Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1909. A COUNTRY SETTLER’S QUESTION.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4485, 6 November 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6,1909. A COUNTRY SETTLER’S QUESTION.

I hit above all—to thine owntelfbe true , hnd tt mutt follow at the night the day Thou cantt not then be falte to any man Shaketpears.

It will conus upon the public as a great shock and surprise yjrhen it is fully realised that at the end of the present month all school children’s and teachers’ free passes on the New Zealand Bail - ways will be cancelled. Although it will be a grievance to the teachers, it will be a tenfold more serious one to parents. Most of the teachers arc paid at a rate that will enable them to pay their own fares without feeling the loss or the inconvenience of it, and moreover, their association can bring such oombined pressure upon the Government as to secure increased salary or possibly a reversion to their old passes, ft is otherwise with parents. There is no organisation to fight their battle, and unless the Press will air thoir grievances #pd watch their interests, they will fare badly. /Some persons may say : •• Let the-parent? protect their own interests but they are so?caJ£epedandao completely unorganised, that he to impossible for them to protect their own true interests in this toaster. Settlers deserve the able assistance or' the Press.

It will also surprise many parents to learn thftt tup pfrnnks are due to the Bailway Department fo/r the concession of free passes in the ppafc. iww turns #ai t that the Education Department po# fciteto paid the Railway Department

for all free passes granted to scholars and teachers. Country teachers will be at a great disadvantage compared with town and suburban teachers; so will country children suffer a great disadvatage. The crux of the whole question is this.

The Education scheme in New Zealand is a free and compulsory one. Being compulsory the Education Department has hitherto paid the railway fares. It was no doubt believed that as education was compulsory it was only right to provide children with the means of getting to and from school. This change will press with great hardship on many country settlers. Some of them are so circumstanced that their children cannot possibly attend school unless proper provision be made by the authorities for their going to and fro. It is thought by some that this change has been decided upon because the Dominion cannot afford to continue the free passes. Whether that really be so or not we cannot say; but if it be a fact, then we may say that it is not a very stubborn fact, and it ought to be, and can be overcome. The monetary saving to the Railway Department will be very small, and the loss to the country will be very great, because the same trains will have to be run and the same number of carriages, so we fail to see where any perceptible savings can be made. But we do see where a serious loss will be made. For instance, many settlers children will be quite unable to attend school. They cannot walk the required distance to and fro, and they cani not afford ponies. Many of the childfen are not able to manage ponies. Their intermittent attendance at school will be a loss to them, and consequently a loss to the Dominion. We require that onr country children shall have the best possible education. The country gains by their improved and requisite knowledge, and it will be a very retrograde policy to cancel the passes. Mr Edwin Hall, the energetic and able Secretary of the Auckland Agricultural and Pastoral Association, wrote upon the question of Education from the country settlers point of view, Borne years ago, and the Government published his paper in one of the Blue Books. He also contributed to the Auckland Press papers on the MacDonald rural schools in Canada. Mr Hall, on being interviewed upon the question of _ free passes, was most emphatically of opinion that the cancellation of them will be a retrograde and ft wrong step, Unless the people in the country districts bestir themselves at once it will be too late.