EDUCATION.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1890, 9 November 1874, Page 3

EDUCATION.

To the Editor ot the Thames advertiser. Sib,—l am surprised that Mr Bagnall should desire to throw dust in the eyes of your readers as to the course pursued by him in the matter of educatiou at the last sitting of the Proviucial Council. He says he was not one of a committee who reported against the obtaining of £10,000 out of the Supreme Courthouse site. Why thus distort? There is no necessity for him to try and set me right as to what his action was, as most people, myself included, who took any interest in the matter during its disussion know very well that there were two bills on the sub. ject during the session—the one that is alluded to by Mr Bagnall, the old Supreme Court House Bill, by which the site was made an-education reserve. I did not tax Mr Bagnall inregard to this bill, as I believe there was very little doubt as to the correctness of its provisions, but Ido say that he sat as a.member of the Public BuildiDgs Act Committee, a few clauses of which went to provide for the mode in which the site alluded to should be utilised, and which committee reported in favour of a scheme for erecting public buildings on the site in opposition to the plan of cutting the block into sections and letting them to the highest bidder. By the latter course a fund would be available for education purposes ; by the former, which was carried, the effect would be to pervert a valuable property from the object for.which it was granted into a means for adorning the main street of the city of Auckland. Mr Bagnall does not deny that hs voted against the proposal to borrow an additional £10,000 for school building purposes, a proposal which was safo to be carried had he and another of our members voted in favour of it. It is not to the credit of Mr Bagnall that he should now attempt to make any mystery as to how he acted. If the reasons for his vote were good, why be ashamed of them? if he made a mistake by acting upon the advice of "older members,"why not say so? few men will blame him, as the best of men. will err. It is only when wrong motives govern a man's vote that he need fear openness of speech; these I cannot think of imputing to Mr Bagnall, and am therefore surprised at his evasion of the statements I made by.me.r-I am, &c, W. J. Speight.