CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1037, 16 February 1882, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[TJ”e do not hold ourselves responsible for opinions expressed by our correspondents.] SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING AT MAKARAKA. to the editor. Sir, —I beg leave, through the columns of your valuable paper, to draw attention to some inaccuracies that have appeared in the Evening Herald's report of the public meeting at Makaraka. The report says, “Mr Hill made an explanation, and on the motion being put, was rejected,” &e. There was an indignation motion sgainst Mr Hill, proposed and seconded. But on hearing Mr Hill’s explanation, the whole of the householders, with the exception of two or three (who like the pig going to market will go any road but the right one) voted for the withdrawal of the motion. Mr Hill in bis definition of the duties of School Committees, said that the Committee (not the schoolmaster, as the report states) had a right to allow children over the school ago to attend at a charge. Mr Hill also said a great deal more than that the principal duties of School Committees were to see to the school-house and grounds. Mr Hill showed that the duties of School Committees were very grave and responsible duties. The idea of electing seven gentlemen to sec to the school-house and grounds, the grounds generally about half-an-acre. Why, Sir. it only requires five gentlemen of ordinary ability to see to a Highway District. It is a pity that the Herald's reporter said nothing about what Mr Hill stated when he was asked what constituted a householder. Mr Hill said that he spoke officially, as Secretary to the Hawke's Bay Education Board. This question was brought before the above Board, and he, Mr Hill, thought that their decision would become a precedent. He said that the Board decided that any persons of mature age, man or woman, constituted a householder. It did not matter whether they resided in the district or not. He said if he had been here from Napier on the evening of the election of the Matawhero Committee he could have voted. It is to-be hoped that the Board will reconsider this decision. As to plural voting being an evil, I don’t think it is, because if one man gives all his votes to- get a bad man elected, another man can do the same to get a good man elected. If the decision of the Hawke’s Bay Education Board be acted upon at elections of Committees, it will be disastrous to the cause of education. Any travelling stranger may attend at a School Committee and vote. Or a number of swagmen on tramp looking for work, and who have camped for the time being, could vote and perhaps turn the scale against resident ratepayers who have children to be educated, and who are desirous of having men elected who will take an interest in the progress of education. Now, Sir, I think that no one should be considered a householder who is not a ratepayer, or a parent with children of school 1 age, and a resident of the school district in which they vote. Mr Editor, I hope you will not allow this opportunity to slip without favoring the public with the benefit of your opinion upon this important matter. To show how carelessly statements arc allowed to be bungled into the Herald, 1 noticed a paragraph in a recent issue. It runs thus: Out of the period of fourty-four years during which the Queen has occupied the English throne, she has spent about twelve days in Ireland. Iler last visit took place twelve years ago, in August, eighteen hundred and sixty-one.— l am, &c., Laurence Dunne, Matawhero.