The "Tablet's" Sound Policy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 17, 3 May 1923, Page 13

The "Tablet's" Sound Policy

(By P. J. O’Regan.)

I have been asked to write an article for the jubilee number of the Tablet, and the Editor has been good enough to allow me to choose the subject. Accordingly I take it upon me to write something in praise and justification of the paper itself. lime was when newspapers, even daily newspapers, were established lor the 'propagation of definite principles—when newspaper writers sought to mould opinion in favor of great causes. That time, unhappily, has passed, and nowadays nothing illustrates better the mercenary spirit of the age than the attitude of the daily Press, indeed there is no greater menace to freedom than the control of the Press by corrupt and mercenary interests. It has become the settled policy of the Press to stifle discussion on questions which the interests controlling it fear to have ventilated. Only such views are presented to the public as are palatable to vested interests and popular prejudice, and hence the Press has become the most potent means for infecting the public mind with erroneous principles, and is mainly responsible for producing that spirit of savagery which makes war inevitable. It was Lord Northcliffe who boasted that the South African War was his war, meaning that he had made it inevitable by propaganda. Yet, speaking from his place in the House of Commons'on that war, Mr. John (now Lord) Morley declared that the might of the British Empire had been invoked “to wreck the independence of two little States who, if moral laws have any validity, had as good a right to govern themselves as we have.” Such being the case, it may lie affirmed with confidence that any journal established primarily for the promulgation of great principles is a most desirable acquisition to the community. In order to approve that proposition we need not necessarily subscribe to everything appearing in such a journal. Differences of opinion on the many issues arising in the life of a people from time to time are to bo expected and are not to bo condemned. During the fifty years of its existence the Tablet has been conspicuous for its advocacy of two principles—first, on the question of education it has steadily maintained the right of the parent as against the autocracy of the State, and, secondly it has maintained the right of national self-determination as against the prevailing heresy of Imperialism! I propose briefly to deal with these two facts in their order. For more than fifty years the people of this country have had dinned in their ears the abounding virtues of State and secular education. So intolerant have been our journalistic mentors and our political sciolists that few people realise nowadays that there is another side to the question. Nevertheless there are still people in this country—and the Tablet is largely responsible for the fact— dare to maintain that the real function of Government is, not to violate, but to protect natural rights. Just as the individual has the natural right, co-equal with other individuals, to earn his living and to accumulate property, so he has the right to educate his child in his own way! and hence any system which ignores the right of the parent to select the teachers of his child is of necessity an autocracy. To subscribe to this principle is not by implication to deny the right of the State to require the education of its citizens, but we deny the right of the State—is to say the Government to establish an autocratic monopoly in matters of education, particularly when that monopoly penalises parents who insist on the religious training of their children. In other words, the State, unlike the parent, has not an inherent right to educate children. Assuming that it may acquire the right it can do so only with the free consent of the parents. Moreover, if some parents do consent to hand over the education of their children to the State, their action cannot .and should not bind those parents who conscientiously object and who refuse to surrender their inherent right to educate their children pursuant to their own convictions. It is grosslv incorrect to argue that this is exclusively Catholic teaching. In reality it is the view of a very strong body of secular opinion. Thomas Paine, in his Bights of Man advocates popular education but not a State monopoly. Indeed, he states his preparedness to leave education in

