The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1879. THE MOST REV. DR. MORAN AT LAWRENCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 26, Issue 349, 26 December 1879, Page 13

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1879. THE MOST REV. DR. MORAN AT LAWRENCE.

sacrifices. He mentioned this in order to show how impolitic and unjust it was on the part of the Government to refuse to recognise and aid such a school. The Catholics make great sacrifices, ,and in addition are tax-payers like others who have all the advantages of free schools without making any sacrifices. If Government really wished to promote the cause of education, they would aid the Catholic schools. These are, however, simply ignored by Government, a fact which he maintained was a crying injustice. A natural hatred of injustice compels a man to speak out, and he would fearlessly assert that, as a body, the Catholics were labouring under grievous injustice ; they were denied fair-play, because they were so faithful to the cause of education and to their conscientious convictions. He would add still further that, in the last session of Parliament, Government had thought it necessary to propose additional taxation, including a property-tax. This taxation is not called for by public works, because they are provided for out of the loan, nor by the civil service, the expense of which remains the same as it was three years ago ; nor by any additional allowances to counties, because these allowances are rather decreasing than otherwise. The necessity of this increased taxation arose from the extravagance of Government in supporting public education for the benefit of a section of the people. This year the Government have set apart £243,000 for maintenance of schools and £175,000 for school buildings or more than £400,000. The country provides for secular education, in Grammar and High Schools, and has also set apart large educational reserves, which are public property, for University education. Last year Government spent £400,000 ;in the previous year nearly £400,000. So that in three years there had been provided £1,200,000 for education, from which the Catholics derived no advantage whatever. In no instance had a single penny come to the aid of their schools, and yet they have been compelled to pay their share of the public taxes. Tins he denounced as a monstrous perversion of justice, against which he would not cease to raise his voice as the representative and mouthpiece of the Catholics in this Diocese, who claimed their right as citizens to a fair share of the expenditure for educational purposes. This claim was only reasonable. It was unfair also that they should have to pay for those who were able to pay for themselves. This hardship was shewn still more strikingly under the new system of taxation. Last year he paid taxes on the school-sites, which taxes go towards the expense of education. This jear, as Trustee of the various school-properties, he will have to pay taxes not only on the school sites, but also on the fittings, desks, and maps. And this they have to do in order to provide a free education for other people's children ! It is not, said His Lordship, in human nature to tolerate this. It involves an insolent assumption of superiority, and is a public and manifest robbery of the Catholics of tlie country. The Bishop here narrated a case which had come within his own knowledge, where a number of Catholics wished to get up a Church of their own. The priest could occasionally visit them on a Sunday, and they had tried to get access to the public school for religious services, but were refused admission to the school, because a Presbyterian minister must have it. The same priest returned some months after. No minister was there that time, but the key could not be found ; and the Catholics there had resolved to erect a building of their own. He might also mention that it was said the schools were open to all who chose to avail themselves of them. The Catholics reply that the schools are open to them on conditions to which they cannot submit. Catholics, continued the Bishop, can be teachers in the public schools. This was correct in theory, but not in practice. In point of fact there is hardly a single Catholic teacher in the service of the State. In one district an excellent teacher was appointed, nothing being known of his religious views. Six months afterwards his priest visited him and celebrated Mas*. It immediately got about that he Tvas a Catholic, and the people there made it so hot for him that he was obliged to resign. They were told the law says there is to be no religion in school, but there's how it works in practice. The same teacher got another school, and again, on his religion becoming known, he had to resign. He mentioned this to show the spirit in which the law is administered. He did not think it neeo^ary for him to do more at present than raise a voice of indignant protest against such proceedings. It was for the paionts themselves to adopt such measures as may be necessary in the circumstances : His business was to place

before the Cathol c body of this diocese the facts for them to deal with. It only remained for him to say that they should cont mU e to act in the future as they had acted in the past, line Lawrence school had always been a good school. The uatnohc body here had never swerved from their duty in this respect. They had all along made considerable sacrifices, aa n ne could testify; and any government that is wise and anxious to do its duty will not ignore these facts. So long as the present system continues the Catholics are unjustly dealt with, their rights as citizens are trampled on and themselves marked with the stigma of social inferiority, and all this for the sake of a cheap education being afforded to other people's children. The Catholics are daily becoming more numerous, and require the expenditure of more money for education. They are steady and industrious and anxious tor the welfare of their children. Government would never get them to acquiesce in the present unjust system. Their principle was that all the faculties of man should be cultivated Education should be founded on religion, and the religious idea should never be separated from education. The present system is illogical,— under it the lowest and least important faculties are cultivated to the exclusion of what is highest and all-important. The Catholic Church never tolerates such a division. Education should be founded on religion, and informed by it. Their first duty is to teach their children their duty to God, and then to teacn a knowledge of the things of this world. Catholics will not ignore the highest and more impoctant consideration for the sake of secular education. The parents would continue to act as Catholics and never depart from the teaching of the Church, which cannot mislead them His Lordship concluded by saying he had no hesitation in expressing his conviction that they would in the time to come act as well as they had hitherto done, and even better, in the cause of education. They and he were under great obligation to father Crowley and the teachers (Mr. and Miss Hoban), whose work speaks tor itself. They (the parents) were grateful to them, as he himself was, and he thanked them most sincerely.