The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1913. THE REFERENDUM IN THE VICTORIAN PARLIAMENT

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1913, Page 33

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1913. THE REFERENDUM IN THE VICTORIAN PARLIAMENT

- «OME three weeks ago the cables brought the intimation that ' the Victorian Legislative Assembly, by 30 votes to 27, negatived the Bill providing for a referendum at the next election in favor of unsectarian Scripture lessons being given in the State schools.’ Even in making this simple announcement the cable agent managed to blunder. The Bill was rejected not by a majority of 3 votes, as stated in the cable, but by a majority of 7, the numbers being— 23; Noes, 30. Immediately after the last election the Rev. Joseph Nicholson announced in the press that a majority had been returned to Parliament pledged to the referendum; and up to the time of the actual introduction of the Bill into the Assembly the Bible Leaguers or Scripture Campaigners —to give them their Victorian name—had confidently anticipated a substantial majority; but as a matter of fact the referendum proposal was vetoed as emphatically and by practically as large a majority as on the occasion of its previous rejection. It would appear that the present decision is regarded as settling the question for some considerable time; and the Argus has warned the Scripture Campaign Council that the electors will stand no more of their heckling. ‘ There must,’ it says, *be an end somewhere. The electors are not in the frame of mind to tolerate the constant obtrusion of these side issues, and may be depended upon to resent every attempt to force them into pro-

minence at election time. It accordingly remains for the propagandists to accept the situation like good citizens, and abandon their campaign, at least for a considerable number of years.’ TV The discussion on the Bill was an interesting one ; and a number of excellent speeches were made in opposition to the measure. We have already referred to the powerful address given by the Minister of Education (Sir A. J. Peacock). Another altogether admirable speech was that of Mr. Duffus, member for Port Fairy, who specially voiced the Catholic view of the question. Courteous and considerate in tone, cogent in argument, with facts and authorities carefully marshalled, it was an extremely effective presentment of the objections to be urged against any one-sided or merely sectional settlement of this great question. We hope next week to find space for the full text of this sterling address, as reported in our contemporary, the Melbourne Tribune. Mr. Duffus made it perfectly clear that he was not opposed to religious instruction as such, but that what he objected to was the violation of conscience involved in the taking of a referendum on such a subject, and the introduction of any form of religion into the State school curriculum until such time as the Government made some provision for those children whose parents for conscientious reasons could not avail themselves of any school in which such religious instruction would be given. If this Bill were passed, and the referendum carried, then the Catholics, he contended, , and other denominations who have established and maintained primary schools at their own cost, would have an overwhelmingly strong claim for a capitation grant towards the effective secular teaching given in their schools. ‘ I am prepared,’ he said, ‘to advocate a capitation grant as the only remedy for the injustice that nearly one-fourth of our citizens suffer under at the present time.’ Mr. M. McKenzie, member for Upper Goulburn, who is a strong supporter of the Bible-in-Schools movement, took a similar view. ‘He repeated,’ says the Argus report, ‘ what he said 15 or 16 years ago, that there never can be any settlement of this educational difficulty until the Roman Catholic claims are met in some form.’

In the course of his address Mr. Duffus quoted much valuable matter from recognised experts in the educational world; and, in particular, from a publication entitled The Religious Question in Public Education, edited by such eminent authorities as Athelstan Riley, M.A. (member of the School Board of London), M. E. Sadler, M.A., L'L.D. (Professor of the History and Administration of Education in the University of Manchester), and Cyril Jackson, M.A. (chairman of the Education Committee of the London County Council). The following extract from that very interesting volume is a lucid, comprehensive, and authoritative summary of the fundamental principles governing the whole question of religious education : ‘ The editors of this volume are far from thinking that they have found the key to the difficulty which has long perplexed the minds of statesmen in England and elsewhere. If they were asked, however, to disclose the view to which they themselves have been led in the course of their inquiry, they would put forward the following principles as being, in their judgment, fundamental: (1) Religious (including moral) instruction and training must form part of any system of national education designed to impart belief in a moral ideal as the groundwork of character. (2) The contents of any course of religious instruction and training, which purposes to be in accordance with the faith of a particular Church, must .be under the control of the spiritual authority of that Church, and not of some secular authority endeavoring to interpret it. (3) It is undesirable that the State should attempt to impose uniformity of religious belief or of religious instruction upon all the children in the nation by means of the system of Statecontrolled or State-aided education. This principle, if accepted, renders unacceptable (a) the imposition of

the doctrines of one particular Church to the exclusion of those of others; (b) to attempt to enforce undenominational Christian teaching as the sole form of religious instruction eligible for aid from the State; and (c) the enforcement, under the name of moral instruction, of humanitarianism as a substitute for Christian doctrine. (4) In schools which are wholly maintained . from public funds, no official or financial preference should ultimately be given to one form of religious instruction as compared with others.’ These are the very principles for which Catholics in this country are so strenuously contending. * The last occasion on which a vote was taken in the Victorian Legislative Assembly on the proposal for a Bible-in-schools referendum was in October, 1910, when the proposal was negatived by 31 votes to 23. Since then a fair field and ample time have been afforded for the ventilation and discussion of the question; and the proposal has been again rejected by practically the same majority. In one respect at least the Victorian proposal was less objectionable than the scheme now being advocated in this country, for the ‘ general religious instruction ’ was to be imparted only by teachers ‘ having no conscientious objection ’ to giving the Scripture lessons prescribed. The set-back in Victoria will doubtless react on the New Zealand movement; and the result of tip discussion on the other side may be taken as a welcome augury of the fate which awaits the same unjust proposal in our own Legislature.