CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 375, 28 April 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

THE TEACHER'S LOT. A school teacher's life is not a bed of roses. He (but mostly she) is blown hither or thither by the breath of the Department, of the Board, or of tile Committee. No committer ever had a moral right to either select ia teacher or to quarrel with one. Many members of school committees are densely ignorant. Many parents are more ignorant than school-committeemen, and by their friendship with members of committees may use these persons to harass teachers in their work. An absolutely ignorant school-committeeman has been known to maice the life of a teacher a perfect inferno, and we are glad that Mr. Cargill at the recent meeting of the Education Board brought up the subject of selection, for it gives an excuse to make a few remarks apropos to the matter. A selection committee or a small board is altogether wrong. A committee of the whole as selector is small enough. Personal bias is always evident in small communities, and this is undemocratic. At present the selection and distribution of teachers is entirely haphazard. There is pathetic evidence of this every day. Teachers of excellent caliure are sent to remote spots and are kept there year after year. Merit has nothing to do with their exile. Teachers not so excellent receive and keep good appointments. Unless teachers have the "ear" of the powers that control, they may be buried for ever. We do not say that there is any Education Board fully capable of deciding the qualifications of a teacher or of transporting him for life to the bacicblocks, or of giving him a fine billet in a town; but we do say that two heaus are better than one and a dozen better than six. The unfair distribution of the few "plums" in the gift of the Department is the chief reason why many qualified men absolutely refuse to become teachers. Many educated men would rather die than be subject to some school committees we know of. It is better to be a navvy than a schoolteacher at any time, but to be a schoolteacher tucked away in the wilderness without a possible chance of an ''oasis" because biassed men control educational transfers is penal servitude. If the town teacher knew that incompetence would condemn him to the backblocks, he might "'buck up" and learn to be competent. If the competent teacher stuck away year after year knew that competent selectors were watching him and •would reward him with promotion, he would remain a teacher, and would not be so glad to die young. ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA! Houlder Bros, and Co., Limited, are building ten new ships, each of 10,000 tons, for the Australian trade. The lact makes one think hard. The expansion of Australian trade and Australian prosperity is out of all proportion to the increase of its population. The fact that with small increments of population, German, French, and Japanese steamship companies find it a payable proposition to send magnificent ships to Australia, is an indication of the wonderful impulse behind the people of the sparsely-populated island continent. The British seem slower than the Continentals in seizing chances of increased trade, and the latest news in regard to the Houlder service, added to the extension of the P. and 0. service, indicates that Australian trade is growing mar-, rellously. lately there has been an

emphatic slump in British shipping. filial though Britain controls one-half of Unshipping of the jworld, many great companies have recently docked a proportion of their mercantile fleets. It is obvious that great shipping companies must have the best reasons for building millions of pounds' worth of new ships. One of the points for Australia and New Zealand is that increase of population is the only true road for the attainment of 11 permanently large increase ot products. In Australia and New Zealand the seasons vary vastly, and ha>>pily they have been generously abundant of late years. But it is only bv the united eH'orts of a large number o: people that a great country can rise superior to bad seasons. It is hoped that the expansion of the shipping trade between the Old World and the Xew is on omen for the greatness of Australasia's future.

THE PROPOSED TIiA.MS. We must compliment the sub-committee' set up by the Tramway Committee to go into the matter of "bomuiiaries am! values of ;>. proposed tramway district and the probable cost of installing lines, and the estimated revenue and expenditure, upon the thoroughness of the report they presented last evening. Evidently they had spared no trouble in obtaining data—data which is of a most valuable nature, enabling ratepayers, as it were, to form an opinion as to the merits ( of the scheme and the advisability of giving effect to it in the -.iear future. It is not surprising that the committee condemned the suggested •branch lines and recommended that the scheme be confined for the present to the ,Fitzroy-Moturoa line, and that the tramway district be defined to include tlie borough of New Plymouth, tiie town districts of Fitzroy and St. Aubvn and a small iportion of the Omata riding ot the Taranaki The commitee, estimated that the line proposed could be completed and equipped for £40,000, and that the revenue during the nr.-t year's working will equal the expenses (including interest- and sinking fund) within £IOO. The estimate is based upon the actual experience of. other towns served bv tramways, and, glancing through the figures, we should say that the estimates are very much on the safe side. This, of course, is «s it should be. If electric trams can be established and run to cost the borough | only £IOO a year, we should say they would 'prove a particularly sound in-1 vestment; if trams cost the borough! even £SOO they would still be a good investment, for the loss would be «.uvered in a tenfold degree by the advantages the trams would confer and the appreciation of property that would inevitably follow. The meeting (teclded in favor of making the trams a munici-i pal concern, but giving the municipality rating power over Fitzro.v and St. Aubyn townships, as against the original scheme of creating a tramway district. It was also decided to wait upon the Council next week and ask them to take up the scheme. The promoters are going about the matter in a thorough .businesslike manner, and deserve the thanks of the community for the work they have done and are doing. We have no doubt the Council will see their way to take up the project, and give the ratepayers an opportunity of recording their opinion on this very imporlant proposal.