The compulsory clauses irritate and make me feel riled. I would say, the Government brand me as an outcast and take my money, as they took it from my fathers before me — but no compulsion. Catholics do not dread to give a first-class education to their children. There is not such a class of men in the world for that. The Catholics are in a minority, but that is no reason why the penal laws of 50 years ago, when Catholics could not be educated, should be revived. It is the dearest thing in life for a father to have the education of his child. The country is swallowed up by these local boards. One Government may be just, but these knots of uneducated men who form local boards cause tyranny, and the minority is oppressed. I may be cast in the sum of £2 a week for not sending my child to their schools while my own is proper and efficient. It is bad enough to take my money under their penal laws, but it is monstrous to step into the bosom of a man's family and make him educate his children as they like. Those who support this Bill must know that every Catholic will oppose it. (Applause.) Mr. J. Dolan said : lam a resident in Hokitika, and the father of children. A fine may be imposed upon me, but I would work hard to keep my children from going to a school of any other denomination than my own. Let us all sign a petition and forward it to Bishop Redwood. Mr. Shappeey : This subject concerns us more than any mere temporal one. This Bill is no credit to New Zealand, where there should be more liberty than at home, and there they are removing all disabilities gradually. It ill becomes New Zealand, then, to introduce such penal clauses. The Government will not succeed in carrying it, — it will be opposed both by Catholics and all liberal minded Protestants. We claim the right to educate our children and to give religions instruction. I can safely prophecy that this Bill will never become law. (Applause.) The resolution was then carried unanimously. The Rev. F. Martin proposed the third resolution, — That in the event of the Government adopting a Colonial Education Bill, to secure a system fair to all educational interests, provisions be made in the new Bill to assist aided schools on the principle of payment by results and capitation. That aided schools be officially inspected like the State schools, and payment made upon ths claim and certificates usually adopted by the Education Board. The mover said, — We ask for our rights, and this resolution, I con-

eider, sets forth not our full rights but only partial rights, as we have to provide school buildings,- &o. If we have to pay the education money we must receive money for our education. The Government, as such, haa no religion, and we don't want them to interfere with our own. We won't stand it. We want them to pay for our own secular education, and give us for all our children brought up to the standard the £3 or £3 10s. per head. If our secular education is as good as their own, why not give us the same pro raid allowance ? We want aided schools to be paid by results and capitation. We provide teachers, schools, and all requisites, and only ask to be examined and treated accordingly. Mere we are only one-tenth of the population, still we may get what we ask as our right. I remember, fifteen -years ago, Catholics in Nelson having to pay 20s. per head when they received nothing. Nelson had been called " The >leepy Hollow j" if it were, it had woke up a little, for the Catholics there are now all right in this respect, and we ask for the same treatment. In the Bill a man may be fined £2 a week during six months, the time of school attendance, for not sending his child to the State schools. A Catholic father is thus threatened to-be robbed of a large sum every year, and then, after all, have his child taken from his school and sent to a Protestant school. This is rather hard, to say the least of it, and I am not surprised at the remarks made to-night at the compulsory clauses. If the Bill passed, although this is said to be a century of light, it will appear that the devil holds the candle. (Applause.) Mr. Ceofts seconded the proposition, saying— l have had experience as a school teacher, and know that in an Inspector's eye a Papist cannot teach as well as a Protestant. There was an In* spector at Beef ton who could not construct an equilateral triangle if he got the twenty millions of New Zealand indebtedness. He tested children in the third class with Hamlet's soliloquy. Of course the children knew nothing about it, and were condemned. Give me a conscientious gentleman; unless we have inspectors with hearts and consciences the capitation is not worth a snap. You may get good inspectors, but I fear that the Hon. Mr. Bowen will not let you. He is something like the figures of Bismarck and Victor Emmanuel, which I saw represented in a cartoon in Punch, trying to pull down St. Peter's Church with a rope. The father of lies was standing by with a grin, saying, " You pair of asses, I have been trying to do it myself for 1870 years, but am as far off as ever." (Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Kenny opposed the resolution. It is humbling ourselves too much, and begging the question. A bad inspector could always find fault with the schools, and the local committee would be bound to uphold him. Another thing is, payment by results, which implies that a child is only to be educated up to a certain standard, and not beyond it. We shall have a system of higher- education equal to that of any other country, and -we ought not to be dependent on inspectors. We ought to ask for a fair proportion of what we pay, but not dependent on inspectors' reports. Mr. Mtjbphy —If I am pulled to court and made to pay £2 a week I shall have to file my schedule. I would sooner do it than comply with such a law. I would act in direct opposition to it. We should boldly demand our' rights as Irishmen and Catholics in a lawful and peaceable manner — agitate, agitate, and we shall get them. The Rev. F. Martin— l do not agree with Mr. Kenny. When we are asking only for justice, we are not begging or humblin" ourselves. Every inspector as a man must be taken for a gentleman until we find him the contrary. There is no other way to satisfy the Government, except by allowing the inspector to see [ that the money is duly earned. The resolution was put and carried unanimously. Mr. M. Houlahan proposed, That a copy of the foregoing resolutions be seufc to the Government through his Lordship Bishop Redwood, and. also to each of the representative members of the West Coast districts— Bwff, Button, Gisborne, Kennedy, and Woolcook— pravin" them most respectfully and earnestly to support them iv the Assembly. ° Mr. J. Dolan seconded. j Mr. Kenny suggested the striking out of Mr. Button's name, as he would oppose the resolutions; but the objection was opposed, and, on being put, the resolution was unanimously carried. Mr. HouiAHAN proposed " a vote of thanks to the Press." Mr. Crofts seconded, saying, the Colonial Press shows independence in expressing its opinions, and I feel sure it will denounce this Bill j such penal laws would soon extend to the press. Bowen will stop at nothing until he becomes Dictator of New Zealand. The resolution was carried ; and, with a hearty vote of thanks [ to the rev. Chairman, the meeting, which had been throughout a I most orderly and attentive one, although a little excitement was at times caused by speakers, was closed.