The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1881.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 690, 11 February 1881, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1881.

The result of the poll on the school site question in Masterton, published in our issue of yesterday, is extremely satisfactory, as it is practically ut vote of confidence in the public men in the borough who constitute the Trust Lands and the School Committees. The proposal was not one likely to be altogether popular, as it involved the sacrifice of a central site, which is conveniently situated for the bulk of of the population, and it is also attended by a strain on the financial resources of the Town Lands Trust. As this body is a milch cow on which not only the school, but the public Institute and the public Park depends it is not very desirable that it should incur a heavy liability without a very urgent reason compels it to do so, The one great inducement, however, which compensated for the disadvantage em- | bodied in the proposal was the prospect of obtaining a suitable schoolhouse and a commodious playground. Had any other plan beeu proposed which would have given a good school and playground to Masterton beside the preseut one, we should have been disposed to favor it, but in the of any alternative feasible scheme we felt bound to support it Knowing the overcrowded state of the existing buildings and grounds, we could not but admit the necessity of their being abandoned, and we are glad to see that the burgesses of the borough, after having the cause fairly laid before them, have, by so large a majority, approved of the proposition, Jt is not always the case that public men acting m the interests of the district, and to a certain extent in opposition to the popular feeling, secure an expression of approval like the one given by the poll on Wednesday last, As a rule in Masterton tho result of a poll is a satisfactory evidence of the intelligence of its settlers, and of their desire to promote the best interests of the town, Though this result has not always, in our opinion, been obtained, it hits in very many instances, and in none more emphatically than on the school site question. The battle, of course, has stil) to be fought out at the Board, but there is every reason .to believe that the manner in which the question has been ventilated locally will tend to en)ist the sympathy and co-operation of the higher powers at Wellington, and smooth tho way for a final settlement by which education in Masterton will receive a " big lift."