The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1912. CANON GARLAND AT THE PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY

New Zealand Tablet, 21 November 1912, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1912. CANON GARLAND AT THE PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY

R. CLEARY will doubtless in due time deal aR. in detail with Canon Garland’s address to I in detail with Canon Garland’s address to jmgf the Presbyterian Assembly, which is I euphemistically described by one of the * Wellington dailies as a ‘ Reply to Bishop Cleary ’; and our present purpose is merely I’M' to refer in a very general way to the * deliverance. It would appear that Canon Garland is quite unable to conceal his anti-Catholic animus; and by his continual appeal to bigotry and prejudice he is doing his best—it is hardly too much to sayto degrade the movement to the level of a mere no-Popery campaign. The Press Association telegraphed summary of the address was in some respects inaccurate, and hardly did justice to the speaker; but we have before us the full and apparently verbatim report given by the Dominion newspaper, and this amply sustains our statement. ‘ Are we to have “Rome Rule” or “Home Rule”?’ he asked. ‘Are we, the people of New Zealand, to be masters in our own house, or are our own affairs to be subject to the dictation of a small minority, even though it has the estimable Bishop at its head.’ ‘ Are we,’ he continues, ‘Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists, Salvation Army, and other Christian individuals, are we satisfied to wait until we come round to his view of the situation, and get State-aided denominational schools?’ And referring to Bishop Cleary’s allusion to the Penal Code, he remarks : ‘ And Bishop Cleary has the honesty to suggest that we are seeking to revive some of the most dangerous principles of the Penal Code ! I for one regret that there ever was a Penal Code, but I would remind him, since he suggests it, that we could talk of similar things, of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France, when there were those who laid down their lives cheerfully in defence of the very principle

we are advocating —the open Bible for themselves and their children; or we could remind him of the Spanish Inquisition, under which the mere possession of a Bible was a crime to be punished by torture and death. And the principles of that Inquisition are, I venture to submit, the same principles advocated by Bishop Cleary that the Bible snail not be open to our children, except under his control, and that we shall have no liberty of conscience unless he first is ready to agree to it.' That is, on the face of it, the veriest clap-trap. It is deplorable that such a spirit should be introduced into what is ostensibly a religious enterprise; but it is perhaps just as well that we should know thus early exactly what the movement stands for and what it is we have to face. Certainly we can conceive nothing better calculated to wreck the movement in New Zealand than the narrow, undignified, no-Popery attitude adopted by its official organiser. * Canon Garland's address is not only disfigured by the black streak of bigotry it is also conspicuously marked by the oft-heard-of ' yellow streak ' which is the object of such contempt amongst fighting men. Canon Garland lacks either ability or courageprobably both. He may or may not be a great organiser—he is certainly a poor fighter. He told the Presbyterian Assembly that he had declined ' to enter into a controversy with Bishop Cleary,' almost as if there were some merit in thus running away from the defence of the system which he had been specially imported to expound. In not a single instance in the address under discussion does he stand squarely up to the points he is called upon to face. Let us give one or two examples of his method of running away from a plain issue. One of the questions asked by Bishop Cleary was as follows: ' By what moral right would the league compel Catholics or other objectors to pay for the State endowment of an official school religion at variance with their conscientious religious convictions?' Here is Canon Garland's reply: ' I would point out that they have already accused the State school system of being so Godless at present that for their children's sake whenever they can they get them to leave it. They are paying for that education which they denounce as Godless; and is there any injustice in asking them to pay for a system to which they pay to-day, but from which one of their main objections will be entirely removed?' The question asked, it will be seen, remains absolutely unanswered. There is no attempt to set forth the plain, positive ' moral right' desiderated; and the public get nothing better than a feeble ' Is there any injustice' in perpetuating(and, as Catholics hold, gravely aggravating)an existing injustice. In the same way Canon Garland shirks the issue in regard to the position of Catholic teachers under the proposed scheme. Bishop Cleary had asked: ' What moral right has the Bible-in-schools League to place any teacher in a position where he will be forced by Act of Parliament either to forfeit his living or to violate his conscience, and sell his scruples for bread and butter?' Canon Garland answers: ' We are prepared to trust absolutely and unreservedly the Catholic teachers in State schools.' Here, again, the reply is no reply at all. Nobody was asking —what the League thought about the Catholic teachers, or how far they were prepared to trust them. The issue was as to what the Act of Parliament had to say on the matter; and . on this point it is perfectly clear that without option of any kind the Catholic teacher is compelled either to violate the doctrine and discipline of his Church or to go. Canon Garland adopts a similar runaway attitude in regard to Bishop Cleary's objection to the so--called referendum. Bishop Cleary had said: 'The league proposes by referendum to submit a disputed question of religion and conscience to a count of voters' . heads. When did a numerical majority become the final arbiter in matters of religion and conscience?' Canon Garland replies, with almost childish irrelevancy: 'What is Parliament but a counting of heads.' The obvious point of Bishop Cleary's objection lay in the words ' in matters of religion and conscience ' — matters in regard to which Parliament is universally recognised as having nothing to do—and this plain issue

