"Sir Robert Stout's Libel

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 19, 13 May 1909, Page 742

"Sir Robert Stout's Libel

The following extraordinary cable-message appeared in < last Tuesday's daily papers : — ' London, May 10. — In an interview which he accorded a representative of the Daily News, Sir Robert Stout stated that the children who are secularly trained in New Zealand produced only half the number of .criminals in proportion to the numbers of those trained in denominational schools.' We cannot, of course, say whether the cable-man has or has not fairly and faithfully represented Sir Robert Stout's remarks. If he did, everyone in New Zealand knows that his assertoin is a libel on the denominational schools. In the first place, there is absolutely nothing in the statistics of New Zealand crime to warrant such a statement. Sir Robert as a lawyer and Chief Justice is well aware that there ,s not, nor has there ever bee_n, a return giving details of the school training of New Zealand criminals, and, moreover, that our crime statistics give only a fraction of the crimes actually committed in the country. In addition to this, if he had even made the most superficial examination into this matter he would be aware that (as we have already amply demonstrated from time to time) the returns of crime by religious denominations are wholly untrustworthy as regards Catholics, who conduct by far the greater number of denominational schools in the country. And, as

already shown (likewise by references to large numbers of detailed cases in our prisons), criminals that are Catholics are, as to their vastly greater number, recruited from fho ranks of those who owe their training to the secular, and not to the denominational, schools. In the course of our recent articles on education, in the Otqgo Daily Times, we have proved in a sufficiently conclusive' way that, so far as school-systems may be deemed to tend to crime, that tendency is to be sought in the State secular, and not in the religious, schools. • These arguments have never "been met, nor can they be met. The whole discussion will shortly appear in book form, and will afford every reader a ready answer against the crude fallacies of Sir Robert Stout. A further reference to this subject will be found in the article on education in this issue. We might add that no Catholic in New Zealand would regard so combative a Secularist as Sir Robert Stout as an unprejudiced witness on matters affecting religion or religious, schools — and least of all on matters affecting Catholics in this country.