"A.MATTER OF EQUITY"

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 85, 7 October 1931, Page 10

"A.MATTER OF EQUITY"

UNEMPLOYED TEACHERS

A "plea on behalf of unemployed teachers was made by Mr. F. L. Combs, M.A., headmaster of the Mount Cook School, in an address to parenti ut a protest meeting last night.

"I have no brief for teachers," he said. "Teachers, as Civil servants and citizens, must expect to suffer, an& perhaps suffer increasingly from tho diminution of income experienced by all classes of the community at this time. Against retrenchment and taxation, graduated in accordance with, the ability of better-paid Civil servants like myself to bear it, it does not seem to me that we should at the present difficult juncture contend. "But there is one group of teachers for whom urgent consideration can fairly be claimed. It is that of 600 or 700 unemployed teachers. These ar» for the most part young, highly trained, well selected, and extremely; capable. The educational statesmanship that during the past decade has trained in increasing numbers such fino recruits to the teaching service is worthy of the utmost praise. The truest and greatest interests of education will be served by seeing that these unemployed teachers are brought into our schools. As perhaps the one constructive measure of far-reacb-ing consequence that can be accomplished in these difficult times, I venture to stress the urgent need of bringing these unemployed teachers into th« primary schools. As a matter of equity, and of consideration for those suffering from real hardship, the employment of these teachers has, I suggest, a claim quite equal to that of the general body of the unemployed."