We’re now on and the tax resistance struggle against the Education Act continues.
The Bedsfordshire Advertiser and Luton Times of covered the meeting of the Luton Passive Resistance League. Excerpts:
Mr. Murray Barford said that the new demand note for
1s.
6d. in the £ “poor
rate” only contained items amounting to
3d. really for the
poor. One item said
“5¾d., for borough
education,” and of that
3¾d. in the £ would be
administered by their local authorities, and
2d. by the respective
Vicars and their nominees. That
2d. meant that in the
aggregate £2,600 would be handed over to the church people to teach what the
Passive Resisters disagreed with, and the Committee recommended that
2d. in the £ be
deducted by all Resisters when they paid the rate. He understood the summonses
would be much the same as last year, and would come in
, and he hoped the magistrates would
not be Nonconformists. They would be ready. (Applause).
The Rev. J.W. Mayo, in remarking on the progress of the movement, said that
enthusiasm in Leighton was fairly keen. Bedford gaol could hold 130, and he
thought the Passive Resisters in the county ought to crowd it out.…
Alderman O’Connor… Referring to his imprisonment for 14 days, he told his
incidents humorously. He spent a happy time in prison, though the plank bed
was too hard to sleep on and the place was very insanitary, and the food so
wretched that he ate very little during the fortnight. He did not think these
things were happening by chance, or that God was calling them to something
useless.
In a curious turn of events, a reverend from the establishment Church of England threatened a passive resistance campaign on the Church’s part if religious education in the schools were watered down. From the Nottingham Evening Post:
Church Schools.
Suggested Passive Resistance.
Among the resolutions to be submitted at the Manchester Conference of the
Church Schools Emergency League, to be held on
, is one which will be moved by the
Rev. F.E. Allen, rector of
Hardwicke, as follows:–
That in the event of a policy of destruction of voluntary schools by
out-numbering foundation managers, or so-called abolition of tests for head
teachers, being carried out, it will become the duty of Churchmen to meet it
by “passive resistance.”
Another resolution asks the members of the league to oppose, denounce, and
refuse submission to any legislation which has for its object the setting up
by the authority of Parliament in the schools of any form of so-called “simple
Christian religion” or “religious instruction” which omits the cardinal
doctrines of Christianity as set forth in the Apostle’s Creed, and which the
people may be called on to support compulsorily out of rates and taxes, or in
any other way.
The Church Schools Emergency League was formed in to oppose attempts by Nonconformists and secularists to end Church of England control over its school staffing and religious curriculum choices. It would represent Church hardliners in the fight against attempted reforms of the Education Act by the subsequent Liberal government.
