The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY JUNE 7, 1884. SCHOOL COMMITTEES ELECTION BILL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1705, 7 June 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY JUNE 7, 1884. SCHOOL COMMITTEES ELECTION BILL.

Mr W. J. Steward M.H.R,) ' for Waimate, proposes to introduce this session a Bill on the lines of the one which lie earned through'the. Lower House last ye.r, and which was thrown out in the Tipper House by live casting vote of the Speaker. In his new Bill there is one important alteration, viz., each school district is toJiaye >,the option of adopting or abolishing] the cu.TiulativO' r vote. We regret this change, because permissive legislation

is bad in principle and unsatistactory in practice,; Optional clauses are the sickliest and most degrading features of our colonial legislature. They are a sort of open confession of the inability, of a Parliament to legislate, and of a Ministry to govern, If the cumulative vote be a right thing the Legislature should uphold it, aud if it be wrong it should be abolished, We hope no wretched middle course will be taken, by which a district may adopt it, whether it be right or wrong. Optional clauses have emasculated our Counties Act and our Licensing Act. We hope they will not he grafted into every measure by a Parliament pandering to fanciful popular cries, • The Rill, apart from its permissive,clauses, is a decided

improvement on the existing regulations for the appointment of committees, There is a, general feeling throughout the colony against tampering with the Education Act, but this sentiment hardly applies to the task Mr Steward has undertaken, viz., the perfecting of some of the clumsy machinery which is essential to its efficient administration, Mr Steward's Bill does riot trench upon the great principles of the Act by which a free primary education is given to every child in the. crlony. It is mainly intended to facilitate the working out

of these principles in the best possible

manner, and we trust to see it become law during the current session. We

are cursed with many legislative fads m New Zealand. The cumulative vote is one of them, andit will be satisfactory to see it knocked on the head.