TEGHNICAL SCHOOL SITE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 129, 1 June 1907, Page 6

TEGHNICAL SCHOOL SITE.

REPLY TO THE HOARD'S CRITICISM. STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER. The attitude taken up by tho Minister foi Education (Hon. G. Fowlds) in ieg<ird to the pioposal th it the Go\ernment should givs a portion jf the Mount Cook site for a technical school was subjected to criticism by th? AVellington Technical iCducation Board lact nLht, as reported in another column. To-day the Minister gave lum views on the criticism to an Evening Post representative. "It is perf;ctly absurd," ho remaikcd, "for them to nag at nx because I won't treat AVellinnto.ll difftiently from any other part of tho colony. The question of a technical school, and the right of the people of AVcllingiou either to the Mount Cook or any other eitt -itc altogether distinct and separate. As far as th? technical tehool is concerned, the position 13 this — that every locality is expected to finu its own site, and they retoit thav Wellington has already jound one site. AVhat they now want is that the Government should feive another site, so that they can sell the present site and buildin t;s and us-: the wholo of the money to eiect buildings on the new isits provided bj the Government. If they keuf. on at tlut rate they would have a fin.2 thing in it, by and bye. The claim of tho city to a portion of throe -escrves is one that must be kept entirely separate Irom the .school question, but with leference to that I would point out that exactly the. same claim is made by every centre in the colony. The Auckland Hospital site, for instance, was taken 'out of the Auckland Domain, and the point has to be born« in mind that, vtiy largely, the came power that has made the lcserves has altered the destination or na of them, and if they now got the use of any portion of the reserves, the citizens" of i future date could argue that the proposed technical school site had been filched' from the public. "It would be far more to tho point," the Minister want on* to suy, "if some of those well-to-do people who are saying that my views are not what they aniK.ipatsd from the Minister for Education would do th? same as I have done- ij» Aucklind — put my hand in my pocket and giTen a subscription towards the provision of efficient technicd school equipment, remembering that" every £1 that they give draws in another £1 from the Government by way of subsidy. In that way they would better saow* that they were in sympathy with tlie cause*" As to Wellington's claims as the chief city of the colony, the Minister said that -a hen it was treated as well as, or tetter than, any other placo had been treated, it might be expected to help itself. "I used to think when Mr. SeddoK and the AA 7 el-' lington people were- always fighting," lie continued, "that there was somj ground of complaint on the part of the AVellington people, but' now I can see that some of them, at any Tate. are not content to .be treated as liberally by the Government as other centres are treated. In tho first place, it is, perfectly absurd to talk about five acre? ior a. technical school site m *ke centre of the city. A provision of that kind wight wisely be made in some of the smaller towns, where land is available at a moderate cost, but I do not think that it is at all required' to cany on effectively technical school woik, and in the second place, it is obviously impo^sibloto get it in a city like Wellington. Theie must be come other City Council land, or land within tlie control of the council, where a larger area would be available, than the site of the present school, and if the council gave such a cits the present site could revert to it, and form a very valuable asset."