The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1930 DROPPING THE PILOT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 872, 16 January 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 1930 DROPPING THE PILOT

years have passed since Mr. Lloyd George was elected to * succeed the late Earl of Oxford as Leader of the British Liberal Party. .At that time he seemed the only possible choice. et his selection in December, 1927, had been made only after protracted delay. The volatile Welshman might have seemed to outsiders the one logical successor to the statesman who will always be better known as Mr. Asquith, but within the partv councils there was doubt about the choice. Mr. Llovd George had powerful enemies. The very qualities that made him an inspiring war leader, because of the magnetic fire of his personality, made thoughtful men distrust his capacity to lead a M « a^ P ar ty along the path of sincere, sober, constructional eliort needed to restore it to its place in British polities. In the interim those doubts have not been allayed. Mr. Lloyd George retains liis brilliance in the House, his mastery over audiences, his swift gift of devastating repartee. But when the Conservative Party lost 158 seats in the political landslide last .June, the Liberal Party gained only 15 of them. After a campaign in which it had made a promise to banish unemployment without a penny increase in taxation, Liberalism had lost the chance of a generation. True, it gained the balance of power. On crucial divisions Mr. Lloyd George may still sink' or save the MacDonald Government. He has 57 followers, to 287 in the Labour Party, and 284 in the Conservative Party. But his followers are not contented with this position. They see the pi obability, not merely the possibility, that this negative prestige cannot be indefinitely retained. Liberalism mav go farther down the hill. These are the external developments that have prepared the v ay for the ejection of Mr. Lloyd George from the leadership of the party. While this might have been accepted as almost a routine event had it been accomplished without recrimination, it becomes a. first-rate political sensation through the bitter attack made against the deposed leader by his successor, Lord Grey. As one of those Liberals who never viewed Mr. Lloyd George or his achievements with much favour, Lord Grey would not have been expected to make his accession the occasion for genial testimony to the good qualities of his predecessor. But it is questionable whether outside observers expected such a startling demonstration of the internal weaknesses of the party. It is all very good proof that loyalty' in polities may easily become subordinate to jiersonal and party expediency. In the recent election Mr. Lloyd George based his main appeal to the country on a sweeping promise to cure unemployment. In this respect his appeal had a curious resemblance to that made by the United Party in New Zealand at the election of November 1928. Ihe difference was that, whereas the New Zealand public was hypnotised by Sir Joseph Ward’s promise to cure unemployment in six weeks, in Britain the electors were sceptical. The famous “Orange Book,” in which 'Mr. Lloyd George had set out his proposal under the spell-binding caption: “We Mobilised for War, Let Us Mobilise for Prosperity,” sold throughout Great Britain in millions, bringing in thousands of pounds to the party' funds. , But the public was not convinced. The glamour of the wizard s promises was not sufficient to rescue Liberalism from the danger of decay. The system by which the Liberal Party’s administration and organisation is financed has never been publicly explained, but it is plain from Lord Grey’s denunciations that, whatever the system was, it gave Mr. Lloyd George substantial control. Since it was his shrewdness that promoted the idea of the “Orange Book,” no doubt he has a say in the administration of those funds, too. This has allowed him to bind the Liberal Party to his own particular policy, a policy denounced by responsible opinion in Britain as “charlatanism and thimble-rigging.” Still in a minority, his party feels those epithets rankling. But if Lloyd George and his promised magic had won a different result at the elections, the Liberal remnant might have lauded the gifts of its leader, instead of ejecting him with contumely. MARRIED WOMEN TEACHERS A BRUSQUE discussion at yesterday’s meeting of the Auckland • » Education Board drew attention once again to the vexed question of employment for married women teachers in State schools. Admittedly the case in point was an unusual one, being a question as to whether the wife of a headmaster should be entitled to an appointment in the institution under his control, hut it relates to a basic problem that, at one time or another, has exercised the mind of every school administrator in the country. Appointments to teaching positions in New Zealand public schools are decided by the boards concerned. Nevertheless, they are guided by the department, which withholds the right of final decision. A board may take into consideration moral and physical questions, and economic factors such as the married or single state of women applicants; but the department usually decrees that the applicant with the highest academic qualifications must win an advertised position. It is the arbitrary enforcement of this rule that has roused members of the Auckland board to vehement protest against the injustice of a system which enables a husband and wife to draw separate salaries while working under one school roof, at a time when unemployment among teachers generally continues to puzzle a sorely-overcrowded department. Complaints of married women with satisfactory domestic sources of income occupying teaching positions to the exclusion of single teachers, and pupil teachers desirous of advancement, began with the disastrous overcrowding of training colleges in the slump years previous to 1925. Undoubtedly the position was aggravated by the many young women who married before the expiration of their obligations to the department as pupil teachers, and preferred to retain their positions rather than forfeit their bonds. Since 1925 the department has taken steps to control the numbers of entrants to training colleges, but the flood that inundated the profession is subsiding tardily, and young, qualified teachers are still waiting in large numbers outside the ranks of the army, 6,000 strong, that is stationed in the public schools of the Dominion. Though it is obviously unfair that a woman who is supported by her husband should secure further financial benefit at the expense of one whose living and career is dependent upon teaching, it is equally certain that, in the interests of the schools, no hard and fast rules can be laid down. If it so happens that the only fully-qualified applicant for a certain position is a married woman, educational necessity demands that she be appointed. Deliberately to shun the valuable and expert services of a teacher because she happened to be married and to replace her with a teacher of inferior qualifications who happened to be single would be absurd. The problem is one that can he solved only hv discriminating treatment in individual cases, and if this is to be applied effectively education boards require greater discretionary powers.