The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5134, 6 September 1877, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1877.

The education question certainly is beset with difficulties. Mr. Macfarlane, in speaking' on the Bill now before the House, observed that the hon. member who introduced it said he calculated receiving £25,000 under the 79th clause, in reference to which a remarkable circumstance had been brought Under his (Mr. Macpaelane’s) notice. It appeared that in collecting £1036 of education rates in Auckland, the enormous sum of £1477 had'to be paid to the solicitors, and he thought it would be necessary in getting in the capitation tax to make some provision for the appointment of a chairman. He then read the following extract from an Auckland journal of the 25th inst.: — “The account presented by Mr. Beale, • of the firm of Lusk and Beale,- solicitor to the Education Board, is a fitting climax to that miserable expedient of abankrupt Treasury known as the’ education rate.. Since Mr; Beale, the partner hf Mr.' H. H. Lusk, the Chairman of the Board, undertook the work of collecting arrears, fourteen hundred householders have been worried by summonses and law processes, •with the net result of £1036, the whole of which was appropriated by the lawyer (Mr. Lusk) for costs of recovery, leaving the Board still £441 in debt. Comment on such a fact only spoils the effect; it is much better to leave it in its simple nakedness. Previous experience in the collection pf the rate by law process, we are aware,-has not been of a very profitable character ; but there has never before been such an exhibition of high art as that disclosed in the foregoing figures.” Mr. Beale’s account for law charges and expenses as presented to the Auckland Board of Education was' as follows Recovery, of the education rates for part of 1874, 1875, 1876 : £793, being solicitor’s charges, and £714105. 2d. costs, and fees paid by him ; total, £1477 16s. 2d. By advance from Board, £350; rates and costs received by solicitor, £1036125. lOd ; total, £1386 12s. lOd. Balance due to solicitor by Board, £9l 3s. 4d. It thus appeared that £1477 had been spent to recover £1036. Whether similar charges have been made in other parts of the colony we are not aware, but the picture painted by Mr. Macfarlane of the cost of getting in the education rates in' Auckland under the present system is certainly' not a pleasing one. The solicitors may be able to show that the costs are fair and reasonable, but that does not alter the fact that the state of things in Auckland, at all events in reference to education matters, has not been at all satisfactory, and that any change that may bo made in the law affecting the question could hardly be for the worse in a financial point of view. Mr. Macfarlane certainly deserves credit for having brought these facts to light in the House, where, we have no doubt, many members were in utter ignorance of the state of the accounts, as well as a large number of persons outside the walls of Parliament who are all more or less interested in the question.