The Feilding Star. SATURDAY, DEC. 11, 1886. Economy

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 69, 11 December 1886, Page 2

The Feilding Star. SATUR DAY, DEC. 11, 1886. Economy

At a time like the present, when the revenue of the colony shows a falling off, the minds of prudent men are instinctively directed to items in Governmental expenditure, which may be subject to a pruning process, in order to bring them within the limits of our means. We find in a, Government return showing the expenditure upon maintenance of each department of the Colonial Government for the years 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, 1880, and 1885, that the expenditure has increased by '• leaps and bounds," as the amounts for each period were respectively—£9l,l69, £339,641, £491---920, £752,037, £1,860,279, and £2,090,853. Under the various headings the department of the Minister of Education is the most surprising. In 1875-6 we find a modest £11,520, five years later this has increased to £271,165, and in another five years, in 1885-6, it expanded to £357,806, and in the estimates for 1886-7 to £388,489. This makes it the next largest item to Public Works £801,492, which very properly heads the list. Should this fungoid looking rate for education go on increasing in the same proportion to its past growth, the time is not far distant when it will not only pass " Public Works," but absorb the whole revenue of the colony. We are ardent admirers of the education system of New Zealand, but we do not go so far as to approve of a system that encourages such astonishing extravagence. It appears as if it had got beyond the control of the Government altogether. Most people would think that after the first cost of school buildings and sites had been met, a much smaller annual sum would be needed to pay salaries and expenses ; but the contrary is the case, for each succeeding year seems to require more money than its immediate predecessor. There is a limit to all things, and in our opinion the education expenditure has already far exceeded that limit. Therefore the time has now arrived when a firm stand must bo taken and education have its cost cut down to an amount within the power of the colony to pay.