The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 452, 19 November 1880, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19.

Returning to the subject of educational extravagance in this colony—we hate shown that to limit the national scheme to elementary principles alone is not only all that falls to the duty of the State, but also in circumstances such as now prevail a positive necessity which the need for retrenchment in all channels of expenditure renders doubly imperative. It is to be feared, however, that such a course, bearing on the face of it as it does the appearance at least of rctro-o-ression, would meet with strenuous opposition, and that a proposal of this nature would fail at the first to command that attention which it really merits. But, if times continue for any lengthened period as bad as they are at present, this step must inevitably be taken. Failing this, then, the immediate course must be to curtail expenditure in the working of the system, lop off all excrescences, and do away with showy and unnecessary expenditure ; or else reform the system entirely. We are inclined to the latter mode of dealing with the question, and as a first step towards that end would urge the abolition of the various Boards. It is by reason of these bodies (which are superfluous and expensive) that the complaint of too great centralisation is charged against tho scheme. What their use is we fail to see ; for, in the generality of cases, their duties are merely a repetition of what has been previously enacted by their several local committees, all of which would be more efficiently and economically performed by the departmental head office ; and, as far as the expenditure and allocation of funds at their disposal is concerned, it may bo fearlessly asserted that the local committees would be the better administrators of such moneys as fall to their portion. The present system is in fact a reduplication of labor ; or, taking the head office into consideration, a triplex system of management, which we very much doubt is at all under proper control. These Boards, again, are a fruitful source of expenditure on their own account. They must have their meetings and offices, their secretaries, and in

some cases treasurers as well, paid officials, and their correspondence. Yet all the work these gentlemen do is done over again at the head office, and no small portion of it, in the first place, by the local committee. One naturally asks—"ls all this necessary?" We unhesitatingly say it is not. It is nothing more than a fungus growth of official-

dom that should be done aAvay with. The whole department could be better managed direct from the head office, and through the local school committee. But to do this it Avill be necessary to enlarge the school districts, and allocate to each local committee the funds arising from and pertaining to its oavii district. In this way each local committee would be the administrator of its own allotted portion of public money, and a fairer and more even distribution would result, and the wants of each district be supplied in due proportion to the funds at disposal, and not one locality benefited at the expense of another, as is the case at present. Such an extravagance as the erection of the German Bay sideschool, for instance, at a cost of £4oC t for the accommodation of some halfdozen children, would then be out of the question, since the ratepayers themselves would have the spending of their own 1 money, together with the Go\*ernmcnt subsidy, and no more. In the matter of the more general expenditure—questions of new schools, salaries, etc., and the general management of the funds—it is but reasonable to credit the head office with the poAver to perform this not only with a better supervision, but -with stricter economy and impartiality than the Boards. Here, then, is another mode of lessening tho incubus of educational expenditure—an incubus that will unjustly retard the financial convalescence of the colony if the turn for the better should arrive.