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Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1931, Page 4

Thu growth of expenditure on education has been so great of late years that it was inevitable it would be marked out for close investigation in present circumstances. In a period of ten years the annual appropriation out of the public revenue for this service has been increased by more than 50 per cent. It was £2,031,824 in 1919-20 and had mounted to £3,04-2,607 five years later, while in 1929-30 it was £3,218,828. The increase was wholly disproportionate to the increase in the number of those who were receiving the benefit of the education system. The effect of the increase in the education vote will, perhaps, he most fully appreciated, however, when it is said that the cost per head of the mean population was 42s 6d in 1919-20, 53s 7d in 1.924-25, and 54s lid in 1929-30. The expenditure per head was higher even in 1.926-27 than it is now, hut the country was not confronted at that time with the -difficulties which it is now experiencing, nor was there any serious cause to suppose that it would have to experience them. An expenditure that might be warranted then may be entirely unjustifiable now. It is impossible to see that the Government can refrain- from curtailing the moneys which are applied to the maintenance of the education system. It is easy to anticipate the form which the criticism of anv proposal to reduce the education vote will take. The Government will he charged with being insensible to the value of education, with designing to filch the children’s birthright from them, and with indifference to the future welfare. of the country. (Shibboleths of this kind are robbed, however, of t-heir impressiveness when the people to whom tbev are addressed, and upon whom the cost of education falls, know that the country simnly cannot afforef under existing conditions to pay ns much for education as it has luen doing.