MINISTER IN REPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 147, 22 June 1923, Page 6

MINISTER IN REPLY.

SATISFYING LEGIiTLMATE DEMAND.

CB.v Telegraph.— Parliamentary ISeporter.) WEL.LINC.TCiN, this day.

The charge of corruption is ridiculous, declared the Minister of Education in the House this (Friday) afternoon, in making a lengthy statement refuting Mr. Masters' charges. Mr. Parr declared that the suggestion was that the Auckland Education Board, the Council of Education, and the 'Morrinsvillo District High School Committee had conspired for political purposes to establish a high school. Nobody outside a lunatic asylum would Relieve that the Mornnsville school was set up in violation of the Education Act and not to ««tisfy n legitimate demand. The Minister regretted that Mr. Masters had not the courtesy to ask t for the full facts before launching his charges. The actual fsi<-ts easily dis-nrovrd the eharses. In 1917 the Council of Education, by resolution, gave the Minister a general power to set up provisional high schools where there was an attendance of twenty children, subject to ratification by the council at the next annual meeting. Every Minister of Education acted under the de'pTatory resolution, and if the Morrinsville school was unlawful, then three-fourths of the district high schools in New Zealand were created unlawfully.

Mr. Parr rnided that the roTiP--.il of Education -thte month ratted his action at M.orrinsville, which was not an isolated case, for nt the same time the Minister had nnprovpd of district hiirfi schools at Warkwort'i. Mr. Murdoch's district; in Paten. Mr. Corrioan's district: in Riverton, Mr. Thomson's district; and in Piopio, Mr. Rolleiton's district, each being ratified.