The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 124, 20 January 1874, Page 2

The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1874.

“ 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.”

The Resolution passed on Saturday evening, at the Annual Meeting of .Householders, convened by the retiring School Committee, for the purpose of electing a committee to succeed them in the management of the Gisborne School for the next twelve months, carries with it a meaning of much significance. It is an emphatic expression of disapproval by the householders of the working of the Education Act in the town of Gisborne. It says in the plainest and most respectful terms that the Act in itself is distasteful, and that the ad-, ministration of it by the Board has not tended to relieve it of many of its objectionable features. Of course it must not be lost sight of that the position of the Central Board with respect to the Education Act and the Government is relatively that of School Committees with respect to the Central Board itself. But, perhaps unfortunately for it, it is only through the Central Board, that School Committees haveany means of reaching either the Education Act or the Executive Government. The Board cannot, it is true, create funds for the use of School Committees, nor can it recommend that certain things should be done which are obviously at ■variance with the Act, which defines the limitation of its powers. And at first sight this view of its non-liability

to adverse criticism may appear to exonerate that body from reproof ; but it does not. The construction of the Central Board of Education is an embodiment of the Provincial Government in another form. The Provincial Council too is also represented in it; and as the general public may not know how the Board is constituted we will quote a portion of clause 5 of the Act which says ; — The Superintendent and the members of his Executive Council for the time being together with the Speaker of the Provincial Council four persons to be elected annually by the Provincial Council and three persons to be nominated and appointed from time to tune by the Chief Justice or other resident Judge of the Supreme Court al Auckland shall constitute a Board for carrying into effect the provisions of this Act which Board shall be called “ The Board of Education.”

We fake it then that as the Executive and Representative elements are so strong in the constitution of the Board, there cannot be any more effective method of giving expression to disapprobation than by doing so direct tv the administrators of a law which they, themselves, have framed ; and as they are the exponents of the views of the Government, they are virtually the u'tinia thule —the very fountain head to whom alone the householders can address themselves.

We think, on the whole, the determination of the meeting to wash its hands of all further responsibility, while the present Act is in force; and to throw the onus of administering the affairs of the Gisborne School into the hands of the Board, was the only course open to it consistently to pursue. No other set of men with their hands tied could have done more than the Committee, whoso term of office has just expired, have done. Amongst the old Committee’s earliest Acts they considered it their duty to enquire relative to the settlement of outstanding claims, debtor and creditor, having special reference to Mr. King’s claim for the payment of the balance due on the enlargement of the School House ; and they were instructed not to recognize them. Application was also made for a moderate sum to put the building in a habitable condition for the winter; and it was acceded to. But how ? The Board granted £10! The Committee were informed that no funds were available for petty contingencies, such as lighting, stationery, advertizing, &c., to say nothing of firewood, cleansing, and other absolute necessaries for the comfort of the scholars, all of which expenses, when incurred, have been paid from private sources. There can be no doubt that this unsatisfactory state of things has, as a cause, contributed very much to the diminution in the number of scholars attending school; and the effect was apparent in the paucity of householders at the meeting on Saturday night. There is no interest now felt in the school; and so long as private schools offer such fair competition in providing the means of education, it is thought just as well that the Board should take special charge of this one in the settlement of difficulties which it alone has created. As will be seen by our report the Board has “ the power to appoint one “or more Commissioners,” but, considering that he or they would occupy the same invidious position as, and have no more power or authority than a Committee elected by the householders, we can safely predict a great difficulty in getting any resident here to act in that capacity; and surely the cost of a paid Commissioner from Auckland will not be entertained by a body whose impecuniosity has refused to sanction contingent necessities!

In reverting again, shortly, to the question of Mr. King's account, we desire to express the opinion generally entertained as to the unreasonableness of the Board’s decision not to liquidate it. We believe we are right in assuming that had the present Act not come into operation, the Board would have favorably entertained the application for local assistance under the old Act; and as the new Act provides that “ all property ” acquired under it or any of the old Acts, “ shall be vested “in the Superintendent,” and that “ all monies, owing to the Board ” under the repealed Acts, “ shall be “ due and payable to the Superintendent also that nothing contained in the new 7 Act “ shall prevent the col- “ lecting and recovering of any rate or “ rates lawfully imposed under the “ authority of the said repealed Acts” —we say that, in view of this gathering in of one side of the ledger policy adopted by the Government and carried out by the Executive under another name, we cannot but endorse the Chairman’s opinion expressed at the meeting on Saturday night, that it is ‘‘a dishonest way of getting out “ of the payment of honest debts.”