FREE EDUCATION FOR THE DESTITUTE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 385, 28 July 1876, Page 3

FREE EDUCATION FOR THE DESTITUTE.

Last year the uovern ent proposed to charge Colonial education upon the Consolidated Fund. Their report was submitted to the country as actual Clause 22' of the Abolition of Provinces Act provides that " the costs charges and expenses of police, gaols, harbors, hospitals*, lunatic asylums, charitablo institutions, museums, public libraries, and of education throughout the Colony, shall be borue on the Consolidated Fund,bo far as such costs, charges, and expenses are not otherwise by Jaw provided for." Not only is last year's proposal, violated with regard to education, but liarbors, hospitals, nniritable institution*, museums, public libraries, are also cast upon land revenue or local securities. Confining, ourselves to education we proceed to show !io\v the Government proposal will work. It will be easily shown that the injustice does not stop with a mere shifting of the charge from one fund to another, heavy as that must he. Taking the appropriation for the year 187G-7, the direct charge for education upon the land revenue of Canterbury and Ota go is £GG,GGS. We couple Otago and Canterbury as being the only Provinces that have land revenue. With regard to the other Provinces that 'nave Bo land revenue the amount is charged against them just as if they possessed unlimited landed wealth. The amount, until they have a land revenue, is to bo paid out of Consolidated Fund. Now, for purposes of rcugh calculation, it may be said that Canterbury and Otago contril.mto five-eighths of Consolidated Revenue. It ia, therefore, obvious that, in addition to their own contribution of£GG,GGS, Canterbury and Otago have also to pay fiveeighths of £60,187 the amount charged to the land funds of other Provinces, but to be paid out of Consolidated Fund, which will bo found for the current year to be £39,49 i. The total charge for education will, therefore, be, as against the Provinces wlio are so unfortunate as to have land re venue, £1 ()G,ISG. Now it might he said that this amount—which, to put it mildly, we will call advanced—from Consolidated Fund will be repaid by the Provinces charged. The only light we can throw upon this, beyond a Common sense review of the probabilities of a refund, is the statements of the Premier : "It must be remembered nitli respect to the Provinces being responsible for the railways (education) in the future, that whilst we can keep some accounts between the Provinces and the Colony now because they me distinct, those accounts will bo almost imaginary when the Provinces cease tj exist, and the debts from the one to tho other will lmve a very unreal character We bo,;e we shall not find the Provinces with, defieiences . . . for tho Provinces when they ccasc to exNt can hardly be said to owo us money." There is no doubt that this impossibility to' allot debt will be. practically true, and tint payments once made by Consolidated Fund on bchalf-of. any Province will never be repaid by that Province. In this way the communism of tho land fund will be accomplished ps surr!v ;>« if no pretence were made to localise it in terms of the much-vaunted Corn-T-net of 185 G. In tho words of the Financial Statement, " a fact is not altered by being stated in difl' rent language." To make matters worse still the great Provinces are only 1o be allowed to participate in revenue arising from the Educational Peserves for four years more. So that, nt tho tion of f< ur years, tho Educational lieserves ate to bo cast into the common pot. It will veritably bo pot luck for Otago and Canterbury.