FORESTRY SCHOOL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 74, 28 March 1931, Page 10

FORESTRY SCHOOL

QUESTION OF STAFF

AN ALLEGED BETRAYAL

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "Tho Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

The circumstances which led to the closing of the School of Forestry at Auckland and the termination of the engagement of Professor H. H. Corbin as head of the school, are reviewed in a statement issued by Professor "W. Anderson setting forth the views of the Professorial Board, of which he is chairman. "The board is actuated by a desire to make clear to all concerned the circumstances in which Professor Corbin's association with this college appears likely to be terminated," he says. "The history of the case permits of no other interpretation than that the negotiations between the Canterbury and Auckland Colleges have resulted as they did through a distinct betrayal of the confldonco in which the Auckland College entered as a party to these negotiations. This violation occurred when, immediately upon the decision by the Minister of Education that Canterbury should be the site of the single Dominion School of Forestry, the authorities of Canterbury College announced that as their existing staff was sufficient for the purposes of the new school they did not propose to appoint the Auckland professor to a position. They thus made it clear that Canterbury College had never throughout the negotiations meant, if Dominion status to it, to carry out an amalgamation. We solemnly charge Canterbury College with concealment from the other party of a vital alteration in the scope of the matters under negotiation as originally intended. The good faith of Auckland in expecting an issue on the basis of amalgamation is fully established by tho leading part which Professor Corbin himself assumed, and in which he was encouraged by the Auckland authorities to persevere in the initiation of the movement with whose results wo aro now confronted. As a member of the Academic Board of tho University of New Zealand he was the mover of the resolution urging amalgamation. Furthermore, the Senate in its consideration of recognition of the Chair of Forestry at the new Dominion School has had the same basis of amalgamation in view. "We can only express "deep regret that such action should have been taken by a constituent college of I lie New Zealand University." ,