INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL CHILDREN

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2701, 22 February 1916, Page 2

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL CHILDREN

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER.

Certain remarks made at the meeting | of the Wellington Hospital and Charitable Aid Board wore the subject of the following statement made by the Minister (the Hon. J. A. Hanan) yesterday : — "1 am sorry to seo that tho Wellington C.A. Board is again attacking the Education Department on the subject of industrial school children. 1 am sorry tlv.it it has adopted the method of a public announcement on the subject instead of coming to me, as I invited it to do, with any matter that it desired to have investigated. I am still mora sorry to iiud reason to think that the board has been more anxious to make an ellectivo Mase than a fair one. For this reason, apparently, it has made use of a period of nine months endiug September 30, in order to show that the Department is not making any effort to collect money from parents for the maintenance of the children, and that the two periods show ail increase of only £2. The figures for the year ending December 31 were, of course, available to the board, and it seems reasonable to ask why tlioy were withheld. The sums recovered by the Department and paid to the board were, for 1914, £1149 4s. Bd.: for 1915. £1266 19s. 2d.; an increase of £117 14s. 6d. If, as is stated, the board has found that money to which it is entitled is lying unclaimed at tho Police Court, surely it should have called tho Department's attention to the matter so that the money might have beeu got in as soon as possible. Reserving it foi' a public report in order to make a point .against the Department, is a course that receives no sympathy from mo. I may remark that the Department has no knowledge of what is referred and doubts that there is anything in the statement. Money does not lie in xhe Polico Court in this way.

"Putting these little matters aside, however, the public should know that the Department keeps an account against the parents of all theso children—about 340 in the Wellington district—and with the aid of the police makes weekly collections of such small sums as the parents are able to pay,

that the whole of this work is done voluntarily, gratuitously, and without trouble of any kind to the hoard, and that there is nothing whatever to prevent the board taking up the work

itself, in whole or in part, or proceeding for itsell against any parent who it. believes to bo paying less than lie should. That the Department is doing well on the whole may be assumed from tho fact that the board has never

taken any action of the kind. Its complaint is, therefore, to say the least.

ungenerous. "I have previously had a discussion with the board with regard to the De-

partment's care of State-maintained children, and have stated that I would make the fullest investigation into any case in which. it can bring forward definite grounds of complaint, and will therefore not go into the matter again. I simply give an- unqualified denial to tho statement that there is laxity in the supervision of tho homes, or that there is any difficulty in obtaining homes.