MISLEADING PROPAGANDA LITERATURE

Evening Star, Issue 18137, 29 November 1922, Page 2

MISLEADING PROPAGANDA LITERATURE

LEAFLETS BEADING ON EDUCATION. REDUCTION OF EXPENDITURE ALLEGED. [Special to the ‘ Star.'] CHRISTCHURCH, November 29. Some unfavorable comment has been made regarding the propriety of distributing certain propaganda literature relating to education by means of the scholars attending schools in Canterbury. This literature consists of ten or a dozen leaflets, issued without any indication whatever of the authority upon -which the statements contained in them are made. The leaflets profess to bo pleas for the maintenance of education expenditure, but they contain often repeated the suggestion tha/fc tho education system is to be cut down. In leaflet No. 1, for example, wo find the following:—“lf education is cut down all but the children of tho well-to-do will lose at least part of their opportunity. Is it fair to deprive tho young of their chance?” Leaflet No. 2 says: “Some people would like to see reduced education. It is for tho people of New Zealand to say that their sops and daughter's shall not he treated in this way," and so on. It has been brought to notice that these leaflets are being distributed in bundles to the children for their parents, and that rims, designedly or otherwise, those, responsible for this extraordinary use of the schools for propagandist purposes are likely to create a false and utterly unwarranted impression to the disadvantage of the Goverpmeut. j