employer it may be enforced, unless he chooses to surrender his business. But it cannot be enforced against the men; for, as has been remarked, "you cannot imprison a nation."
Great attention has been given in all the colonies to the subject of education. Up to a certain age it is given free by the State; and children, within certain age-limits, who are not privately educated, are required to be sent to the State schools by their parents under pain of increasing fines for neglect. At the last census there were, in South Australia, in round numbers, 80,000 children of school-going age—five to fifteen years: and of these 47,000 were attending State schools and 13,000 private schools. The system is secular, and four and a half hours a day are devoted to instruction. Before and after those hours Bible reading may be given if the parents desire it. When the education system was established it was decided that the secular principle was the complement of the compulsory one, for, as children of all sects and of no sect are compelled to attend school, it was thought that they should not be forced to receive religious instruction which would be repugnant to the beliefs of their parents. It may be mentioned here that the Roman Catholic and the Orange element is strong in all the colonies. It might have been thought that this old-world element of discord would have been left behind or forgotten, but it is not so. The Roman Catholic vote is a thing to be reckoned with in all elections, whether they be of committees of charitable institutions, of municipal councillors, or of legislators. The orange and green elements are manifested in divisions in the police force, and in dissensions in the lower ranks of the public service. It was hoped that if the children of Roman Catholic and Protestant parents could be mixed together in the same schools, a mutual feeling of respect and goodwill would grow up, and the divisions would be
