The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1877. THE NEW EDUCATION ACT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 242, 21 December 1877, Page 11

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1877. THE NEW EDUCATION ACT.

N the first of January next, this Act will come into force ; and in a few weeks meetings will be held for the election of School Committees. The old system of election hitherto in force in Otago, with very little change, becomes under the new law obligatory throughout New Zealand. The householders of school districts will be summoned

to meet at a given place, and on a certain day, to elect there and then by show of hands or by ballot the members of the respective committees. It will be, however, in the power of any householder present to demand the issue of voting papers to all householders present, each of whom may then give, if so disposed, seven votes to one candidate, or one vote each to seven candidates, or divide his votes to the number of seven in any way he pleases. This principle of cumulative voting was admitted into the Act with a view of securing a representation of minorities. But the machinery for its exercise is such .as must render it altogether nugatory. It is only such as may happen to be present at the public meetings that can avail themselves of this principle. Whereas, to be practically of any advantage, arrangements should have been made whereby all the householders of school districts should have an opportunity of voting. It would appear as if the framers of the Act especially intended this should not be the case.

It will, no doubt, be said that ample opportunity is afforded by the Act for all householders to record their votes. But such is not the case. Take, for example, the City of Dunedin. Here there are more than four thousand householders, and yet, judging from the past, we may safely say that of these not more than seventy householders will take part in the election of the School Committee. Many will never hear of the time and place of meeting ; many are ladies who can hardly be expected to take part in a public meeting ; and, lastly, there is no hall in Dunedin capable of holding more than one-eighth of those having a right to rote. It is ludicrous, then, to imagine that any School Committee elected in Dunedin will in any sense of the word represent the householders of Dunedin. Had the Legislature intended that the people of Dunedin, or indeed of any School District, should really have a voice in the Election of Committees, it would have enacted provisions similar to those to be found in the English Education Act, by means of which every householder can, and does, record his votes. In England the voting papers are left at the residences of the householders, and, after having been signed, are collected by officials appointed for the purpose. But under our new Act there is no such provision.

Here in New Zealand everything is left to the chapter of accidents. The public may perhaps hear of the time and place of the intended meetings ; the public may perhaps fittend, or perhaps may not. But one thing is certain — the attendance of all householders is under our Act a physical impossibility, and yet, by the merest fiction of law, the committee men chosen are to be regarded as the representatives of people who had no part whatever in their selection. This is an absurdity, and shows the uttev carelessness with which important parts of the new ' law were considered bj- the Legislature.

What will probably happen in Dunedin for example? Seventy or eighty persons will assemble on the evening of the day appointed for the election of the School Committee in the room selected by the Education Board, and proceed to the election of the Committee. These seventy or eighty persons will hardly be all householders. In such meetings there is always a large number of persons not burdened with the responsibility of a household. Nevertheless, such persons count in a show of hands. There are sure to be present some editors of newspapers, together with a good many of their understrappers, some noisy politicians, and a good many rabid secularists, who consider it then* duty to be always present whenever an opportunity is likely to present

itself of striking a blow against the interests of Christianity. And this worthy group of nobodies, busybodies, and infidels will elect a School Committee facetiously called thb Dunedin School Committee.

Were it not for one consideration, all this would not amount to much. For, except in one particular, the com* mittees under the new law have little power, and are not likely to have much influence. But there is one thing which tliey can do which is of grave import. They can put in force the compulsory clauses of the Act. The legislature itself shrank from the responsibility of such an extreme course, but whilst cowardly shrinking from doing what it evidently wished to do, handed over this tremendous power to a handful of ignoramuses in School Committees. The new year, then, will see all the petty tyrants and bigots of the colony let loose in a raid on the rights, duties, and consciences of parents, particularly of Catholic parents. We Catholics have only to glance at the past history of School Committees, and look for a moment to the probabilities of the future to sec clearly the class of men to whom the legislature of the colony has in reality confided the power of compelling children to attend godless schools. So far as Catholics are concerned, there is not the least hope of justice or reasonable consideration. The men most likely to be selected under the new system will be men who have hitherto shown themselves most hostile to Catholic schools, Catholic education, and Catholic interests, from whose wisdom, or principles, or good feeling, we can expect nothing.