the hands of the various denominations, provided the scholars attain to the standard of excellence in secular training which the State prescribes. John Stuart Mill, who was a Rationalist, in the course of an illuminating chapter on the principles of State interference writes (Principles of Political Economy, Book v., Chap, xl): One thing must be most strenuously ini sited on; that the Government must claim no monopoly for its education , cither in the lower or in the higher branches; must exert neither authority nor influence to induce people to resort to its teachers in preference to others, and must confer no peculiar advantages on those who have been instructed by them. Though the Government teachers will probably be superior to the average of private instructors , they mill not embody all the knowledge and sagacity to be found in all instructors taken together, and it is desirable to leave open as many roads as possible to the desired end. Nor is it to he endured that a Government should, either “de hire or de facto,” have a complete control over the education of the whole people. To possess such a control and actually exert it, is to be a despot. A government which can mould the sentiments and opinions of the people, from their youth upwards, can do with them whatever it pleases. Though a government . there may, and in many cases ought to, establish schools and colleges, it must neither compel nor bribe any person to come to them; nor ought the power of individuals to set up rival establishments to depend in any degree upon its authorisation. ft may be justified in requiring from all the people that they shall possess Instruction in certain things, hut not in prescribing to them how or from whom they shall obtain it. As for purely secular education, that is to say the boycotting of the Almighty in the schools, there is no doubt whatever that it shocks the conscience of multitudes outside the Catholic Church. The late Dr, Goldwin Smith was by no means friendly to Catholicism, but he declared that a system of education which ignores the moral faculties can never make a man. That the persistent propaganda in this country in favor of State autocracy in matters of education has not altogether succeeded is fully proved by the facts. According to the latest Year Book there are in New Zealand 221 private primary schools on the rolls of which are 22,193 children. Of these the great majorityls2—are of course Catholic schools, but there are 69 non-Catholic primary schools. There are also 18 private secondary schools having 1439 pupils, and though the Year Book does not tell us how many of these are Catholic, it is certain that some of them are conducted by other denominations. As a matetr of fact, notwithstanding the hostility towards voluntary schools, the common-sense of a large section of the people continues to assert itself, and there can be no doubt that of late years a large' number of our non-Catholic friends have realised, as they failed to realise previously, the paramount importance of individual freedom in matters of education. The point which I wish to emphasise is that ever since its inception the Tablet has defended a principle which is gaining increased support as time goes on. Undoubtedly it would have been a grave public calamity if during the years that have gone, when blatant secularism held the field and proclaimed defiantly its belief in State autocracy, had there been no paper to assert the principles for which the Catholic Church stands. The growing popularity of voluntary schools, particularly noticeable in more recent years, among our Anglican and Presbyterian brethren is gratifying for more reasons than one. By implication it amounts to an admission that the Tablet has performed a great public service when they themselves were less vigilant than they ought to have been. I now pass to the question of national self-determina-tion. As the vast majority of the Catholic body in this country are of Irish origin, it was to be expected that the Tablet would have defended the national aspirations of the people of Ireland. In doing so, however, the paper has in reality been defending Catholic principles, for all through the ages Catholicism has necessarily opposed itself to the truculent, crazy, and unhistoric pretensions of Imperialism. In the matter of Home Rule for Ireland the attitude of the press of this country in the past has been beneath contempt. When the Redmond brothers visited Australia and New Zealand in 1883 they came to advocate Home Rule within the Empire, by lawful and constitutional

means. Nevertheless they were confronted with the blackest malignity. The press denounced them either as criminals or the confreres of criminals and the promoters of disloyalty and sedition. I believe that in no single instance were the Messrs. Redmond permitted to speak in a public hall. Certainly as a general rule they addressed meetings in Catholic schools, from hotel balconies, and in the open air. Everywhere the press opened its columns to the most cowardly attacks by rabid fanatics of the Howard Elliott type. Equally disgraceful was the treatment accorded in 1889 when Mr. John Dillon, Mr. John Deasy, and Sir Thomas Esmonde visited this country. The recollection of the treatment accorded to the Irish representatives in the days under review makes one marvel how the daily press could have lent itself to such conduct while boasting of its British fairplay. The attitude of the Tablet was consistent all through, and that too in spite of the hostility of more than one highly-placed shoneen. Nowadays, however, all this is changed. The dun-der-headed ruling classes of England—aptly designated by John Stuart Mill "the stupid party"—have yielded to armed rebellion more than they refused Ireland when she limited herself to constitutional means. Thus the English ruling classes and their myrmidons of the colonial daily press have been compelled, as it were, to eat their own words, and whatever the future may have in store, it is now an indisputable proposition that Ireland is and must remain a free sell-governing community. What is this but an admission that the claims of O'Connell, of Isaac Butt, of Parnell, of the brothers Redmond were right and should have been conceded? Thus the logic of events have justified the attitude of the Tablet in defending the right of Ireland to govern herself. Accordingly I would ask your readers to bear the foregoing facts in mind, to realise that the Tablet has more than justified its existence, and above all things to remember that such a paper is as necessary nowadays as ever.