The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1911. THE COMING ELECTIONS

New Zealand Tablet, 19 October 1911, Page 2085

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1911. THE COMING ELECTIONS

a=&i HE General Elections are coining on apace, (W\\ Ml Party leaders are preparing their prod*z grammes, their election cries, their plans w of campaign. .The political questions that =- will come uppermost have ' been already foreshadowed, in the Financial Statement, v\M&y in the press, and in the melancholy pages ' fr of Hansard. " Catholics, as citizens, will v-•• naturally take their share of • interest ■in . the fiscal, land, mining, and other worldly questions of the hour. But there is one question which in itself and in the interest it involves, transcends them all. And that is the ever-present education difficulty. It is our duty to remind our readers that this is the one great and only question for the,Catholics of New Zealand, . There is no other that touches their homes so nearly, that has rifled their pockets so deeply, and that has,inflicted such long drawn out injustice upon them. Other and more formidable difficulties have,

in greater or less degree, been solvedadvances to settlers, land resumption, village settlements, old age pensions, women’s franchise, jmd all the other varied forms of advanced legislation that stand upon our statute-books. But the education ' difficulty been allowed to remain. Elections come and go, sessions open and close, and still the scandal remains that Catholics in this Dominion bear, unaided, the. dual burden of supporting their own schools—thereby saving the State some £60,000 a —and, at the same time, of contributing their quota to'file maintenance of a godless system of public instruction which they abhor, and of which even the Protestant conscience of New Zealand strongly disapproves. That we have largely, ourselves to blame for the present condition of things must be frankly admitted. For years past Catholics have dozed and dazed, politically, over this matter of Our educational rights, waiting, like Micawber, for ‘something to turn up.’ When organisation and definite action have been suggested, prudent (or timid) spirits have told us, ‘ The time is not • ripe.’ Something’ will, not ‘ turn up ’ . unless we turn it up and the time never will be ripe unless we start on the necessary spade-work and take some definite steps towards making it ripe. And of these preliminary steps, by far the most necessary is that of educating the public. We have«long held—and we hold more strongly as the days go by—that the education question in New Zealand is never likely to be solved as--we would wish it to be solved, until the case for the Catholic claim is proclaimed and explained from the public platform, and until the Catholic and non-Catholic friends of religious education—instead of being- as now, continually at each other’s throatsare working together to bring about reform.' To effect this double purpose, .one lecturer and organiser might-be appointed for the whole Dominion; or, if that be for the present impracticable, arrangements could be made for capable local speakers to deliver addresses throughout the various districts. In the meantime, some valuable educative work on the subject has been done since the last general appeal to the electors; The hierarchy—individually and collectively—have uttered strong protests against the present condition of things, and have published weighty statements, showing the very large sums which Catholics have saved, and. are saving, to the State by maintaining.: their own school system. Immediately after the last election, Dr. Cleary—in a controversy in -the columns of the Otago, Daily Times— expounded the Catholic position in a particularly clear, convincing and comprehensive fashion. Early in the present year, his Lordship supplemented this by the issue of a Lenten ■ Pastoral on the subject, which was widely circulated and widely noticed by the press. This, again, was followed, by the recent and well-remembered controversy with the Wellington Evening Post. Both controversies as well as the Pastoral—have been . published in pamphlet form, and have been* made easily accessible to the public. Parliamentary candidates—whose duty it is to read the papers and to make themselves acquainted with current publications on current topics—• have thus had ample material placed before them for obtaining a clear and practical grasp of the issues involved, and of the principles underlying,, what is comprehensively known as the ‘ education question.’ ■" -55Candidates may, and doubtless do, expect, in due time,- to be interrogated on the subject; and the question which we now desire to raise is: What is the view, and what is the attitude, which a fair-minded candidate, who desires to be absolutely just, . might reasonably be expected, and asked,. to take on this question No candidate can have read or thought at all deeply on the subject without perceiving that there is an important question of conscience involved; and all that Catholics ask is that candidates should pledge themselves in favor of equal treatment of. the consciences of the people. As indicated by Dr. Cleary in the publications above referred to, our present education system is based upon the two following doctrines regarding religion: (1) That religion is no useful or necessary part of education; (2) That a

party majority in Parliament has the moral right to exclude religion from-the school-lives of children. , There are many people who accept these two articles, of our State-school creed. .There are many other people who entirely ; reject these two State dogmas, on which our Education Act is based. They conscientiously believe that religion is a necessary part of all education properly so called; that it.is as necessary in the school as in the home; and that no political majority has a moral right to exclude religion from the school, any more than it has to exclude it from the home. What might the fair-minded candidate be expected to have •to say to these two classes of people ?/ In regard to the first-those who do not brieve in the union of religion with education— - would;;, having . regard to their conscientious beliefs, undertake to give them every opportunity of having their children educated without religion, at the public expense, , and - with any interference from the people who do believe in religious education. In regard to the second class —those who do believe in the union of religion with education —he would, in all fairness and consistency, give their consciences the same consideration that lie would give to those who do not believe in religious education —he would place these two sets of consciences on an equality before the law. To put-the matter more definitely, he would give the believers in , religious education . facilities ; for having religious instruction imparted to their children during school hours—-also without -interference from others, but subject to the . following necessary - conditions; (1). That all such teaching of religion should be at the charge of those desiring it; and (2) that any scheme to be adopted in this direction should be fair all-round. He would favor the education system remaining purely secular to this extent— that public funds should be used for, and only for, the secular results to be attained. . , * In regard to Catholic schools, precisely the same principles apply. The groundwork principle underlying; the whole attitude here outlined is—equal treatment of consciences: of the consciences of those who do believe in religious education as well as of those Who do not believe in religious education. The candidate who wishes to be fair might reasonably be called upon to say that when a scheme in relation to Catholic schools is. placed before him, he would, as in the other case, deal with it upon its merits, and in accordance with the principles already enunciated. And he might be expected to add, that if it seemed to him that justice, and equal treatment of consciences, required that there 'should be a subsidy in order to be fair to the Catholic conscience, he would vote for such subsidyon the same conditions as before; namely, that the religious instruction given should be at the charge of those desiring it ; and that the subsidy should be payment for, and only for, the secular results attained. ■ * : Our State system can never be truly national until it is fair all round, anduntil it gives as'much consideration to those who do believe in religious education as to those, who do not believe in religious education. 5 For us, the essential question in the coming contest is Is the candidate in favor of equal treatment ; of consciences in the matter of education ? The question, in that form, goes to the very root of the matter, and, at the same time, ought not to antagonize any-section of the community. The candidate who answers in the negative proclaims himself at , oncp as the avowed apostle of injustice. On the other hand, no candidate need be afraid to answer such a question in the affirmative. Already the subject has been placed in some such form as that above outlined to candidates both in Auckland’ and Wellington; and some, at least, have returned a straight-out, unequivocal ‘Yes’ to the question. It is the duty of Catholics to take care that—either publicly or privately a query is submitted to all candidates in all electorates. It is a further obvious duty to see that those candidates whose replies are satisfactory receive whole-hearted : support..