Education Rates.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 409, 13 September 1876, Page 2

Education Rates.

Sir.—Permit me through your columns to call the attention of your readers to the following statement reported (in the New Zealand Mansard, No 17, page 295) to have been made by Captain Russell, in his speech in the House of Representatives on the separation resolution moved by Sir George Grey. ~“ If you go there (Poverty Bay) what Will you see? you will see the country rieh alid fertile, a people really industrious, and you will see no roads, no bridges, no public buildings. * * * And they will tell you that the people of Auckland never sent succour in any way whatever. You will hear more than that. You will hear that although the Education Rates are not levied near the city of Auckland, the Education Rates are levied in Poverty Bay, and that those rates are used to pay salaries in the city of Auckland." What one would hear in Poverty Bay I cannot say; but Captain Russell has made three distinct assertions to which I will give as distinct replies. First, as to the Education Rates. He asserts that the Education Rates are not levied near Auckland. This is utterly untrue, and how Captain Russell could venture to make such a statement I cannot conceive. These Rates have for three years been collected in every part of the province of Auckland ; and, of the whole amount received, considerably more than one fourth has been collected in the city of Auckland and its immediate vicinity. He then asserts that, although not levied in Auckland, these rates are levied in Poverty Bay and expended in the paymen t of sal. dries in Auckland. Your readers will know how to characterize this statement when they have looked at the following facts. The whole amount of rates rc-

eeived during the three years in which they hare been levied, from Gisborne, Ormond, and the other districts in Poverty Bay, have been £775, whereas during the same period, the following amounts have been paid by the Board of Education to Poverty Bay : — To Gisborne—Teachers’ salaries, to June, 1876. £690; grants for school purposes, £2BO. Ormond school —Teachers’ salaries and grants £lB3. Matawhero school —Teachers’ salaries, £l2O. In all £1273, or 518 more than all the Rates received. That the Auckland Board of Education have acted mostliberally to the East Coast districts will be seen from these figures, and also from the fact that while from the district of Opotiki the rates received only amounted to £367, the Board has expended there in school teachers salaries £687, and grants to school committees £lB2, in ‘•all £869, being £502 beyond the amount of Rates received ; so much for Education Rates.

But Captain Russell lias also stated that Auckland has not succoured Poverty Bay “in anyway whatever.” Thefigures given above tell a different story, and, if the actions of the Auckland Provincial Government are intended by Captain Russell, his statement is quite as untrue as that regarding the Education rates; for, in the capacity of Acting Provincial Treasurer, I have repeatedly paid sums of money for Roads &c., in Poverty Bay ; and the salaries and other expenses of its Harbour Department, its Gaol, and its Inspector of Sheep ; and also a part of the cost of maintaining its sick and destitute, have been and are all defrayed by the Auckland Provincial Government. —I am Ac., R. B. Lusk, Receiver of Education Rates. Auckland, 31st August, 1876. [Mr Lusk is in his proper element on the Education Rate ; but when he travels beyond that, into the road and harbor questions, he is, evidently, out of liis depth. The “ succour ” admitted, we have still been kept at starvation point, on the latter items, at any rate, alluded to by Mr Lusk.—Ed. S. and P. A.]