Proposed Bible-in-Schools Referendum.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 25, 19 June 1902, Page 1

Proposed Bible-in-Schools Referendum.

Some time ago we referred at some length in our leading columns to the new programme and plan of campaign on the subject of Bible-teaching in the State schools which had been formally adopted by the Presbyterian General Assembly of New Zealand. That programme, it will be remembered, included the following points : — (i) That Government schools be opened daily with the Lord's Prayer ; (2) that on certain days of the week lessons on selected portions of the Bible be given by the teachers during school hours, these lessons and explanations to be wholly contained in a book to be supplied by a committee of the churches combining to secure this reform ; (3) that these lessons shall be of a strictly undenominational character; (4) that teachers who conscientiously object to give these lessons shall not be compelled to give them, and scholars whose parents have conscientious objections shall not be com-

pelted to receive them. This platform has also been officially adopted, at a meeting held last week, by the Dunedin Council of the Churches, and that body has carried the matter a step further by indicating the method by which it is ultimately hoped to induce Parliament to sanction the desired change. The modus operandi is expressed in the following resolution, which was proposed by Mr. Gibb and duly adopted by th c Council : ' That the object of the Council shall be to secur c that the platform adopted by the above resolution shall be sub milled by Parliament to the people by way of the referendum. - It is no part of our intention to discuss the value of the Referendum as a political agent. In indifferent matters, and in matters of which the average elector is a competent judge, its use might, under proper safeguards, provide a valuable resort both for the Government and the people. But if there are any matters that should not be \ submitted to the Referendum, they are precisely those which affect the religious or political rights of minorities, and, generally, all questions which have aroused, or are likely to arouse, strong party or sectarian feeling. The matter was submitted to a Referendum in South Australia a few years ago and the verdict was against the Bible lessons. Nevertheless, such a use of the Referendum would open the gate to wide possibilities of persecution. The education question — or, to speak more correctly, proposed remedy (or the education difficulty — is, to our mind, decidedly one of the non-submittable subjects. The question of the Bible in the schools is no trifling problem. Its settlement requires cool heads, a thorough knowledge of the Catholic as well as of the non-Catholic side of the case, a spirit of mutual good-will, and a determination to respect rights of conscience at all hazards. Given all these conditions, the solution of the problem is at hand. But, with all due respect for both the intelligence and the fair-mindedness of the electors of New Zealand, we do not think that all the conditions for a fair and final settlement of the question by way of Referendum are to be found in this. Colony at the present time.