King Country Chronicle Saturday, Feb. 25, 1911. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 340, 25 February 1911, Page 4

King Country Chronicle Saturday, Feb. 25, 1911. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The chairman of the Auckland Education Board may be correct in saying that the slackness of residents in the King Cuuntry is responsible for the delay in obtaining better school accommodation in some cases, but it certainly does not apply to either Pio Pio or Te Kuiti. The late school commissioner for Pio Pio wrote, protested, and visited Auckland for the purpose of wresting proper accommodation from an unwilling board. Te Kuiti School Committee has applied again and again, for years past, for some better accommodation. Granted that in one or two instances settlers have not been as active as could be wished, that is no reason why those school committees who are active should suffer. It is satisfactory to see that at last some attempt at reform of methods is to be made. The chairman admits there has been delay in dealing with applications for schools. An inspector visiting back-block districts only once a year can scarcely be in touch with the j rapid increase in attendance and the ! growth of population generally. It is something to know that King Country applications are to be referred to a committee to consider the best way of improving the system of dealing with them, but we do not think a committee sitting so far away and so i out of touch with the needs of this great and growing area, as it has proved to be, can efficiently deal with the matters coming before it. The movement for a separate South Auckland Education Board is bound jto go on. It is impossible for a j Board in Auckland, meeting once a month, to manage the educational affairs of an entire province. Decentralisation is inevitable, and the sooner the unwieldy limits of the present area are cut in two the better | for educaional progress in the King ! Country.

The National Provident Fund will be actively in operation on and from March Ist next, and payments of the contributions of those desiring its benefits—and these should surely be all the young men of the Dominionwill be received at any post office in the country from that date. The Fund is an admirable institution covering almost every conceivable need. It enables any person between the ages of 17 and 45 to become a member at rates varying from 9d to Is 8d per week, according to whether a pension at 60 years of age is desired of 10s, 20s, 30s or 40s a week. "When a man marries his trouble

begins," says the old adage, but the Fund alters all that. An allowance of £6 for medical attendance on the birth of a contributor's nhild is a

genuine piece of State aid at a time when the average working man needs all the money he can get. It is, in short, a direct incentive to an increased birth rate, a need which no student of history can doubt is becoming a vital one. But the Fund dees more than this. If a man falls ill, and is unable to work, after three

months' incapacity, an allowance of 7s 6d per week for each child under 14 years is made, provided the contributor has been a member of the Fund for five years; and should he unfortunately die, then the payment of 7s 6d a week also includes the widow, and is continued until the children reach 14 years of age. The Fund is open to all with incomes not exceeding £2OO a year at joining. No contributions are payable during the time a contributor is receiving incapacity allowances, and provision is made for the repayment of all contributions, should it be so desired. The success of the Fund depends upon employees and employers, the former in joining, and the latter in encouraging them to do so. Its terms are liberal and attractive, and we sincerely trust its benefits may have the effect of raising the standard of independence, and of giving equitable pensions to those workers, and they number 300,000 in New Zealand, whose ordinary income prevents the accumulaton of any substantial sums to ward off the terrors of old age.