All the evidences available point, unhappily, to a bitter struggle
over the Education Bill. Tuesday's papers contained a letter addressed by the Bishop of London to the Rural Deans in his diocese denouncing the Bill as a measure of compulsory confiscation in which the provision offered for the object which Churchmen are bound to guard—the education of their children in the Christian faith according to the tenets of the Church of England as set forth in the Catechism— is "meagre and unsatisfactory." We may note that the Bishop proposes to hold a mass meeting of protest in the Albert Hall on May 11th. Tuesday's papers also contained the report of the Annual Conference of the Independent Labour Party at Stockton-on-Tees, at which the president, Mr. Snowden, M.P., vehemently attacked the Education Bill as pleasing .no one but the Nonconformists, and involving the establishment of their views as a State religion. The Government, in his opinion, had made a com- plete surrender to the clamour of sectarianism, and the Independent Labour Party would give the Bill unqualified opposition. Tire Bishop of Manchester has also issued a manifesto vehemently condemning the Bill. We do not propose at the present stage of the controversy to add any further comment to what we said last week, beyond urging extreme denominationalists to reflect upon the tremendous responsibility they assume by adopting a course which lends momentum to the drift towards secularisation.
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