Canon Garland makes not the faintest attempt to meet. ; -" ■'-.-■;. * Canon Garland's extraordinaryand, under the circumstances, we might say unpardonable of the actual working of our education system has betrayed him into statements which cannot but make him appear ridiculous in the eyes of intelligent New Zealanders who know the facts. Take,' for example, the following: 'When he (Bishop Cleary) makes the statement that he has saved the State an immense amount of money, in the cost of education, I say he makes a statement that does not bear examination. Supposing the children in these denominational schools were distributed amongst the State schools already existing, do you think it would be necessary to have. a great many more schools, and to provide a great many more teachers No; they would be in the great majority of cases absorbed in the existing machinery of the schools, and there would be no appreciable increase in the State education expenses.' Apart altogether from the question of the cost of any additional building accommodation that might be necessary, Canon Garland ought to know that our whole scale of teachers' salaries is framed in strict proportion to the number of children attending the schools, and that, on the mere item of salaries alone, any increase in' the attendance at the State schools would be followed by an immediate, automatic, and substantial increase in the cost of those schools. Let us illustrate by official figures taken from the Annual Report of the Education Department for last year. From Table Bl on page 25 of this report we learn that the increase in the attendance at the public primary schools for 1910, as compared with that for 1909, was 2965. From Table F2, attached to the same report we find that the increase in teachers' salaries alone arising chiefly out of this increased attendance was £28,275 9s 3d. Canon Garland is still more absurdly astray in his child-like notion that if there were no Catholic schools the Catholic children ' would be absorbed in the existing machinery of the (State) schools,' without any need of increased buildings or expenses. Here, again, the official figures throw an unmistakable light on the position. From a table on page 3 of the report already quoted we learn that to cope with this increase in the number of children —2965 —38 new schools had to be opened and from Table F 9 (page 40) we find that for additions to school buildings, for new schools (not including old schools re-built), and teachers' residences, the expenditure amounted to £32,493 7s Bd. This refers exclusively to the erection of new schools and the extension of existing schools rendered necessary by the increased attendance of 2965 children, the general maintenance and replacement of school buildings being paid for out of an entirely different fund. The number of children attending the Catholic schools in New Zealand is in round numbers 13,000. "Unless he is as weak in arithmetic as he is in logic, Canon Garland will now be able to figure out for himself just what it would cost the Government, in the matter of buildings alone, if the Catholic schools were closed, and will be able to see how ludicrous he has made himself appear by his absurd suggestion that the Catholic children 'would be absorbed in the existing machinery of the schools, and there would be no appreciable 'increase in the State education expenses.' * No one will, we may feel sure, be in the least deceived by Canon Garland's pretence that he declined to enter into a controversy with Bishop Cleary because he did not wish ' to attack the doctrines of any Church' which did not join in his movement. He was not asked to attack either the Catholic or any other Church, but solely and merely to defend the system of which he is the official advocate on certain points that are absolutely vital and fundamental. Nor will the public be at all likely to be misled by what we can only describe as his clap-trap appeals and his free use of mere empty catch-words. His ' Rome Rule or Home Rule' exhortation— has come in for such general censureis a specimen of the one; and as a sample of the other we may take the following: ' The people of New Zealand, will, if they are not blocked, if they once

get the muzzle taken off them, that Bishop Cleary is seeking to impose upon them, declare themselves for religious liberty and freedom of conscience, and an open Bible. The ‘ open Bible ’ shibboleth appears again and again in the address; yet Canon Garland must know perfectly well that in this connection, the'phrase is absolutely meaningless, and that if his proposals were accepted to-morrow, the newly-adopted system would not put a solitary Bible, either open or closed, into a single school in New Zealand. From every point of view Canon Garland’s appearance at the Assembly must be regarded as a failure. There were any number of ministers at the gathering who could have put the case for the new movement with more ability; and there were few, if any, of them who would have put it so offensively.