The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1913. FUTILE CRITICISM.
The Government has already increased the pay of the railway employees, and the new classification will increase the salaries, and improve the conditions of the Civil bervice. The school teachers are the next to be considered, and no one can deny the justice of their request for tho betterment of their lot. The Government has a largo number of measures of first-class importance to place before Parliament this session, put has decided that something must bo dono for the teachers this year, though a more complete and farreaching measure of reform will be brought down in the 1914 session; _ It must, therefore, be borne in mind that tho , Bill introduced by Mr. Allen yesterday afternoon is but an instalment of the Government's education policy, and is only intended to meet certain urgent requirements and to remedy a few very pressing grievances. It fulfils the promise made in the Budget that something would be done this session to provide for increase, of salary where it is most needed. This resolute determination 'of the Government to dp what it says it will do is upsetting all the calculations of its opponents. A straightforward policy is in the long run the surest way of winning and holding the confidence of the peoplo. The Opposition is beginning to realise this fact, and the realisation seems to bo throwing them into a state of panic, as was illustrated by the character of their speeches on the motion to introduce the Education Bill yesterday afternoon.
The criticism of the Government's proposals outlined by Mr. Allen did not produce any new facts or arguments of importance. The Opposition onoe more posed as the extraspecial friends of the teacher- but the_ pose was awkward as its insincerity was too obvious. It is, of course, most undesirablo that the question of. education should be dragged into the , arena of party strife, and the teachers themselves can only resent tho repeated attempts of the Opposition to use them as more counters in a political game. The teachers and the public are not likely to forget—even if the antiReformers do—that the existing' state of affairs is a legacy from the old regime; and that in condemning and it deserves to be condemned—the Opposition is holding up its own administration to well-merited censure. Here again, as in so many other instances, the Government has had to. come to the rescue, and is taking steps to remedy the evils which have grown up during tho long years their opponents have held the reins of government. •
Me. Allen made it quite clear yesterday that the present Bill does not embody the full policy of the Government as regards education. Next year's Bill will deal in a comprehensive) manner with such matters as salaries, conditions of service, and superannuation. The much-debated problem' regarding the relations between pay and average attendance will also bo considered, and the Minister has already taken steps to prevent salaries being adversely affected. in the meantime by variations in attendance. Mr. Allen has made the Government's intentions so plain in the present Bill and in his outline of future policy that the persistent attacks of the Opposition can only have the effect of discrediting criticism from that party. They arc too unreasonable to deserve serious attention. The measure introduced yesterday has had the approval of the teachers themselves, expressed through the New Zealand Educational Institute, and yet the member for Waimarino (Mn. R. W. Smith) recklessly declares that it will do more harm than good. Wild words like these are not worthy of the name of criticism; but they do prove that the Opposition is veryhard pressed for effective arguments with which to assail the Government. If the Bill will do more harm than good it is the manifest duty of the anti-Reformers, if they are sincere and not merely playing a game, to vote against the Bill. _ But that is just what they aro not likely to have the courage to do. More than once during the present session they have I dououaced in tho most emphatic man-
ner measures introduced by Ministers, and when the time for voting came they have cither allowed them to pass without calling for a division or have actually placcd their approval on record by their votes. The same thing will probably happen in connection with the Education Bill, and it is very doubtful whether even the member for Waimarino, who states that the Government's proposals will do more harm than good, will dare to vote against the second reading of the Bill.
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Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1859, 19 September 1913, Page 6
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767The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1913. FUTILE CRITICISM. Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1859, 19 September 1913, Page 6
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