REPLY BY PRINTERS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 48, 19 November 1932, Page 7

REPLY BY PRINTERS

School-books Contract MINISTER’S STATEMENTS The Master Printers’ Federation has supplied some comment in reply to statements made by the Minister of Education, the Hon. R. Masters, when he replied to the School committees’ recent deputation “A detailed answer to the points raised will be issued in due course,” says the federation. “Meantime the Minister is asked to make a clear and unequivocal statement respecting the important phase of the National Expenditure Commission’s recommendations. It will be recalled that the Commission recommended certain terms bn which the school books contract should be renewed with the present publishers. These provided:— (1) Renewal of the contract■,for a period of three years.

(2) Immediate reduction in price of not less than 25 per cent. (3) Surrender of the copyright at the end of the term on payment of compensation not exceeding £5OO. , “Up to the present the Minister has claimed that these were purely recommendations. This we understand does not disclose the actual position arrived at. The question at issue is, did the National Expenditure Commission actually negotiate, arrange, or arrive at an understanding with the publishers respecting the terms referred to in the final report and quoted above, and was the Minister advised by the Commission that these terms were obtainable from the publishers? Obviously such arrangement or understanding is not in the same category as evidence which has to be 1 treated as confidential.” ■ '