VARIOUS QUESTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 196, 20 August 1925, Page 11

VARIOUS QUESTIONS.

VARIOUSLY ANSWERED. GOVERNMENT INFORMATION. TO INQUIRING MEMBERS. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Questions of which notice had been ■liven and which had accumulated over the course of a fortnight, were answered l,v Ministers on the Supplementary Order Paper to-day. Altogether Ministers replied to 64 interrogations, from which the following information was gleaned: — The Public Service Appeal Board will not supply reasons for its decisions, and public servants arc advised that they may. a- an alternative to the Appeal Board, have access to the Arbitration Court, on the same conditions as apply to all other employees. The Minister of Finance advises that money can now be remitted to London at par —that is without exchange charge. The Minister of Education declines to increase the allowance to Maori secondary school-; on account of junior free place-. The Te Aute College Trust, which has large endowments, receives a student who pays for his own education and maintenance for £25 a year, whereas the Department pays £30 for its free place pupil-. The system of numbering rural delivery hoxes was tried by the Postal Department, but owing to the frequent changes and new settlers joining up, it \ras found impossible to preserve the sequence and the system now in operation wa- reverted to. The Government does not intend to refund any of the license fees to either radio dealers or listeners. It claims that for nearly two years prior to April 1. listener? received the benefits of broadCasting without the payment of any fee. since which stations in each of the four centres have been subsidised to the extent of £13 a week, which payments have absorbed the whole of the license fees received. It is the intention of the Government to assist the pioneers of broadcasting as well as listeners until such time as the new stations are erected. If the recently opened Junior High School at ilatamata proves at the end of the year to be successful, the department will favourably consider the erection of a similar school at Te Kuiti. In the meantime, an officer is on the spot to report on all the circumstances. The Minister of Labour i≤ going to consider an amendment to the Workers' Compensation Act to provide for full provision for medical, surgical, hospital and other treatment for injured workers when a general review of the Act i≤ being made. No distinction in rateable value is to be made by Uie Government as between soldier and other settlers. It is the desire of the Lands Department to secure the best men available for the position of Crown Lands Commissioners, and when vacancies arise in certain districts it will be competent for officers of both the surveying &nd clerical branches of the service to apply. Where there is land suitable for treeplanting adjacent to a school, and the Education Department will undertake a scheme, the Lands Department will have no objection to waste lands being made school endowments, provided the schools will undertake to reafforest the lands. When a suitable occasion arises to amend the Xoxious Weeds Act, the Government will consider the matter of making failure to remove noxious weeds by the owner or occupier of land a continuous offence. Further shelters for the reception of additional tubercular patients at Cashmere Sanitorium. Christchurch, are being provided. The question of payment of full pension for a returned soldier patient for two years after discharge from a consumptive sanatorium is in abeyance pending the obtaining of opinions from two chest specialists. Full pensions are already paid where a chest specialist ha 3 reported that the disability is permanent and stationary. It is "difficult, said Sir James Parr, to see how any more free places can be provided for boys who wish to take up the study of agriculture. Every freeplace holder may take up the agricultural course if he desires. The difficulty has been, not that of making provision for this study, but of getting boys to take up the course in agriculture, for which provision in every type of postprimarv school is in. excess of the demand". With regard to bursaries tenable at Euakura or Lincoln College, ample provision is made for all boys who have qualified through an agricultural course under the free-place system at secondary and technical schools. Sir Jas. Parr stated that arrangements exist by which University of London examinations may be taken in Xew Zealand by candidates who intend proceeding to England to take up a course of study there and need the English examination as a preliminary. University of London examinations for degrees which are not conferred by the University of New Zealand—e.g., theology—may also be taken in New Zealand. The Government is not prepared to extend further facilities for taking University of London examinations in this Dominion in competition with the University of Xew Zealand, and the University of London has no desire to enter into such a competition.