South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, JAN. 30, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2140, 30 January 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, JAN. 30, 1880.

It is to be feared that what is called “Free education” in New Zealand is scarcely what its name implies. It may be free in the abstract, but practically it is just the reverse. The terms free and compulsory are somewhat incongruous. If the title conferred is intended to imply a gratuitous system, it is still misleading. An examination of the Education lieport recently issued shews that the people of the colony are paying a very substantial kind of pepper-corn rent for the] inestimable boon of state schools. We arc linding no fault with universal education, for we arc deeply impressed with its necessity. What we desire to call attention to is its costliness. Valuable though boons may be, there are boons that may be purchased dearly. A glance at the figures contained in the report we refer to convinces us that there is some room for the free exercise of the pruning knife in connection with arc education system, and that the machinery of our state schools might be made to revolve merrily enough if the use of palm oil was less extravagant.

A few items will suffice for our argument. There are a dozen Education Boards in New Zealand, and their maintenance last year involved an outlay of over £IO,OOO. Of this sum more than half went into the pockets of secretaries, treasurers, and messengers, and nearly £3,000 was spent in advertising, printing, and stationery. If we add to these items, £6,000 paid to a small staff of Inspectors, we have a neat little total of over £16,000 paid for the machinery of our Education Boards, quite independent of the expenditure on buildings and teachers’ salaries. The salaries of schoolmasters and mistresses, amounted to £168,000, so that we have no less than 10 per cent of the amount paid to our Education labourers, swallowed up in the work of supervision. These figures, we think, are significant. They signify that a considerable amount of the current coin of the realm contributed by the colonial taxpayer is drifting away in unproductive channels. It must not be imagined that we fail to appreciate the usefulness of Education Boards with their clerical staffs. They are useful as a check upon committees, for the revision of appointments, and as distributing bodies. But we are afraid their ways are rather extravagant. This opinion we have formed from a perusal of the figures we have just submitted. If the opinion is erroneous, the education report is at fault. It might be well fur the members of these Boards to consider whether they arc not investing just a little too freely in that very costly article—red-tape ? Could they not cut down their expenses say 75 per cent., and yet perform their important functions effectively ? A saving of £IO,OOO a year to the colony in the small item of school revision, would be something in these hard times. We have not taken the head office into consideration, the expense of which, exclusive of the Minister’s allowance, is over £2OOO a year. It is these small trifles of a few thousands annually that run away with the consolidated revenue and keep public works idle, and drive willing laborers into gaol A large portion of the revenue of the colony is not spent, but ■wasted. If public departments could only be induced to deal with the money placed at their disposal for the purposes of allocation and to meet unavoidable contingencies in the same way as the members deal with their own private capital, their expenses, we imagine, would be seriously curtailed. In the meantime, thousands of pounds are squandered in keepingup fat establishments, where hundreds ■would suffice. Our comments on this matter are not due to any unfriendly feeling towards the large staff of secretaries, treasurers, clerks, and messengers, who are dining on the sweets of the Education hive, and we have a warm side towards the advertising item. But the Colony is notiu a position to be extravagant, even in the matter of Education, and we cannot help thinking that the members of our Education Boards, if they were dealing with their own capital, instead of with the contributions of the public, would contrive to work their small counting-houses on a less expensive scale than they are doing.