THE RATING OF SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS' RESIDENCES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 45, 9 November 1899, Page 31

THE RATING OF SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS' RESIDENCES.

AN IMPORT AN f AND FAR-RE ACHING DECISION. A case of considerable importance was adjudicated upon on last Thursday by Mr. Justice Williams at a sitting of the Supreme Court in Banco. The question involved (says the Otago Daily Times) was whether or not school teaohers' residences were subject to the provisions of the Rating Act, and the matter came on by way of an appeal from the decision of the magistrate at Inveroargill in the oase of the mayor, councillors, and burgesses of Invercargill v. the Southland Education Board. In the lower court the corporation sued the Education Board for £2 19s, as rates in respect of the head master's residence to the Park School, Invercargill. The magistrate held that the residence was exempt from the provisions of the Rating Act, and from this decision the borough now appealed. After argument, his Honor gave judgment as follows : — There is only one question in the present case, and that is : whether this land and building which is occupied by the head master of the school is exempt from rating under subsection 4 of section 2 of 'The Rating Act, 1894.' The exemption contained in that subsection ia, in my opinion, simply a substitution of the exemption that was contained in section 104 of the Education Act of 1877. Ido not think that the exemption contained in subsection 4 of section 2 of the Act of 1 894 in any way either extends or narrows the previous exemption. Subsection 4 of section 2 refers to the definition of a public school in the Education Act of 1877. Subsection 4 of section 2 may therefore be read as follows : ' All lands and buildings used for the purposes of any school established or constituted under the provisions of this Act subject to the control and management of the Board. The single question, therefore, is : whether the occupation of the house by the master is one of the purposes of the school. That, in my opinion, means : is it a purpose of the school as contemplated by the Education Act ? If it can be shown that by the terms of the Education Act the Board or the school committee are authorised in their discretion to erect a schoolmaster's residence, and to allow the sohoolmaster to live there, I should certainly conclude that in doing so they were carrying out one of the purposes of the school contemplated by the Act. Now, the Board and the committee have power to buy sitea for schools, and they also have power to erect school buildings The terms 'school building' includes schoolmaster's residence. They have power, therefore, not only to erect a house for the residence of the schoolmaster, but they have power to allow him to live there. They have also power to purchase sites for playgrounds, which are, of course, entirely distinct from the teaching part of the school. As, therefore, the Board have power under the Act to erect a schoolmaster's residence and to allow him to live there, it seems to me that in so doing they are carrying out one of the purposes of a school which the Act contemplated they might carry out. Tke interpretation of the term schoolhouse, as given in the Education Act, makes this more clear. The term ' schoolhouse is to inolnde schoolmaster's residence and the land attached thereto The Bohoolmaster's residence is therefore placed by the Act in exactly the same category as the building which is used for the purpose of teaching. Ie has been suggested that if an increased salary or rent allowance be given to schoolmasters, and if the schoolmaster rented a house, he would be using the house for the purposes of the sohool • and it is argued that if the schoolmaster's house m the present case is exempted from rating the schoolmaster's house in that case would also be exempted from rating. But the house rented by the schoolmaster is. simply to be rented by him tor his own convenience. Here the house is given to the schoolmaster by the Board in the carrying out of the Board's functions, and it must ' be presumed to be given to the master in the interests of the school, because it is for the benefit of the school that it should be used. The building in the present case is used not by the master, but by the Board, as the Board use it for the purposes of the school,

because in their opinion it is best in the interests of the sohool that the master should reside there. That, of course, is the onlyjustification that any Board or committee could have for building a sohoolmaster's house and giving him a residence— viz., that it is for the benefit of the school that they should do so, and they must be presumed to act in the interests of the school. I think, therefore, that the appellants have not made out their case, and the appeal must be dismissed ; costs, ten guineas.