WELLINGTON NOTES.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1920, Page 4

WELLINGTON NOTES.

(Our Special Correspondent)

EDUCATION PROBLEM,

INDUSTRIAL RESPONSIBILITY

WELLINGTON, June 7

Whether or not the. Hon. C. J. Parr will be able to materialise all the schemes for the improvement of the education system be has on hand remains to be seen. Of course in some- instances lie will reap where the Hon. J. A. Han.iiii sowed, and no doubt will be ready to give his predecessor in office all the credit that will be bis due. But be is facing greater responsibilities, as well as enjoying greater opportunities, than Mr Hamm did, the latter gentleman’s term of office having been confined practically to the war period, when there always was a ready excuse for postponing reforms involving any considerable expenditure of money. Probably no previous Minister bad retired from the Education Office leaving behind him such a mass of valuable material as Mr Hanaii did, and it is the use made of this material by Mr Parr that will largely determine the measure of the new Minister’s success as an administrator. SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.

On Saturday,-Mr Parr conferred with a deputation representing the secondary school assistant teachers, who are claiming improved pay and better conditions. The members of the deputation pointed but to the Minister that men who had devoted all their early years to study and had obtained the degree ol Master of Arts were now receiving, after fifteen or twenty years of service, only £350 or £4OO a year, “ the salary of a well-paid clerk.” The'representatives of the press were not admitted to the conference, but from a statement made by Mr Parr this morning it seems he is not very hopeful of obtaining from Cabinet any large increase in the secondary teachers’ salaries. He is prepared, however, to introduce a system of classification and grading which would remove existing anomalies and to some extent improve the obviously inadequate salaries. He is not in favour of further centralisation of the administration of the service, and thinks it better for appointments and promotions to remain in the hands of the boards. * THE COST OF LIVING.

The “ Dominion ” this morning, in a vigorous article headed “ A Neglected Problem,” lectures the public upon its futile complaining concerning the cost of living. It admits that the Governhuont has been less active than it might have been in tin? suppression of profiteering, hut its chief complaint is against the individual who suffers, and talks and does nothing effective. “This view of the matter,” it says, “finds support alike in the attendance and in most speeches made in the Town Hall oil Friday evening. The attendance was poor, and the speeches, on the whole, are less remarkable for what they contained than for what they left untouched. The main factor contributing towards high prices, for the necessaries of life at any rate, this authority holds, is the tendency to lower production and raise wages, which must increase prices to the consumer, who may be either a worker or an employer. * CASES IN POINT. At the meetiftg in the Town Hall on Friday night Colonel Mitchell, M.P . stated that- the amount of cargo per m in per eight hours’ day on the Wellington wharves had declined from 9.8 tons ; n 1914 to 6.5 tons in 1919, a reduction of 33 per cent. The Colonel also gave it lithe opinion of a score of carpenters he had consulted that three men would take twenty-five per cejit longer to build a five-roomed house in the present jenr of grace than they would have done in 1914. Yet the wages of both waters id-; workers and carpenters have been largely increased in tlie interval. A representative of the waterside workers consulted this morning was not inclined te accept Colonel Mitchell’s estimate of ri e work on the wharves as correct, hut aJmitted thie men employed might nit bu so capable” as those of four or li ; e ago, many of the old hands having found more congenial employment. '