NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 70, 15 December 1921, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY

It is not a favourable moment that the College Governors have chosen to approach the Government with proposals for a now building. Ths Wellington College has long been cramped for accommodation, and tho new principal has warned the board of the impossibility of accommodating in the present buildings all tho new boys that will bo coming forward. The present building is of considerable age, and the College Governors have plans prepared for a new structure estimated to cost .£170,000. This seems a large sum, but it may be hoped that building costs will have fallen before the time comes to put the work in hand. Farmers are saddled with boom-price farms, and we do not want to saddle the educational system with boom-prico colleges. The College Governors have a very reasonable plan to meet present needs, and it is satisfactory to find that it met with a favourabe reception from tho Minister. They propose to raise .£50,000 by mortgaging tho rents from their endowments, and put up tho domestic block on the plan of their new building, freeing n portion of the present building for classroom uso, and in all enabling 100 more boys to be accommodated. How far the college plans will fit into the Education Department’s new scheme for tho alteration of tho secondary course is not clear. However, boys are coming on whose education has to bo provided for now, and not at some time that can be postponed, and a way must be found to supply the urgently-needed accommodation at ths college:

Presenting the report of the Urewera Purchase Commissioners to the House of Representatives yesterday, the Native Minister (Mr. Coates) mentioned that legislation is- shortly to be introduced to give effect to what has been done in acquiring some 350,000 acres of land and consolidating the interests of the Crown and Native owners. It is to bo hoped that when this legislation is brought down tho Government will indicate in some detail-the lines on which it proposes to proceed in opening un this great area of bush country. There is a very plain warning to to drawn from tho allusion made by Mr. Ngata (in a memorandum attached to the report of the commissioners) to the fate of the Waimarino Block of GOO,(XX) acres. This tract, the member for the Eastern Maori District points out, "was nibbled at from all sides,” the demands of settlement forcing it and its magnificent timber resources piecemeal into the market, so that it was not until the completion of the Main Trunk railway in 1908, twenty-two years after .the. purchase, "that the country realised what a magnificent forest asset it had had and lost.” As Mr. Ngata observes, the question now is whether this experience is to be repeated, or if there is to to an illustration on tho grand scale of what is meant by a comprehensive scheme of land settlement. Mr. Coates stated yesterday that a systematic policy will be followed in roading the Urewera, but it is, of course, necessary that the .whole plan of settlement should to carefully systematised. Sir William Herries remarked that tho Urewera lands were grazing country which would require much capital for their development, and that much of tho territory carried splendid bush, which ought to be handled by the Forestry Department. Mr. K. S. Williams agreed that considerable areas of bush ought to to conserved, and added that much damage would he done to other districts if tho Urewepa hills were ruthlessly denudci*. of bush. All who speak with first-hand knowledge of the region appear to agree that much of the Urewera will yield better returns under forest than if it is cleared, but no specific assurance has yet been given that tho Government intends to shape its settlement plans accordingly. An obvious immediate step should be to obtain n report from the experts of the Forestry Department upon the utilisation of one of the few extensive areas of valuable forest left to the Dominin. In the discussion of Miss Park’s case yesterday tho feelings of members of the Education Board appeared to bo divided. There is a widespread and intense repugnance against tolerating the presence, in the teaching profession of disloyalists, and it is a thoroughly sound principle that persons attached to subversive doctrines should not be employed by the State to educate children. At tho same time there is also a strong dislike of conducting anything in the nature of microscopical heresy hunts. Miss Park has an excellent record os a teacher, and the finding of the committee of

inquiry is that "no charge (if sedition or any crime against the Sovereign or against morals can be formulated out of her letter,’’ and that no further action bo taken. It is difficult, though, to see why the Education Board should be asked to adopt this report before members had had an opportunity of perusing’ tho evidence on which it was based. It would have been much more satisfactory to Miss Park and to everybody else to have had tho board as unanimous in its satisfaction as the committee of inquiry was. No one will wish to be hard on young teachers for a passing indiscretion in an expression of opinion, but the. moral of the two recent inquiries is (hat teachers cannot afford to be indiscreet. They have very responsible duties, and tho public, in view of the character of current Communistic propaganda, has good reason for alertness.

Party antagonism, often of a very petty order, enters so largely into the workaday life of Parliament that any departure from the sot routine, is distinctly refreshing. Such a departure was made yesterday by the Native Minister (Mr. Coates). Recording his thanks to those who had assisted in tho work of consolidating tho titles of Native lands purchased in the Urewera. Country, ho expressed particularly warm appreciation of the services rendered in this connection by Mr. Ngata, the member for the Eastern Maori district. In a House in which political opponents seldom have much that is good to say of one another, it was pleasant to hear the Minister declare that wjiile others had given capable service and useful assistance, the Urewera transaction could not have been carried to completion in anything liko tho time it was but for the invaluable advice, assistance, and co-operation of Mr. Ngata. It would be a good thing for tho Dominion if such instances of setting aside tho little, differences of party in order to combine m common effort in tho public interest were less uncommon than they arc. While tho incident attracts attention from this standpoint tho part taken by Mr. Ngata in tho Urewera negotiations will bo accepted by all who are familiar with his record as in itself an adequate guarantee that fair and just consideration lias been extended to tho Native vendors of the purchased lands.