REPLY BY MR ALGIE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 10

REPLY BY MR ALGIE

STATEMENT DESCRIBED AS MISLEADING (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 20. The vote this financial year for educational buildings would be about half as much again as that provided for this purpose last year, said the Minister of Education (Mr R. M. Algie), commenting tonight on remarks reported to have been made by the deputy-chairman of the Wanganui Education Board (Mr M. Bromily) about the Government’s expenditure on school buildings. Last year’s vote was £3,500,000.

The Minister said he refused to believe that the report of Mr Eromily’s speech presented a true picture of what he had to say. His remarks as reported conveyed an impression that was both misleading and inaccurate. Mr Bromily’s statement that the Government was reducing expenditure on educational buildings was quite contrary to fact, added the Minister. In its first year of office the present Government provided far more for educational buildings than the Labour Government ever did, and it had increased that provision in each and every during its term of office.

“My colleagues and I know very well how to value education, and we know, tbo, that we will have a record in building construction that has no parallel in the history of our Dominion,” said Mr Algie.