EDUCATION DEBATE

Another speaker declared that the slogan this autumn should be " The child first."
" LET THEM PAY" G. Cole, Electrical Trade Union of Liverpool, said it was high time the State ceased subsidising secondary education and concentrated on secular education.
14. 131111oek, a member of the Educedon Committee of the T.U.C., told me that he did not want to be interviewed, as he did not trust newspapermen. They twisted what he said. He was surprised that the Anglicans have not had something to say about the Report. He thought they had been rather slow. He believed in the teachings of the Christian Religion but was not prepared to agree to the teaching of mysticism and totempole.
" If Catholics want their schools let them have them, but why should I be expected to pay for them?"
Some people had already read into the Report, he told me, that which was not there, meaning that Congress wanted to abolish religious teaching. That was not so—he believed in the teaching of Christianity but not peculiar interpretations of it.
George Gibson Interviewed
I was able to interview George Gibson, ex-President of the T.U.C., who told me that if he was with us on he was against us in this issue.
" I believe," he said, " that the efficient education of the chldren of this country largely depends upon the State taking over control of all schools.
" Education is bound up with the future security of this country and I do not think that Church schools can foot the bill entailed in private schools of the standard that will be required.
" It is my experience that denominational schools are by and laege inferior to State schools being in many cases less efficient and insanitary as cornpared 'with the Stateconstructed
Agreeing thatIsound education must be based upon religion, Mr. Gibson said : •' Let that religious education begin in the home.".
He stated that he was quite prepared to support the teaching of religion in schools but it should he confined to a specific time and the instruction should be given b? persons approved by the particular religious denominadon themselves. He was not prepared to consider the appointment of a teacher on purely religious grounds.
Referring to the Scottish -system he said that he -believed that that system was the most efficient as regards the results but he did not advocate its introduction here. He believed in the right of every child to a free education from the elementary school to the University and therefore stood by the T.U.C. Memorandum
Mr. Yates Interviewed
Catholic Justice of the Peace T. Yates, of the South-East Lancashire Card and Blowing Room Operatives, interviewed by me, said:
" f think that the accepting by the T.U. Congress of the policy as set out in section 9 of the memorandum on education will, in my judgement, he the cause of growing disunity In the Trade Union Movement, the consequences of which cannot,. as yet be visualised.
"Catholics will not feel to be bound in conscience by such a deieion. The General Council by challenging Congress on this issue will have piecipitated this disunity.
" The parents," said Mr. Yates, " have the duty of educating the children and if he sub-lets that duty to the State by payment of rates and taxes, he still has the right to the education he desires for his child.
" F.ducation, as laid down in the T.U.C. Memorandum, merely makes a child clever. It wants something more than that if it is to be of assistance to the State and that something is a religious education.
To push OW matter through when a considerable portion of the country's manpower is serving in JIM. Forces is definitely undemocratic.
" These men are fighting for the maintenance of Christian ideals and the removal of religion from the schools is not necessarily one of the ideals for -which they arc fighting."
Delegate O'Brien
Sums Up T. O'Brien, Catholic Member of the T.U.C. General Council and General Seeretaty of the National Association of Theatrical and Kine Employees, said that he did not think that there was any active anti-Catholic or antiChristian feeling within the General Council, the Trade Union Congress, or the Trade Union Movement itself. In fact a considerable number of Trade Unionists were religious men. It would be, in his opinion, lamentable if the controversy on education memorandum was represented so as to suggest that the Trade Union Movement was ant i-rel igous.
" It is difficult," said Mr. O'Brien, " for the Catholic attitude towards the education of Catholic children in Catholic schools to be fully understood by all Trade Unionists, particularly when it is realised that among the six million Trade Unionists in this country there are Christians of all denominations, non-Christians, Jews, sincere agnostics, and others who are completely indiflerent to any religious faith.
" Catholics are in a minority," he said. '• and perhaps if the teachings of Leo XIII in the defence of the rights of the workers of the world had been more vigorously proclaimed from pulpit and platform over the past 50 years, and the lead given by the great C-ardinal Manning follosved up, Catholic Trade Unionists would have greater influence in the Trade unions to-clay. Furthermore, the workers would have identified the Catholic Church in England as their friend, whereas to-day It is. wrongly of course, regarded as part of the capitalist system like other religious institutions.
"Cardinal Ilinsley, Archbishop Downey and other members of the Hierarchy, have by their advocacy of soctal justice brought about a much better appreciation of the Catholic point of view.
" Whether they are too late to swing the opinion of the mass of our fellow countrymen remains to be seen."
Tht total sum banked by the Hon. Treasurer of the C.W.L. Huts and Canteens Committee is £30,000. and there are 65 centres functioning at home and abroad, all being undc nominational. Up to January I thie year £17,065 has been paid out to various canteens. These facts are contained in the Report just issued. copies of which can be obtained by application to Windsor House, 46, Victoria Street, S.W.I.