The Globe. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1875.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 424, 21 October 1875, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1875.

The throwing out of the " Canterbury " Board of Education Bill" by the Legislative Council must be considered a misfortune. It was totally unexpected to begin with, and it was only reasonable to suppose that it would have passed the Upper House with proportionately as large a majority as was gained for it in the House of Representatives. That the Bill was thrown out by " a fluke " makes it all the more annoying, as if the members of the Council who wished to vote in its favour had been in their places, Buch an accident could not have happened. Colonel Brett and Messrs Peacock, Buckley, and Peter were the four Canterbury representatives who voted against the Bill, and we can easily understand that Messrs Peacock and Buckley would feel themselves compelled to use all their influence to prevent the Bill becoming law. Mr Knight is safe for the present in his snug position as Minister of Education for Canterbury, and School Committees may look forward to a wholesome amount of snubbing for the next few months. The newly-appointed Committees will have to prepare themselves for the same treatment as was experienced by their predecessors, and the correspondence between the Minister and some of the Committees will probably be of a very spirited description. Some few months back, it was hardly possible to read the Tuesday's issue of any Christchurch newspaper without being edified by the account of a scene in the City Council Chamber. The reports of the weekly meetings now-a-days are of the tamest, as the members of the Council, as at present constituted, prefer transacting the business for which they meet together to indulging in personalities. But if the present Minister of Education continues in the course he has chosen to adopt towards the School Committees, the public will not be disappointed of a weekly dose of strong language, as Mr Knight is a master of the art of the retort uncourteous. The control of the Educational system throughout the province has been handed over to him, and woe be to anyone who may have the audacity to hint at a possible improvement on the plana of the present Minister. What the Timaru School Committee will suffer we cannot pretend to guess. They declined to receive a letter emanating from the office of the Minister of Education; their spirits must have risen considerably when they found that Mr Knight was no longer to fill the office he had been appointed to ; but now their hopes are dashed to the ground, and they must expect scant mercy. But, speaking seriously, it is impossible not to feel that the cause of Education has suffered, and will suffer, from the negligence of some of the Legislative Council. That if the Bill could again be brought before that body, it would be carried, is undeniable. That the present Minister of Education has shown no fitness for his position, and managed to embroil himself and the different School Committees, is also well known to all who have paid any attention to the subject. That this state of things is undesirable must be admitted. The committees could, as a general rule, work well with the Board, but they cannot do bo with the Minister. If the members of

the Legislative Council who intended to vote for the Bill had been in their places, the Board would have become a fact again, and the Minister would have retired from the scene. As it is, we look forward to a series of squabbles, which might and ought to have been avoided by a little exertion on the part of some members of the Council.