WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 April 1922, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

THE AUTHORITIES CRITICISED. SPECIAL TO GUARDIAN. I WELLINGTON, April 2(5. There was some plain speaking at a meeting of the committee of the Central League on Monday evening when the question of unemployment came up for discussion. Dr A. K. Newman, the Reform member for Wellington South, who in recent years has assumed a very “independent” attitude towards the Government, took Mr Massey and his colleagues severely to task for having allowed the “unemployment scandal” to reach its present dimensions. The Government, he said, had plenty of money to spend on reproductive works. It had five million just raised in London and it had abundance of money before. The Wellington corporation also had funds available, and yet idle men were walking the streets in a hopeless search for work. They had called and called again at the Labour Bureau till they had become heartsick. Mr George .Mitchell, the frankly independent member for Wellington South, followed in a similar strain, declaring there was plenty of work and plenty of money, but no effective official organisation. Eventually it was resolved to send the inevitable deputation to the Prime Minister on the subject.

EDUCATION. I Notwithstanding the recent efforts to , stimulate public interest in the administration of the education system of the Dominion, the meetings of householders for the election of school committees held in the city and suburbs on Moiiday evening differed very little from those of previous years. The appeal of the Educational Institute for resolutions urging the Government to . make better provision for botli primary and secondary education met with a fairly general response, but tbe tenor of the various resolutions seems to have been dictated by the political and party leanings of their framers. While the Te Aro meeting expressed its appreciation of the Government’s efforts “in spending money on school school buildings,” for instance, the Newtown committee strongly denounced the Government “for its short-sighted policy of considering the matter of a few pouiids saved at the present and neglecting ti e prosperity and prestige of the future.” Between these extremes lay many appeals to the Government, m more or less emphatic terms, for a generous interpretation of the provision of tbe Act and for closer attention to the needs of the rising generation. MIXED SCHOOLS.

On the same evening there was an animated discussion at the meeting of || ie Board at Governors of the tVellingiim Technical'College on a proposed remit to be submitted to tbe Technical Education Conference to the effect that all secondary schools should he mixed schools. Mr Martin Luckie was opposed to mixed schools for pupils of 1(5 years and over. He thought they constituted a very grave danger to the children themselves and to the community. The finest characters, he said, were formed ill England and America, where the sexes were kept apart in the schools. Mr .1. H. Howell, the director of the College, asked for information on the subject, said that most of the large schools in Scotland and Males, outside the principal centres, were mixed schools. He had seen schools in America where there were 2,000 mixed pupils up to 19 years of age and never had observed a better atmosphere anywhere. Mrs Hannah, the gifted lady member of the hoard, with teaching experience, bore similar testimony, but it required the casting vote of the chairman, Mr W. H. Bennett, to save the remit from rejection. POST AND TELEGRAPH OFFICERS Yesterday the president and secretary of the Post and Telegraph Officers’ Association returned from their visit to Hamilton and reported to the Executive the resitit of their interview with the Postmaster-General. Nothing whatever has been made public concerning the matter, but it is understood the Executive is communicating with the representatives of the Association in other centres in respect to certain proposals and counter-proposals made by the Hamilton Conference. It is k-.awn that a militant section ol the membeis of the Association, probably not a ver' 1 numerous one, is anxious to fight the Government on the question of affiliation with the Alliance of Labour. A majority of the more responsible members of the Association, however, are for ft settlement by negotiation, and if the Minister has not actually closed the door against this method of procedure the trouble may blow over during the next few days. Mr Coates is not the man to place unnecessary obstacles in the way of an amicable agreement and the Executive of the Association evidently is not anxious to rush into an uncertain conflict at the piesent juncture.