THe New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1881. AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 406, 21 January 1881, Page 13

THe New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1881. AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED.

§HIS -week witnessed a phenomenon in Dunedir. The advocates of Bible reading in the public Bchools called a meeting of parents to discuss this question, in the full conviction, of course, that the meeting would pass resolutions in favour of their project. But to their amazement they found themselves defeated by a majority of two to one ~ v ~ on their own chosen ground. Their opponents of the free-thinking and secularist schools mustered in great force, and utterly routed them. This victory is regarded by some as a surprise, and it is said that another meeting, to be held in a larger apartment than the Temperance Hall, will be summoned immediately to test more accurately the true state of public opinion. For us the contest has no interest whatever. Both contending parties are determined that Catholics shall not obtain justice ; and shall be still compelled to pay smartly for the free education of other people's children, whilst their own must continue to be deprived of all share in the lavish expenditure of public money on schools and scholarships. The only difference between the parties consists in this. The Bible-in-schools men endeavour to compel Catholics to pay for the instruction of their children in Protestantism ; whilst the secularists insist that they must continue to pay for the godless and free education of their neighbours' children. Both are agreed that under all circumstances Catholics shall continue to remain excluded from public schools and scholarships, and shall at the same time be compelled to pay for the maintenance of these schools and scholarships.

It is no answer to say — these schools and scholarships aie open to Catholics. Catholics mean to remain Catholics, and consequently they keep far away from these institutions, which ignore the very existence of God, of Christianity, and of the supernatural ; institutions from which all knowledge of the foundations of Christian morality is carefully banished. It is the old iniquity, the old tyranny. The one class is descended from the men who used to yell civil and religious liberty at the very moment they were confiscating the property, and racking the bodies of those who, differing from them in religion and notions of loyalty, followed the old paths of their common fathers ; and they are, even in the present time, consistent children of their sires. In the name of civil and religious liberty they demand that Catholics shall pay for the instruction of their children in a religion Catholics do not believe.

The other or secularist party also shout civil and religious liberty for ever ; and lest there should be any doubt as to the meaning they attach to these words they refuse to repeal the one-sided law which taxes Catholics for the support of schools they never enter, and for the goddless and free education of well-to-do people's children. This is the way in which both parties understand the words civil and religious liberty. Civil

and religious liberty, according to their theory, and above all their practice, means liberty, or rather licence, for themselves to put their hands into the pockets of Catholics, abstract their money against their will, and spend it exclusively for what they consider their own benefit ; civil and religious liberty in their estimation means the licence to trample, as of old, on Catholic consciences ; to say to Catholics, as a matter of right, stand and deliver either your money or the faith of your children. They are both terribly afraid of denominationalism. So much, indeed, does the pious party abhor the very idea, that they are prepared to place their most cherished religious principles in abeyance rather than do anything that would be likely to render it possible. Though God-fearing and devoted to the Bible, they will permit the name of God to be obliterated from all school books, and their children to frequent godless schools, rather than that an act of justice should be done to Catholics. They have said so. And the secularists have declared by solemn resolution that their only objection to Bible reading arises from the fact that the introduction of such a practice might possibly lead to denominationalism. In plain language, this means that they oppose Bible reading because it might lead to a just concession to Catholics. This is the short and long of the matter. Both are actuated solely by a determination to persevere in inflicting a shameful and scandalous injustice on their Catholic fellow subjects. We are not, however, surprised, all this is only what might be expected. Our loudest advocates of civil and religious ] liberty have always exemplified the meaning they attached to these words by persecuting somebody. Episcopalians were persecuted in Scotland in the name of and in furtherance of civil and religious liberty ; Catholics were everywhere in the United Kingdom persecuted by men who most strenuously proclaimed themselves the advocates of civil and religious liberty ; and now generally throughout the British colonies, the most democratic patrons of civil and religious liberty compel Catholics to pay for schools which they disapprove of, which they do not use, and which they are firmly persuaded are most injurious to the common weal. It is only carrying out the old principle and perpetuating the old practice. The mode, indeed, is changed, but the animus is the same ; in some form or other Catholics must not escape persecution. Whether by direct intention or not we do not say, but the fact is, a majority of our non-Catholic fellow citizens are determined we shall not be placed on a footing of equality with them. They so manage matters, that we Catholics find ourselves handicapped in the race of life. At one time it is in one way, at another in another, now it is in reference to education. But it will be said as it has been often before, are you not on a footing of equality with us non-Catholics, are not the public schools open to you equally with us ? Our answer is, no they are not, unless we are prepared to cease to be Catholics. True, we are not called upon, as in days not long gone by, to swear that the dogmas of our faith are blasphemies in order to enter public schools ; but substantially what is almost equivalent to it is demanded of us, we are called upon to accept that which we believe to be intrinsically dangerous to faith and morals. Thus it is that the persecution begun three hundred years ago continues even to the present day. The report of the Dunedin school committee lately published infoims us that during the last year 3,100 children were educated in the public schools of this city at an expense to the public of between eight and nine thousand pounds. The erection of these schools cost the country £30,000. During the same time, in this same city, the Catholics have educated six hundred Catholic children at their own expense in schools which cost the country nothing. And yet, in the teeth of these facts, the loud advocates of civil and religious liberty insist that Catholics shall be compelled to submit for ever to such a monstrous iniquity as our present education system, and pay money to afford the government the means of giving a free education to the children of well-to-do people, whilst at the same time defraying the entire expense of the education of their own children. This is an intolerable injustice, a tyranny, and a truculent policy.