Before dealing with the merit of this school question, we beg to state that the time for co-operation in educational matters has come.  The day of wrangling and narrow conceptions has passed, we hope.  If there is a sacred liberty ever protected by the British flag it is surely that of education.—­The recognition and protection of ethical and religious ideals are the most potent factors of the British Empire.  He is a true lover of British ideals who places himself upon that higher level to judge the rights of minorities and the duties of majorities.  If our Province of Saskatchewan has not known the sterile struggles of a sister Province it is because this principle has been respected and protected by our legislation.  In suggesting a remedy to our laws governing Company-school-taxes, I appeal to that broad and fair minded spirit which seems to characterize our banner Province of the West.  The solution we propose would give more satisfaction to the interested parties and relieve the problem of its acrimony.

* * * * * *

In the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta the separate schools are an integral part of the public primary educational system.  They are not parochial nor private schools, but public separate schools.  Their existence is not a favour conceded to the Protestant or Catholic minority, but rather, the acknowledgement of a natural and constitutional right.  Therefore the separate schools come under the common law.  With the purely public schools, our separate public schools share equal obligations and equal rights.  The same official inspection, the same qualifications for teachers, the same curriculum of studies, the same school text-books are required in both cases by the Department of Education.  Equal right to public money is recognized in the indiscriminate distribution of Government-grants.  So both schools stand side by side with equal duties and equal rights.  If this point of law had been kept in view no painful issue would ever be raised; co-operation, and not antagonism, would be the aim of the community at large in the great and sublime work of education.  Hard and bitter things have been said in the press, on the platform and even in the pulpit:  but they do not change a right.  Might itself cannot stamp out RIGHT.

* * * * * *

Public service is the principle of taxation.  In return for the benefit which a business corporation derives from dealings with the public, distributive justice demands that part of the profits made, return to the community under the form of taxes.  This feature of a business corporation makes it, I would say, soulless.  One goes into business not to make a profession of faith, but to make money.  He deals with every one indifferently.  The dollar of a Christian or of a heathen has the same value as the dollar of a Jew.  Were a company to discriminate with the public on lines of creed the public would be justified in retaliating.