THE EDUCATION QUESTION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 18, 4 May 1899, Page 24

THE EDUCATION QUESTION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

IMPORTANT PRONOUNCEMENT BY THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE.

The Southern Cross (Adelaide, S.A.) publishes the following pronouncement by the Central Catholic Education Committee :—: — Two questions are now being asked in every conbtituency of candidates tor parliamentary honours. These questions are : 1. Are you in favour of a grant to private primary schools, the efficiency of which baa been testified to by government inspection ? 2. If elected will you undertake to support any motion submitted to Parliament in favour of such grant ? In reference to these questions the central committee, at its meeting last night, adopted unanimously the manifesto below :—: — Since the Education Act of 1875 came into force, certain sections of the people of South Australia have had compulsorily to contribute towards the cost of the education of the children of other sections. The sections so compelled to contribute had the privilege left them of providing for the education of their own children at their sole and whole expense. Those whose parses were spared by this one-sided arrangement were, it is true, in a majority ; those whose purses were mulcted were, equally true, in a minority. That circumstance, however, does not change the nature of the situation, nor does it modify the unfair principle involved. Injustice is injustice whether committed by a majority or by a minority. Numbers cannot make what is in itself wrong, in itself right. From the law in force Catholics, as well as others, have been suffering for twenty-four years. Is it strange that Catholios should at length protest loudly against the injustice done them 1 Are they acting so very unreasonably if they try to get the injustice shown them checked 1

The question we raise is not, it will be observed, the question of free education in the abstract. Whether education shall be free of cost to parents, or paid for by them out of their private means, is a q-iest'on for the State, which has control of the public finances, to decide. As a body, we Catholics make no pronouncement on the point. What, as a body, however, we do assert is this, that if the State, believing the revenues of the country admit of it, makes up its mind that education shall be free, such education should be free not to some sections merely, but to all sections of the community ; that the boon conferred should b« a boon common to the children of all parents in the land. Let the education of South Australia we say, be free as a kindly government, blebsed with ample income, can make it ; only let, we add, the freedom of education be a freedom shared in by every one. Let not the law so run that the parents of Catholic children or the parents of children of other denominations shall suffer, whilst the parents of the children of many other denominations gam.

South Australian laws are made by the South Australian Parliament. By the power alone that made them can those laws be unmade. What laws shall be made or unmade depends on the personnel of Parliament, and thut personnel again depends upon the way the people vote. Our Constitution is assuredly a liberal one. To every citizen of adult years it gives the right to cast a suffrage fo.- the Lower House at ary rate, and through the ballot box leaves him in the casting of that suffrage entirely and securely free. Every man may vote as his conscience moves him. Herein is the safeguard and the hope of citizens who think their class or creed is wronged We Catholics stand on the right the Constitution givea us. Do you think it just — such is the question we &tk of every candidate who seeks our favour— that we Catholios should be compelled for ever to go on paying for the edu<_a,ion of other people's children while we are left to bear the whole burden of the education of our own 1 If you answer No, as many we hope will answer, have you then, we add, the courage of your convictions, and, if elected to a place in Parliament, will you be ready in Parliament to stand by your words ?

These are in brief the two questions which the Central Catholic Committee propose putting to city candidates, and which they hope to have put, through local committees, to every aspirant in the field. We Catholics have no authority to speak for other religious bodies. We know, however, that others are suffering for conscience sake — as^we ourselves are suffering ; and our questions are accordingly so worded as to make it plain beyond all challenge that we selfishly seek no exceptional consideration for our own grievance, and that the redress we ask is a redress which we shall be glai to see all other denominations claiming it, obtain.

In the first question the grant to private primary schools, for which the candidates' approval is asked, is a errant conditional only upon the efficiency of such schools being testified to by Government inspvction. At the preset moment our schools are doing work for the Government which the Government pays for, and in part pays for with our money, when done elsewhere. We ask simply for a return of tome of the funds we supply to Government to help us in lessening our 10-s. A contractor must follow his specifications. Let the Government, we fray, fix its standards. Let it deternune what and how much is to be done in every year. We accepWßie conditions. A contractor's work must stand the lynx-eyed search for defect or flaw by the architect of the building. To the closest scrutiny by the Government officials we should be prepared to submit. Let the State inspectors test our secular teaching as much and as often as they wish, If in their judgment our work is satisfactory, pay us for it. If it is unsatisfactory, we are content to go,

as we should deserve to go, without pay. Men who never made and never will make a sacrifice in the interests of education, easily suspect others of the same lack of generosity as that from that they suffer themselves. We are told that our object is to iSlke money and pile up wealth for our Church. Our object in truth is to see Catholic citizens on the same level as their fellowcitizens of other creeds. Even with a Government grant we should still have to make sacrifices. As for Government money, whenever and however voted us, we should be always prepared to account to the Government's own officials for the expenditure of every penny piece. General promises of sympathy and support not unfrequently prove illusory. Beyond generalities we Catholics are anxious now to get. The educational question, as it affects us Catholics, has been long before the public. It is high time, we think, it was brousrht seriously under the notice of our Legislature. We wish to be practical. We realise our position and know that the time for a Bill for the relief of Catholics and others similarly situated has not yet come. The majority is against us. That majority, however, we hope to lessen, we are sure to lessen, by argument and reason, in course of time. Calm appeals to the good sense of the public, from platform and from Press, will do their work. Support for a Bill to redress our grievances we do not ask for at the moment. To ask for it would be a sheer waste of time. A parliamentary motion is, however, something feasible. For a motion, therefore, as an admission of our grievances, even though that admission be the admission of a minority, we ask. Say a candidate acknowledges on the hustings that we Catholics have rights that are slighted and wrongs that ought to be redressed. Well, then, what is true when votes are being canvassed, cannot be untrue when those votes have been gained. What the candidate says before the eleotors, he cannot in honesty, if returned, unsay before the members of the House. That he will not unsay in the latter place what he has already said in the former is the full extent of the pledge to which his answering the second question in the affirmative commits him. The two questions are linked inseparably. He who meets the first with a ' No ' will certainly answer the second with a ' No.' ' Yes ' to the first, if sincerely spoken, necessarily means ' Yes ' to the second as well. On behalf of the committee. W. J. Gunson. John Bradley. C. W. James.