MINISTER AND PRESS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 40, 17 February 1911, Page 3

MINISTER AND PRESS.

MR. FOWLDS REPLIES TO PUBLISHED STATEMENTS. .VALUE OF WOOL-CLASSING { CLASSES. [BX TSLEGBAFn — SPECIAL TO ,THB POSI.} I PALMEESTON N., Tins Day. j The Hon. George Fowlds took the opportunity .vhile speaking at the opening of the High School to refer to certain statements of his press critics. Whenever, he said, he made reference to wool, no matter what he said, the Opposition papers knew no bounds in misrepresentation and untruthfulness. Beports and comments of this nature had. appeared all over the colony regarding a statement made by him at jjevin < with respect to the wool-classing classes and the increased price of wool last year. Papers which spoke in this way showed a poor estimate of the public intelligence. He said this in Palmerctoii, because it was the Technical School here that first tried tbo experiment which Messrs. Levin and Go. tound so successful, as this letter showed :—: — Wellington, Bth February, 1909. The Director Palmerston North Technical School, Palmerston. North. Dear Sir, — At our wool sale held on Bth January we offered the wool classed by your students, with the following results :— Lot 127, 2 bales superficial combing A, lOd; 128, 2 bales super crossbred B, 9^d ; 129, 2 bales super crossbred coarao C, Bfd; 130, 3 bales pieces, 4>}d ; 750, 1 bale dingy and cotted, i>2& ; 751, a bale pieces and dead, 6>)d. Tho prices realised were top prices obtained at the sale for the particular description named. The wool was well classed, and attracted considerable nttention from the trade, and the opinion was freely expressed that the etep taken by the Palmerston North Technical School was in tho right direction. iVhuiy farmers in your district and elsewheredo not class at all, and Heece3 of all descriptions are baled together, with the tosult that tho wool-buyers in many instances have to buy on a lov/or valuethan tho wool really warrants. If farmers had a general knowledge as to the quality or fineness of wool "staples, go that fleeces of different grades could be kept apart, and at the sama' time knew to what extent a fleece should be started without overdoing at, this would b& •practically all that is necessary. It should not be a difficult matter for a school situated a.B yours J3 to impart this knowledge to farmers and the sons of farmers, so that on most farms ther& would be someone who could undertake classing and skirting during shearing. We trust your school will be the mean» of imparting the knowledge freely in your district. Yours faithfully, Levin and Co., Ltd., Per A. E. Mabin. That letter, Mr. Fowlds concluded, bore out what he had. said as distinguished from what these papers had I ,-illeged he said. One Southern paper j had made the following statement :—: — "The Hon. G. Fowlds, Minister of Education, appears to have a fatal facility for saying the wrong thing nt the right time. It was therefore quite ir« accordance with his usual inauspicicmsness that he should have remarked last year that a rise in the price of wool would not benefit New Zealand." "Never have I in my life,' coir.mentcd the Minister, "made any statement that by any stretch of imagination could be- twisted into anything like t£at." He took the present opportunity of "getting back" on these puoplti cf thb press their evidently poor opinion of the intelligence of the country people when they fed up to them sucn matter as he had read. "In the country you do no\> know these wild men from town. No doubt such tactics go a long vay to- , -wardß the object aimed at.