SCHOOL BOTTLE DRIVES

Press, Volume C, Issue 29518, 20 May 1961, Page 12

SCHOOL BOTTLE DRIVES

Board Refuses Ban

Prohibition of bottle drives at public schools was sought yesterday by the Timaru branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in a letter to the Canterbury Education Board. The board said it could see the branch's argument but could not agree In any case, it was a matter for the school committee in each district. The Timaru W.C.T.U said its members were deeply concerned about schools organising bottle drives and using school grounds and sometimes classrooms as bottle depots. Children were adversely affected through assuming, from the great pile of bottles, that indulgence in intoxicating liquors was generally approved. The branch asked the Education Board to exercise its authority by banning bottle drives at schools.

Mr A. Manning, a Timaru member of the board, said that although the complaint came from his district he had never seen or heard of anything objectionable in school bottle drives there. The board would be on dangerous ground in support•>g the request, said Mr R. K. Milne. Everybody knew that school committees always wanted extra funds and that bottle drives were a common method of raising this money. To rob school committees (which elected the board) of this source of funds, when the board could not make compensation by extra ’rants. would not be fair. If the proposal to can beer becomes generally accepted tnat will end bottle drives,” raid Mr R. W. Sanscra. School committees were more competent than the board to decide cases individually. said Mr D. L. Waghorn. In his ward he knew schools which would not hold bottle drives because of local feeling, on the lines of the W.C.T.U. It was a local matter.

The board’s reply to the W.C.T.U. will be that “it has confidence in the discretion of school committees and does not wish to interfere."