The Dissenters are moving Heaven and Earth to have the
power 'which enables School Boards to pay the fees of poor children in any properly qualified elementary school, be it denominational or not, taken away from them by Parliamentary statute. On Wed- nesday week ('27th September) the Baptist Union passed a strong resolution against thie permissive power, as " a violation of the onsciencee of the ratepayers and a vicious form of endowing all religious which Parliament has already condemned." Nay, the Baptist Union go further still, and demand " the withdrawal of all grants from the Consolidated Fund to sectarian schools," in spite of the lime-table conscience-clause which is now the condition of those grants. This really meaus.secular education, and nothing else. We warn the Dissenters that though they may easily succeed in turning out the Government, if they wish it,—no doubt they hold the power that turns the balance of parties in their hands,— they will find it about as easy to carry out their vindictive
programme against the denominational schools which bore all the burden and heat of the day of educational reform, in the name of "the rights of conscience," as they would to carry the abolition of the Army and Navy, or to enforce uon-resistance as against criminal. We have fought stoutly for the strict equality of Dis- senters with Churchmen, but we will fight equally stoutly against their dictatorial caprices.
