THE STANDARD. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1873.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 41, 5 April 1873, Page 2

THE STANDARD.

SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1873.

“ We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

Native schools again. And again! And again I! And again!!! So shall it be to the end of the chapter, while the affairs of an institution, the foundation of which costs the country so much money, are administered in the incompetent way they are. Not long since we called attention to the scandalous arrear of back pay due to the teachers in this district. This has had the desired effect; as arrangements have been made by which these salaries will be paid monthly, in future: thanks to Mr. M'Lean. We have now to draw attention to the whole state of the Gisborne Native School building and grounds. In one word, it is simply disgraceful. The building, barely twelve months old, is uninhabitable. The ground is still unfenced, and, of course, unprofitable. There are no absolutelynecessary out-offices, which both for decency and convenience should have been erected with the building. There is no well or water appliances—in fact the place is going to ruin, and, as we have said, a disgrace to the man who is the prime sinner in having caused so much obstruction to the satisfactory working of these schools; and that man is the Inspector, Colonel Bussell. The

Committee being themselves desirous of improving the condition of things, have persistently urged these matters as requiring attention; they have solicited either for an advance of money or permission to incur the necessary expense; and have suggested that certain arrangements should be made with the Trustees of the Waerehga-a-hika Estate by which they could be placed in possession of funds, so as to anticipate Government action as understood to be necessary by the Inspector; and with what result? Colonel Bussell met these proposals in a captious spirit, and gave a coup de grace to a forbearance on the part of the committee which, according to our notion, was becoming very undignified. Whatever may have been the terms of his supercilious reply, the rebuff which it contained was such as induced the immediate resignation of both Dr. Nesbitt and Captain Pobteb; and as these gentlemen were the only European members on the Committee, there is, practically, no local body at all to conduct the business of the school. Now, in parading these official laches of the Inspector for the information of the Hon. the Native Minister, we call upon him once more to put an end to as gross a piece of maladministration as any Government ever had to complain of. We say again, advisedly, that the present Inspector of (Native Schools is totally unfit for the duty he ought to Eerform. Any humble clerk, would ave been dismissed the service as not worth his salt, who had been guilty of a tithe part of Colonel Bussell’s shortcomings. He has acted throughout the whole of this business as a pure obstructive; he has thrown every possible obstacle in the way of the Committees ; he has driven the best men in the district from the local management of the Poverty Bay schools ; he has arrogated to himself a presumptuous authority, which we defy him to find in the “Native Schools Act;” he has made a huge mess of the four appointments of teachers to schools from Whakato to Tokomairo, and has done his utmost to make the teachers themselves uncomfortable, and dissatisfied with their position. As we have seen, he has allowed their salaries to get into a shameful state of arrear; he has, in some cases, guaranteed their expenses incurred in proceeding to take post, and then repudiated the liquidation of them; he is in disfavor with the whole native population, who are either ashamed of, or disgusted with his proceedings, and have expressed their desire to throw both Inspector and Government overboard together; he has allowed the Tologa Bay district to remain without a building, the teacher there, besides being ill supplied, is compelled to cram about 60 scholars into a miserable whare, the foetid atmosphere of which is sufficient to breed a fever; he has succeeded in bringing the institution of native schools, to be a bye word and reproach in the land, and his own name and doings a laughing-stock among men; he has brought that part of the Government, with which he is associated, into contempt, and his own Beport, submitted to the last Parliament, condemns him as a man unable to write, and thoroughly unconversant with, the language of which he professes to inspect the teaching. As a man he is arrogant, vainglorious, and proud: As an Inspector he is presumptuous, arbitrary, domineering, and useless. A time-serving place hunter, he has been waiting upon providence for years; a political Vicar of Bray of the worst, aftd most worthless class, he has from the earliest days pursued a system of official mendication, sponging upon successive Governments, and fattening himself at the expense of the colony. He, who has been “ all things by turns, “and nothing long,” has become the washer of official dirty linen; a grand inquisitor, who delights to sit in judgment over his brother delinquents in distress, he cringes and crawls before the men of the time, and imposes upon those who know him not — himself among the number —that he is really worth the salt he eats. “ There are haughty steps, that fain would walk the globe, “ O’er necks of humbler ones,” and Colonel Bussell is such an one. But we say the time has come when these drones must be cast out of the hive; and we ask the Government as we peruse the roll of the thousands that

make up the great army of officials in New Zealand, to take such measures in the proposed reform of the Civil Service as will disqualify men from appropriating salaries they do not earn, and whose only qualification for office consists in their being thoroughly useless in any other capacity. We have written the above in the full belief that Mr. M‘Lean cannot be aware of the true state of affairs ; and with the certain knowledge that, as he is directly responsible to Parliament for the profitable’ expenditure of money liberally voted tor the good government of this, portion of the native policy committed to his care, so sure will he see to a rectification of errors arising from the most glaring culpability, and instantly dismiss from the service a man with so much presumption, and so little head; and who is sure, if left unchecked, to complete the destruction of a domestic edifice, on which both England and the Colony rest their hope for the elevation of the native race.