Intercolonial

New Zealand Tablet, 19 January 1911, Page 127

Intercolonial

The Rev. Father Roney, S.J., of Hawthorne, Victoria, passed through Sydney the other day on his way to Auckland, where he is to conduct the retreat of the clergy of the diocese. The. Rev. Father N. Cooney, who for the past year has been officiating in the Cowra parish, assisting the Rev. Father D. O'Kennedy, P.P., has been presented with a purse of 100 sovereigns by the parishioners. The Hon. John Meagher, M.L.C., who has quite recovered from his recent accident in Ireland, was in London during the general elections. Early last month he left for Paris and Brussels to visit his grand-daughter, Miss Eileen Meagher, who is at school in Jette. Mr. Meagher will be back in Sydney towards the end of February. His Eminence Cardinal Moran has convened a conference to discuss the education question in all • its aspects, particularly in regard to secondary education. All the Bishops of the State have been invited to confer with his Eminence (says the Catholic Press), and there will also be present representatives of the clergy of the various dioceses of the State, and representatives of the religious teaching Orders. The gathering will be of the greatest importance, and the result of its deliberations will be anxiously awaited throughout Australasia.

The formal laying of the foundation stone of the new Cathedral in Armidale is to take place on Sunday, February 5. The preparatory work is already in an advanced state, and everything .will be in readiness for what promises to be the most imposing spectacle ever witnessed in New England’s capital. The official ceremony will be performed, by his Eminence the Cardinal, and there will also be present most of the Bishops of New South Wales, some Bishops from Queensland, and numerous priests and laity from the diocese and its environs. At St. Carthage’s Cathedral, Lismore, on Sunday, January 1, his Lordship Bishop Carroll referred at some length to the proposal for the building of the tower of the Cathedral and the erection of the new peal of bells. £ The cathedral committee since our last meeting (said his Lordship) has decided to complete the tower to its full height of 86 feet, leaving the consideration of the spire for another generation. The peal of bells will thus be housed in its mil. l manent abode, and will be heard to fullest advantage. ihe estimated cost of the tower and erection of the bells is £6IOO. To meet this outlay the Roll of Honor represents £1850; the bazaar to date (several amounts are yet to come), net profit —other donations not included in the Roll of Honor, £135; presentations to the Bishop and hVno- over ,to the tower fund, £B2O, making a total of £4020; and leaving a balance of £1895 to be raised. Outside the Porta del Popolo, on the Flaminian Way, about a mile from the city, the passer-by may hear the metallic sound constantly repeated of the marble-workers carving figures or monuments (writes the Rome correspondent of the Dublin Freeman). Here, within a rude buildmg, all white with marble dust, the visitor may see the recently completed altar destined for the Cathedral of Sydney, Australia, ordered by his Eminence Cardinal Moran. It is an expuisite piece of work, consisting of an altar-table, supported on eight coupled columns, and a magnificent reredos, the whole structure rising to the height of 24 feet. The style, which has evidently been chosen to harmonise with that of the Cathedral, seems to be the Decorated with a feeling of the Perpendicular, which prevailed in the latter half of the 14th century. A representative of the Sydney Daily Telegraph had an interview with his Eminence Cardinal Moran with respect to the education question in New South Wales ‘I have had no communication with any of the members of the Government (said his Eminence), and what some of the daily papers are pleased to style an ultimatum is a mere invention of one writer’s own phantasy. In a recent interview I stated what were my ideas on the education question and that so far as the present Minister’s schemes came before us they were such as we could not cordially approve of We hope now that Ministers will fully consider the matter, and, realising that a great injustice will be done to the Roman Catholic schools if they persevere in the present schemes as set out in the press, they will not bo m a hurry to begin them. For instance, let us take the matter of bursaries and scholarships as being one of the greatest importance to our primary and secondary schools. Our idea is that such bursaries should be multiplied. We are entirely in agreement with Ministers that the increased bursaries should be open to all Merit should be the only test. In the present scheme of reserving one set of bursaries and scholarships for the public schools and assigning a different set to the private schools there seems to be an implied consciousness of the inferiority of the public schools They seem to fear that if all these prizes were awarded for merit alone the private schools would carry them away. Surely if the public school system is all that it is claimed for it, those behind it should stand to their guns, and have a fair field of competition as between all schools. This is only a just demand. Quality, too should be the standard of those who control the destinies of the children in the matter of education '