[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR."] confess to being utterly
mystified by a statement made hr Mr. Forster in the course of his speech last Tuesday, and endorsed by you in your first article in last week's issue. The statement ina the Spectator is, " Except at Birmingham, the advocates of the secular system have owed their election to the operation of the cumulative vote, and probably would not have secured it without- it. The evidence that the country is opposed to the secular sys- tem could not be more complete." What, then, is the significance of the occasional elections that have taken place since 1870?' What is the meaning of the fact that in nearly every case the can- didate who adopted the platform of the League has been returned,.. and by a huge majority ? In these cases, the cumulative vote has been of necessity inoperative, and in these cases the people have, spoken unmistakably against denominational education.
I have always refused to accept the conclusion so hastily arrived:' at from the result of the great School Board elections. As the- Liberals of the Liberals, we have paid the price of want of con- certed action, and our votes were wasted in dispersion among too- many candidates. We had to encounter all the odium attaching: to the word " secular," which opponents not over-scrupulous• interpreted to mean the teaching of " secularism." But time wilh show. I have no doubt of the success of the cause which, as a.. Christian minister, I have espoused.—I am, Sir, &c., [Oar correspondent's remarks are hardly to the point. No doubt,, the dislike felt for the twenty-fifth clause of the Education Act,. though in our opinion unreasonable, has determined several elections in which its opponents would never have thought of voting for secular education pure and simple. The remark we made- applied to the question of religions teaching or no religious teach- ing in the School Board Schools, and on that matter we are persuaded that the country is practically unanimous, though here and there, as at Halifax, an otherwise very popular and influen- tial representative of the Secular view may have been returned. —En. Spectator.]
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