DIRECTOR AND BOARD

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 133, 1 March 1929, Page 13

DIRECTOR AND BOARD

Sir, —Your correspondent, G. London, has helped considerably—if unconsciously—my argument, for which I thank him. He says: “It is not a bad idea to presume on a general ignorance and unconcern, to create a diversion, and t-' prop up a most unsatisfactory condition of things.” It is just this “general ignorance and unconcern” that I desire to attack in order to end the “unsatisfactory condition of things.” Exactly what is unsatisfactory, however, it is possible that Mr. London and I would not agree upon. From Mr. London’s remarks I gather that the Education Board mqjnbers are elected by school committees, and therefore, in his phrase, “are the elected of the elected,” and consequently in his view are “one of the most truly representative of public bodies.” Let us examine this statement. In the first place, the money spent on education is provided out of the general revenues contributed by the taxpayers. In the second place, school committees are elected by a moiety only of the parents and guardians. I am a taxpayer, but would not be’ eligible to vote for a school committee because my children are not now attending a primary school . (but paradoxically enough, I would be eligible to sit on an education board!). This taxplayer, but not voter, position, is a case of taxation without representation on the spending board. This state of affairs has been a fruitful cause for wars in the past, as any schoolboy ’knows. In the third place, Mr. London’s contention'that the board is “one of the most truly representative public bodies” because it is “the elected of the elected,” if logically applied, means that a further committee selected by the board would be still more representative of the people, and so on ad infinitum, which is an absurdity, more particularly so when it is remembered that the board’s constituency, viz., the school committees, is representative of only a fraction of the parents and guardians, who, in turn, are only a fraction of the general taxpayers, who might be likened to “the ox that treadeth out the corn.” The sentence in Mr. London’s letter beginning with something about the board being alive and the Department being concerned for its own prestige does not seem to lead to any statement, and I can only conclude that Mr. London fades out to inarticulate incoherence when the board and Department are mentioned in the same breath! This makes me wonder how the schools are getting on, while the governing authorities are setting such an example of discord. ■ Either the Department or the board is superfluous, and I strongly suspect it is the board. Mr. London refers to the “qualities” of the board “which he could set out,” but it is not certain whether he means “duties” or “qualifications.” If he means tli£ latter, then surely it will be unnecessary to say more, for his letter is equivalent to a full-page advertisement of “qualification.” The remarks about my “flip-, pancy” and “a desire to deceive and confuse” I think can be passed without comment from me. My object was to challenge the statement that the board is representative of the people. That object has. I trust, been achieved in some measure in this letter, and I thank Mr. London for his assistance in helping me to make plain the unrepresentative and illogical nature of the methods adopted in selecting members of education boards, nnd also, incidentally, in demonstrating the “quality” of board members.—l am, etc., W.A.T. Wellington, February 26.