PETONE HIGH SCHOOL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 807, 3 May 1910, Page 4

PETONE HIGH SCHOOL.

MEETING IN PROTEST. About thirty residents attended the masting called by the Mayor of Petpno (Mr. J. W. ifEwen) to protest against the refusal of the education authorities to establish a high school proper in the borough. The meeting, which was held Augustine's Hall, Petone, was entirely unanimous in feliug. The Mayor presided, and in opening the proceedings read an apology for non-attendance, from Mr. D. M'Kenzie (chairman of the Peton* Main School Committee), who stated that pending an official' intimation from the Education Board as the result of the board's interview with the Minister for Education on the subject of the Petone High School, he was not in a position' to commit himself to any particular course of action. Tho Eov. A. Thomson then, reviewed the position to date, and formally moved that the meeting express its strong disapproval towards the injustice done to the people of Petone in their efforts to have established a high school for the borough, all legal conditions having been fulfilled. They had, he said, complied with all tho requirements of the Aot, the neoessary guarantee with regard to the prospective attendance at the proposed high school had been obtained, arrangements had been made to acquire a site, and at the last moment the. chairman of. the board (Mr. Lee) had blocked them by insisting upon the insertion of a proviso, in the board's application to the Government, that tho interests of the Hutt District High School should not be prejudiced. ' ' . Mr. Piper asked whether it was a fact that, while Petone's original application, for a district high school had been sent into the board a month earlier than a similar application from the Hutt, both were granted simultaneously? The Rev. A. Thomson replied that that was so. The chairman of the board had seen the Petone application and sent in one from the Hutt so that both proposals would be. dealt with at the same time. Now, Petone had a sufficient number to warrant the establishment of a high school proper, but the Hutt had not. He could not see why the just claims of Petono should suffer of the Hutt. He (the speaker) was fighting in the cause of Petone.

Mr. Findlay referred to the . "cool impudence of Mr. Lee," and wanted to know how long this sort of thing was going to go on. Mr. Thomson: Pharoah does not live for over. Tho Mayor said that the chairman of the Education Board evidently was possessed of the idea that the Hutt Borough was the centre of tho universe, and that a 6pot somewhere about tho centre of that borough was the propor place for a high school for the Hutt Valley. Another speaker referred to the chairman of the board as the "arch enemy of educational progress in Petono,"_ After further discussion the motion was carried. It was then resolved, on the motion of Mr. Findlay, that a deputation representing the three district School Committees, the Borough Council, and residents interested, should wait upon the Education Board to report upon the decision of the meetinir, nnd, if necessary, to interview the Minister of Education.