The Feilding Star. Oroua and Kiwitea Counties Gazette WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1907. The Other Point of View.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 266, 15 May 1907, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua and Kiwitea Counties Gazette WEDNESDAY, MAY 15, 1907. The Other Point of View.

The Minister for Education's reply to those teachers who justly complained of having to pay postage on official letters to Education Boards, would be amusing if it were not so 1 lementably lame and impotent. We , are rather surprised at Mr Fowlds' inability to take a more sensible view of the matter, but what astounds us most is his bad memory. Some time before free postage to the Education Boards was abolished — not by the Boards, but by the Government — Mr Fowlds was asked at Wanganui by the local Board what steps Government would take to compensate the Boards for the extra burden placed upon them, and he distinctly stated that he recognised something would have to be done in that respect by the Government, an admission that most folk would take io mean that he would not expect the the Boards to pay the postage out of the grants htherto received. Yet he deliberately tells the teachers to post letters to the Boards without stamps — knowing that that is a breach of the law, and knowing that if tha Boards refuse to receive such letters, his Government will compel the sen"ders to pay double postage upon them. The proper remedy for the present state of affairs is su n h a simple one that we cannot lUiiie?stand wiry the Minister has not adopted it. The Government Depart ments who had previously posseted the privilege of franking their ittters—the same as Education BoaiJ> — are allowed to use official -tamps for their correspondence and it would cause no difficulty if the same practice was conceded to Education Boards and their officers.