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Hokitika Guardian, 10 February 1925, Page 2

A moms of the political position, the financial state of the public .exchequer plays a prominent part. The present Government has never been strong in regard to finance. It has chosen to drift waiting placidly for something to turn up. and good fortune has been with Reform all rdong. The figures for nine months of the financial year leave been published lately, and some interesting figures have been revealed. Chief of all is the feeling that the Government continues to fail in the matter of sound finance, for that is tin impression given from the figures. I'm the nine months of the year, the revenue shows an increase of .£274,000, hut £254,000 of this lias come from customs, out of the pockets of the people as a whole. Land and income tax, it is significant, show a drop of £220,000. But it is on the expenditure side where there is real cause for alarm. In the nine months, departmental expenditure has increased by over a. million and a quarter—this despite the talk of State retrenchment C Of some forty Government departments, only nine show a decrease in expenditure. Tins is surely alarming for it discloses a lack of control. Railways produced an increase of £84,000 in revenue, hut its expenditure rose by £658,000. I l ' railway report on reforms was certainly well overdue. Postal revenue rase by £45.000, hut expenditure increased £223,000. Education increased by £107,000. Judged by these figures th present Government is found wanting in a most important aspect of the public- administration. Unfortunately the experience is not new; it- is a recurring fact often pointed out, and it is time the defect was more generally recognised.

At the conference of inspectors of schools at Wellington, the Minister of pdueatifin (Sir James Parr) paid n ti>

bute to tbe quality of the old-time school inspector. “It is no use coining down here to he a mutual admiration society,” said Sir James Parr, alter stating that lie would attend the conference during the afternoon t-o discuss with the delegates the teaching of such subjects as arithmetic,, history, music, agricultural science, and the efficiency, or otherwise, of present methods, “the conference must get down to bedrock, with a view of improving even upon the excellent results which it is admitted the primary school system c New Zealand is producing. If one looks back to the older systems one must admit there was a good deal of merit in them. In Auckland nearly half a century ago none of the inspectors had the benefit of any university training, mest of them could not do more than scrape up a D certificate, but still one must pay a tribute t: the undoubted worth of the old inspector. He was a man without much culture and lie had to put each pupil through that individual examination which was then considered the beginning and the end of that department of education ; but that old inspector had results of which the country to-day need not be ashamed. . . Xow we are in a garden of the utmost latitude, but teachers and inspectors must not forget that the old days of rigitljtv had come merit and that one must not get too far away from the old in t! endeavour to grasp the new. There was a thoroughness about the old inspector that there is no denying; lie wanted accuracy, no slipshod work was passed by him. He required mechanical accuracy and was a. stickler for discipline. The visit of the old inspector was a time of absolute torture to the children, and with t..c teacher it was a time of grave anxiety; to-day that is all gone. The teacher, I understand welcomes the visit as a sort of renewal of a happy acquaintance, and the children almost shout with joy. Hut that simply emphasises that in our efforts to capture the new we must not forget that there were qualities about the. old system of which we must not lose sight.” 'These remarks revive memories and surely the shade of John Smith will he recalled with appreciation bv former Westland scholars all of whom must have kindly recollections of one who certainly required “mechanical accuracy and was a stickler fm discipline.”