A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 73, 27 March 1909, Page 2

A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

The recent examination held in connection with the plumbing classes at the Technical School has caused not a little trouble lately. At a meeting of the board last evening more trouble arose out of the examiner's report, in which ha adversely criticised the practical work. Mr. T. BaUinger wished to comment on the report — the board had previously resolved to refer it to a committee for discussion there — when Mr. M'Laren interposed, entering a protest. The chairman supported the protest, and requested the speaker to confine himself to generalities. (The Labour member had suggested previously that employers in the Industrial Association might permit boys to attend the school classes during the day.) Then: "Men work slow nowadays," said Mr. Ballinger oracularly, which brought Mr. M'Lafen once more into conflict. He threatened to ask for permission to reply i£ _tr. Ballinger continued in that strain. The chairman soothed matters successfully for a while, and all went well until the critic proceeded to deal with the Arbitration Act and its hampering effect on employers. He talked of circumscribing four corners of the award. "An employer simply can't give away time to beys," he asserted with some feeling. " If one has a good boy, one is not allowed to pay him for special work." "Has it ever been stopped?" enquired the Labour member pertinently. Then the storm, a purely loaal one, burst, and warmly, aggressively, Mr. Ballinger threw back that his interrogator did not know what he was talking about. Once again the chairman interposed tactfully, and after a small charge and countercharge the tea-cup storm was stilled.

The Ohura road, in Taranaki, which during the winter months is one of the worst in New Zealand, ia to have some necessary repairs effected on it. The Minister for Roads and Bridges (the Hon. A. W. Hogg) has authorised the prosecution of urgent works. ] For many, many moons, in the board I room abutting on Mercer-street, the members of the Wellington Education Board assembled for the monthly ifygeting have had their ears assaulted) by varied and adjacent noises of clattering feet down stairs not far away and tha clatter of street, traffic. At lasij month's assembling the board room, whose' acoustic 'properties are not as ' happy as they might be, was ceilinged with some hempen material, but the clamour without counteracted any good effect the sacking may have possessed. A new line of entrenchments has since been erected', tc repel the invading noises. The^ walls of the room are now lined with a warm green baize-like material from floor to ceiling, an artifice which should surely tend towards 1 * the effect desired : a convocation wherein men may speak and be audible. On Thursday the new defenc% was not severely tested, the atmosphere, and general surroundings being particularly solemn, but good results are looked for from the, green baize. For Bronchial Coughs take Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, la 6d. — Advt.