STRATFORD SCHOOL COMMITTEE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 306, 4 February 1910, Page 8

STRATFORD SCHOOL COMMITTEE.

To the Editor. Sir, —As your reference in last Friday's issue to the interview between the Finance Committee of the Educations Board and myself is calculated to reflect somewhat on the Stratford school committee, permit me to 3-tata -briefly" the position. Every district high school ■is entitled bv statute to a (-iorvernment subsidy on all donations to its funds.The Stratford District High School committee undertook the erection of a shelter-shod, relying for ways and means partly on this Government subsidy and" partly on a promise of assistance from the Education Board. The committee did not then know that the Board, when, it informed the committee that it had decided to grant assistance, did''not propose to touch its own funds, but intended itself to apply, under a departmental regulation as to shelter-sheds, to the Government for a subsidy on ■ donations; received by the school committee. The Board's application under the siieltershed regulation got in first, and, beingsuccessful, blocked the school committee from obtaining its ordinary subsidy under the Act. The Boards promised 1 assistance proved illusory, ait was, and is. the contention of the committee that the Board was bound to make it real. As to my having been convinced ■that this committee had tried to obtain a subsidy on a subsidy;. I distinctly repudiated the 'suggestion? when made by a member of the Board; This committee's proposal that, the cost of the shed should be apportioned! between 'the Department, the Board, and the committee was entirely equitable.—! am, etc., T; HARRY BEXX. . 2nd February, 1910.