THE DUNEDIN SCHOOL COMMITTEE AND THE "DAILY TIMES."

Evening Star, Issue 3108, 4 February 1873, Page 2

THE DUNEDIN SCHOOL COMMITTEE AND THE "DAILY TIMES."

To the Editor

Sir,— This morning the readers of the Daily Times Were treated to'an ; article’ru keeping with those which have of late sb frequently disgraced the pages of that journal. I am at a loss to conceive the object which yom contemporary can have in so persistently abusing and misrepresenting every public man and every public institution in our midst. But, whatever be the object sought, I can tell him what he is accomplishing. He is disgusting every right-thinking honest-minded reader, and making the Daily Times a bye-word and a mockery, and causing it to be ranked with the “Dciphio Oracle ” and the “ (Stoic.” Since this is the only effect cf his writing, perhaps the result might be regarded with indifference, and one would be ready to say, “ Let him alone, that he may eat ihe fruit of his own doing. ” But it must be only too apparent that it men of any degree of sensibility or delicacy of feeling, taking part in pub ic affairs, find themselves rewarded by being made the subjects of such articles as that in the Times of today, they must of necessity be driven to protect themselves from such outrage by retiring to the quietude of private life, and leave the management of all public business to those whose ulterior purpose is to them sufficiently important to reader them impervious to any amount of personal abuse. Not that'our public men should be protected in the administration of our public affairs from any fair criticism, or many encouraged to lose sight of the responsibility which restk upon them when they accept place or office at the hands of their fellow-citizens ; but it should be insisted ou that all criticism should be fair; that all disparaging statements should be tiuthful, and all condemnatory judgment be well considered, and only pronounced after a careful investigation of all the facts in the case. ■ But the Daily Times throws his abuse about- iu the most reckless and inconsiderate manner, without the least regard to the truthfulness or falsity of the statements he makes, or any consideration whatever for the feelings of those he assails. The article of this morning is ope of spyepal in which the Times has sought to correct what he conceives 'to be the abuses in the administration of the Dunedin School Committee. These articles are each of them characterised by an amount of ignorance of the subject with which the writer presumes to deal, which would be reprehensible if displayed by a casual correspondent, but which, when shown in the writings of one who assumes to be a leader of public opinion, worthy of appearing in the leading columns of a newspaper, arrogating to itself the position of the leading journal in Otago, is culpable in the : highest degree. The

previous articles were bad enough, but in the Times of to-day all previous efforts are outdone, and the gravest charges are brought against the gentlemen who nave, during the past eight or ten years, formed the School Committee for Dunedin. They are said to “ have been in the habit of paying one of their members to do their work for them.” It is insinuated, not stated broadly, that the advance recently made in the school fees by the Committee—whether advisedly or not I do not now say—was required “to pay a salary of L 100” to the late Secretary. It is stated that “ the fact that this salary has been hitherto paid by the Committee to one of themselves is so scandalous, that, having at length been made notorious to the public, we cannot believe that it will ever occur again.” The payment of the Secretary is “denounced” “as a misappropriation of public funds.” We are told most inconsistently that “highly estimable and honorable citizens ” heave “ perpetrated or connived at this great wrong ” ; and that a great many persons are responsible as participators in this carelessness. Here a number of gentlemen, any one of whom I dare affirm is as able to judge of the proprieties of the case as the wiseacre of the Times , are deliberately charged with conduct which is “scandalous” and with the “misappropriation of public funds.’’ Now will it be believed that all this outcry is made because the Dunedin school Committee of 1862 did, in terms of the powers conferred on it by the Ordinance, elect Mr Hardy as their Secretary, and because every annual meeting but one from that day to the last meeting in January was so satisfied with the manner in which the duties of Secretary were performed by Mr Hardy, that he was constantly re-elected on the Committee, and every year re-appointed Secretary. The question raised by the article in the Times is not whether or no the Secretary was overpaid, nor whether or no he efficiently discharged the duties required of him, but whether or no the Committee had any right to engage the services of a Secretary, either one of their own number or an outsider, and to pay his salary out of the school funds. Till this new Daniel came to judgment in the columns of the Times , the question was never raided, and now, even after all the outcry in the a nual meeting, and notwithstanding the fact that one of the leaders of that outcry, and a member of the new Committee is a “cute” lawyer, the uew Committee propose to have a Secretary, and to pay him a salary. Indeed, had the writer in the Times taken the trouble to inform himself, either as to the powers of the Committee, or the work required of its Secretary, he would have saved himself the disgrace of bringing against a number of “highly estimable and honorable citizens” such serious charges as those in the Times article of this morning, and which charges he is unable to sustain with one single tittle of evidence.—l am, &c.,

One who has been on the Committer Dunedin, Feb. 3, 1873.