RECRUITING AND EDUCATION

New Zealand Tablet, 30 May 1918, Page 17

RECRUITING AND EDUCATION

ARCHBISHOP KELLY'S PASTORAL LETTER. A pastoral letter, written by Archbishop Kelly, was read on Sunday, May 12, in the churches of the Catholic archdiocese of Sydney. The following are extracts : —• “Recruiting for the land and sea forces devolves as a duty upon the nation, and as such it was a duty well fulfilled under the voluntary system, both in Australia and in Ireland, until certain events, and their developments, did lamentably occur both here and at home. The facts are but too well remembered. We affirm in goodwil to all that recruiting in Australia and in Ireland, so far as religion and nationality are factors of effectiveness, postulates an alteration of the policy in two main directions. Firstly, the surviving remnants of old policies working for the impoverishment, debasement, and enslavement, or extermination of true Irishmen in Ireland are to be disavowed candidly and practically by Great Britain. es, and moreover replaced at once by honorable recog-

nition of the national rights of the sister island; secondly,- let Australian democracy prove itself true to its aspirations by a reform of its laws, so that these may afford protection in civic, domestic, and personal duties and rights to fellow citizens, who believe in God and in Christianity. We refer to disabilities affecting the only complete and sound system of instruction in primary schools in our midst, viz., the combined religious and secular system. Against such schools our Public Instruction Act and the administration thereof enforce penalties and exclusions which are unnecessary, unjust, unpatriotic, and inexcusable. Let such unwise bigotry disappear from our Public Instruction Act, and from the department to which its administration is confined..”