LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 284, 21 July 1855, Page 6

LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.

We understand that certain changes are about to be made in the schools in Lyttelton, which we trust will tend to their improvement and increased efficiency. The Government, desirous of assisting in this improvement, have apportioned £370 out of the Education Grant, to be expended in accordance with the New Zealand Ordinance, and with a report made by the Rev. Mr. Cotterill. According to this the head master of the Grammar School will be head master of the other schools in Lyttelton aided by the grant. A second master will be added to'the staff, who will assist tbe head master in the lower classes of the Grammar School, and will also give a portion of his time to the other schools. It is also intended to continue tbe evening classes which have been successfully established by the master of the District School, during four evenings of the week, on one of which the head master will deliver elementary lectures on such subjects as he may think desirable. At these lectures casual attendants will be admitted at a small charge. To meet the increased expenditure it will be necessary to raise the fees hitherto paid, and this we believe will be readily acquiesced in by the people when they see that they have moneys worth in tlie advantages offered.' We heartily wish success to every effort made to improve the character of the instruction given' in our schools, and we feel satisfied that it will be appreciated by the people who are so deeply interested in the establishment of a. good system of education. The Government Grant for the schools has been handed over to the Reverends the Bishop's Commissary, and the head master of tbe Grammar School, to bejexpended under their direction, and Mr. Spowers has been requested to act as Treasu-er and Auditor of the accounts, which will be published quarterly. The Government still retain the power of -appointing one or more persons to inspect the ■schools at such tinues as may be thought necessary. Weave requested to state that the O. Mathias. Bishop's commissary, has appointed Miss Bunker to the vacant situation of Mistress in the infant's District School. The following testimony |to the exertions made by the colonists of this Province appears in a letter from the Captain of tbe Pandora (Byron Drury, Esq.) lo His Excellency the officer administering the Government, printed in a " General Government Gazette," published at Auckland, on the sth insti:— Ppogress of Canterbury. —It is foreign to these notices to mention more than the astonishingfprogress this settlement of four years' growth has made,- —the excellent quay at Lyttelton, the roads about Christchurch, the ferry, and the immense quantity of land under the plough, appeared to us to be the work of a far older province. During our stay two vessels laden with sheep and cattle arrived, the same day, from Australia.

audsley

I should not have thought it necessary to remark upon your statement, had I not been assured by many that it conveyed the impression that the Church Trustees had abundant means in their hands for the payment of the clergy and for all legitimate Church expenses. Your estimate of the value of the Church property is so palpably incorrect, lhat it is almost neeulebs to attempt to correct the many errors

into which you have fallen. You allow that your "estimate is a very rough one," which certainly may be called a truism, for you state that " half the land, i.e. 2000 acres, is now let, and that when the leases fall in in 20 years, the land will probably fetch £1 per acre, i.e. £4000 a year!" Allow me to say that you have not sufficiently investigated the subject, or perhaps it is so long a time since you. left school that you have forgotten your arithmetic. Your estimate of what you term the" Miscellaneous Property" is based upon an equally correct calculation. But, after all, you more than corroborate my view with regard to the present value of the Endowments. You say that in 12 years it will amount to £1500 per annum. I assert that in six years it will exceed that sum. Ido not, however, wish to enter into an argument upon the future value of land which can be but conjectural, and it is worse than useless to mystify and delude the public upon this point; and you can know no more than I do about tbe matter, and that is nothing at all. I maintain that the value of a thing is not that which an individual will take for it, but the sum which it will realise in the market, and in the case of Trust Property, which cannot be alienated, the present revenue which it produces. Did you owe your creditors £5000, and call them together and say, I have not the money to pay you, buf here is a valuable estate to divide amongst you ; certainly now it is worth only £500, but in 20 years it will fetch at least sgSOOC: do you think they would be satisfied with your reasoning? I cannot see why we should be put in " comparison with the colonies around us as regards endowments:" I know that in those colonies the clergy are at least respectably. paid. The Church system in'our settlement was proclaimed in England to be a model for all other colonies, and what is the result? For five years it has been kept at 200 degrees below starvation point, and so it is likely to remain, and it is but mockery to tell a mau perishing for want of food, that plenty of corn has been sown, and that, if he will but wait till after harvest, there will be abundance of bread: the present generation must starve, but we have created a splendid endowment for posterity! Well did Bishop Selwyn say. that it would have been better for our own Church to have been without endowment. As far as I am concerned, our controversy must end here; you, Sir, as editor, will of course have the last reply. I am, Sir, Your very obedient servant, Oct. Mathias. Commissary of the Bishop of New Zealand. Riccarton, July 17th, 1855. [We are sorry that Mr. Mathias should have thought fit to answer our remarks in the style which he has adopted in the above letter,—-the more so, as he wishes only to establish a point which we never disputed or dreamt of disputing —the present want of sufficient funds for the payment of the clergy. We need scarcely again repeat that the estimate we gave was of the whole value of the Ecclesiastical and Educational property in the Province. What that has to do witb a statement as to whether the present means of paying the clergy is sufficient or nonsufficient we cannot conjecture.. As to the estimate itself, we are confident that we have under-rated and not over-rated the value of the property. Few private individuals would ,at this moment take £5 an acre for such land as the Church land of this Province. This, bowever, is a matter of opinion, and we have no wish to adopt Mr. Mathias's fashion of arguing the point. One observation, however, we may make with respect to arithmetic. We cannot answer for all, but at most schools it would be taught that when half a block of laud comprises 2,000 acres, the whole will comprise 4,000 ; and that 4,000 acres at £1 per acre is equal to £4;000 ; — nor would such teaching strike us as strange or improper. We agree with -Mr. Mathias that a controversy unsought and unprovoked by us had better come to au end.—Ed L.T."]