CASTLEPOINT COUNTY CLERK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10234, 10 May 1911, Page 5

CASTLEPOINT COUNTY CLERK.

(To The Editor.} Sir,— Your remarks re tiio \\'Jlington'Education Board alio win rr. : ,x teacher to act as Clerk to a Coprrv Council at £IOO a. year, were e :':<:i>v rIy written ■•without, knowledge cf the circumstances. The Castii point County was originally part <>f t!i# Mi&sterton County, 'but for some reason best known to the iien'i ts 'of that Council, they got up a petition forming a new County, which excluded Castlepoint. • The settlers in this district had no option hut to form another County, which is so small that they cannot afford to pay a clerk more thair £IOO a year. The County office is only opeh to the public on the last Saturday in each month, when the monthly meeting is held, -consequently the work of a Clerk cannot interfere with the duties of a teacher. It would he absurd to suppose that.any qualified man would take up the work, live in Tinui, aiud possibly support a wife and family on £IOO a. year. The present ' arrangement, I think, is a, very sat- ! isfactory one. The salary, received "by the teacher, is, I believe, small, and .as his duties a® clerk, cannot posisibly interfere with his duties as teacher, for the reasons given above, th<?re can 'be (ho reason why he should | not act in both capacities, and thus increase -his income. I was chairman of the Castlepoint County Council for some'years,- aind consequently know what the duties of a •clerk are. It is <not the fault of the Castiepoint Council that they cannot afford to. pay their clerk more than £IOO a year,- but- rather th<? fault of the Government, which allows large Counties to he cut un into such tinpot littie Counties that not one of them con afford to keep a really competent staff to do their work.—l am, etc., W. BALZIELL.'