Officials of the Manitoba provincial Government were reported today to have decided that the best thing to do about a controversial Royal Commission recommendation to provide subsidies to the Catholic and Jewish schools in the province is to do nothing.
When the recommendation was made a year ago, Premier Duff Roblin and his Cabinet announced plans to implement it on the assumption that sectarian dispute over such aid was a matter of the past. In the year since, no issue has created so much controversy, Church, political and civic groups all have taken strong public stands on the proposal.
Informed sources said that as long as the private and parochial schools do not take any action, the Government will sit tight. If pressure is built up for implementation, the Government will then order a referendum to let the public decide. Such a referendum was considered almost certain to vote down the proposal. The Roblin government is in a position to warn those favoring such subsidies that if they raise a public demand, it will call a referendum certain to defeat the idea.
These sources also said that the Government is ready to tell proponents of the grants that if they are willing to let the issue rest a year or two, the Government would propose a teacher grant formula for all teachers which would attract support even among those opposed to the idea of grants to private schools.
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