by Sir Robert Stout. He appears to argue that crimes prevail among certain classes because of their religious belief; instead of, as I prefer to think, in spite of it. I hold that the great majority of human beings would be far worse citizens, as well as far more unhappy creatures, if deprived of their religious faith, and their supernatural aspirations. As I have said at the beginning of the chapter, I should be an advocate for religious education in the State schools in Australia, but for the fact that the people are so sharply divided into two races, which can only be assimilated by a common system of national education. In addition to this there is no religious communion like the Anglican Church in England, which, by its numbers, wealth, and prestige, could carry on the education of the country on religious lines, to the satisfaction of even a bare majority of the people. It was the hopelessness of the task in these new countries to make the State teach religion that has impelled so many religious men, and in fact the great majority of a not irreligious community, to favour the secular system. To show that my own position is not a singular or isolated one, I may point out that from the days of Sir Richard Bourke and Robert Lowe, in New South
