SUSPICIOUS MINDS.

Evening Star, Issue 20149, 13 April 1929, Page 12

SUSPICIOUS MINDS.

[t is curious how whatever is done or happens in the South tends to assume tho worst complexion for some minds in; the most northern ‘province. The facts of the reported grant by the Carnegie Trust to the South Island university colleges, which has caused a ferment of uncharitable suspicion in the North, have been mado clear enough now by a consensus of statements. At the instance of an emissary of the trust itself, which lias funds to disburse beyond the borders of its own great country to deserving institutions, the New Zealand colleges arranged to apply to it for a substantial grant for libraries and another for tho extension of rural education, to be divided among their number. The request for the libraries grant was sent on, through a central committee, long enough ago. Otago and Canterbury schemes for the extension of rural work, which were to warrant the second gift so far as they were concerned, were delayed in their transmission to Wellington, owing to the necessity for their being framed so as to co-ordinate with each other, and some second thoughts as to tho amount which should be asked for. While this part of what was intended to be the joint application was thus hold up in Wellington, Mr John Studholmc, of Canterbury, travelling in America, seems to have had the idea that lie could do something for the colleges in which his interest had been formerly shown, notably by his assistance to the establishment of the chair of homo science in Dunedin. The matter would interest him the more directly as home .science was to lorm one of the .subjects of the extension lectures. Apparently it was as a result of his unofficial and uncommissioned influence with tho trust that a letter was rccciicd locally a, few weeks ago, though not from the trust itseli, stating that it was making or prepared to make a grant of £1,1500 a year for five years to the Otago University district lor rural extension "work, and £SOO a year to the Canterbury district for Workers’ Educational Association work. The two agencies were to be combined under the University’s plans. Tim information, which was received with surprise by the -Otago Council, coming in advance of the joint, official application for those purposes, was at once, communicated by it under the seal of confidence to the Central Committee, and a breach of that confidence, joined with too little knowledge of the facts, is what evidently has disturbed Auckland.

The uncharitable suggestions of Sir George Fowlds. president of the Auckland'University Council, reflecting on tliis province, might have been spared in the lack of knowledge as to what had really occurred existing on Auckland’s part. While he did not unhesitatingly accept, Sir George made it plain publicly that he did not reject the assumption that the two South Island colleges had gone behind the backs of tiie North Island colleges .while a joint application for grants was pending. He described the action, o i that theory, as “ a smart move, but scarcely an honourable one.’’ H the report was true —and the evidence for it he declared to be so strong that it could not easily be set aside it reveals the most flagrant breach of faith between public institutions, or rather ’between several brandies ol one institution, that I have ever known." It “ furnished a convincing argument " to him for “dividing the present New Zealand University and setting up a separate university for the North Island.” All that must seem very foolish in the light of the facts, which show that neither college in the South Island was 'directly or indirectly responsible for the reported decision of the trust. But why do Sir George Fowlds and some of his fellow Aucklanders yield so easily to those ungenerous impulses when they happen to affect the South? AVhiic whatever is done for or by Otago University in particular is wrong or suspect in some Aucklanders’ eyes, the South docs not show that disposition towards the North. Its attitude towards the new Massey Agricultural College, of which Sir George is also chairman, lias been one of friendly welcome and the best hopes for its usefulness. .If a parallel had been needed for the action which Sir George Fowlds, not waiting to discover the facts, considered probable, however deplorable, for Otago, lie might have found one. A few years ago an American observatory bad u telescope to dispose of. As wc wrote at the time, two magnets were required to bring the telescope to earth in this- dominion—a. financial guarantee, and reasonable assurance that in the place where it might be deposited it'would be something more than ornamental. The rest of New Zealand regarded the obtaining of the telescope and the selection of a place for it where it would be most useful as a matter for dominion action. Not, so Auckland, which preferred to make Us own financial bid for the treasure directly to Yale. The rest of the dominion was persuaded that no other locality had a chance of getting it except Auckland, despite the obvious unsuitability of the Auckland atmosphere, and the result was that the telescope went to South Africa. The Otago University Gojincil might have imitated that example of direct action for “getting in ahead of the others,” but it did not. -If the report of the Carnegie Trust’s decision proves to be well founded —and even that lias still to be confirmed—the southern colleges will not get all that they wore hoping for, even for rural education, but they will have between them a, very welcome sum, by which that cause will be materially advanced. The northern colleges, and the. cause ol library assistance, will get nothing at this stage; but their time, no doubt, will come, since it would appear that the applications made jointly by the university colleges of New Zealand—which arc the only real applications that have been made by any of them—have not yet been finally considered.