A DIFFICULT PROBLEM.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 874, 21 July 1910, Page 4

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM.

Unfortunately for the aspirations of the-director and the managers of the Wellington Technical School, a majority 61 the members of'the City Council has; succeeded in shelving, for this year at anyrate, their proposals for the financing of. the new technicalschool building- in Newtown. The present condition of the school is very far from being per,-. feet. The class-rooms are too small, and any scheme for the construction of additions to the present buildings could never be anything but unsatisfactory, for the site in Mercer Street is manifestly unsuitable for the purposes of education. Under such difficulties the efforts of the school authorities to extend the usefulness of their institution that it might be completely identified with the industrial and' commercial life of the community have been greatly restricted, so much so that_ certain classes' of instruction, for which there has been a steady demand, cannot be established. Tho attendance at the existing classes is.increasing year by year, and tho Board is faced with 'this problem: that, inevitably, a new building must soon be provided by some. means or other. The Mercer Street site, of the estimated annual value of £600, was originally acquired from the City Council on lease at a peppercorn rental, buildings of the annual value of. £750 being provided by the Government. , Tho Board's proposition was, firstly, that the City Council should accept tho surrender of the lease of the Mcrcer Street sections, with the buildings, "without payment of any premium or compensation, to the intent that the same shall be leased by the corporation, pursuant to the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1908 r and that the net proceeds be paid to the managers of the technical classes, so long as they carry on technical education in the city "to the satisfaction of the Council, and so long fis the Council shall be adequately. represented on such Board." The basis of this proposi? tion was that the rents should be capitalised—with respect to the land —at a premium, to provide a sum which, wjth the Government subsidy nf a similar. amount, would finance the erection of a complete and up-to-date school building in John Street, Newtown. It may. be here observed that the Council, under'this proxiosal, would be neither richer

nor poorer, than under the present arrangement. Secondly, it was proposed that "sites at John Street should be leased to the managers of the technical classes, tho rentals to be £l per annum for the two pieces of town belt, and £2o per annum for the land purchased by . the Council. The terms should be for 57 years, being the balance of the term of the present Mercer Street lease, and sub= ject to the same covenants, terms and conditions as the present lease at Mercer Street" Here the Council was faced with the question of alienating two half-acre sections of the Town Belt and so creating a dangerous precedent. On general principles, citizens are strongly opposed, and rightly so, to the creation of such a precedent. An inspection of this particular locality, however, goes to show that the land in question is,not suitable for playground purposes, and is severed from the M-ain Belt by the peculiar lie of the roads. If, then, any consideration would .serve in extenuation of a departure :from the general principle already referred to, it would be that the dedication of this land for technical ' education would be of greater benefit 1 to the citizens than its conservation for recreation purposes. . We do not to deny tho corporation credit for its liberal support of local technical education in the past. But there seems to be, in this 'particular case, the special difficulty, peculiar to Wellington', of obtaining a suitable site within a reasonable distance.of the city, and if this difficulty is solved by a concession which, incidentally, must' be of benefit to the citizens, the second difficulty, that of financing the building, woukl disappear, for there can be no serious objection to the first pai;t of the proposition—the releasing, of : the Mercer Street site.