PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7927, 16 December 1887, Page 2

PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.

-bEttDiNG, Thursday. A fire in Fergusson -street about 3 o clock this morning burned the block of buildings owned by Mr W. D. Nicholas, • and ocenpied by Mr Prior, solicitor, the Bank of New Zealand, and Mr Henry, saddler. The books and papers of Mr Prior and the bank were saved. The saddler's stock belonging to Mr Henry was all destroyed, except a machine for teasing horsehair. The following are the insurances :— Buildings — Colonial office £2600. Furniture and stationery— Bank of New Zealand, £150 in New Zealand office ; Mr Henry's stock, £150 in the Equitable and £250 in the Northern offices. The total value of the property destroyed was not less than £2000. The origin of tbe fire is unknown. Welungton, Thursday. Hearn, the sculler,' left for Sydney by the Wakatipu, which sailed at 5 o'clock this afternoon. The Importation pf Stock Committee, appointed to inquire into the advisableness or otherwise of New Zealand ports being opened to the importation of stock, report:— "That the committee is of opinion that the resolutions arrived at by jtne stook conference held at Sydney in October, 1886_, in so far as they apply to the importation of foreign animals, be adopted by New Zealand, and that the Government should be requested to take action accordingly, such importation to be subject to the general regulations recommended by the conference ; that one, or at most two ports lie declared quarantine ports, and that the quarantine ground should in all cases be on an island." At the meeting of the City Council tonight the recommendation of the electric lighting committee to call for alternative tenders for three and five years' lighting of the city by electricity was adopted. ' Dunedin, Thursday. The Education Board have terminated the Kaikori dispute by appointing Mr Kyle vice Mr M'Lauchlan. They have .. also adopted a series of resolutions protesting _ against the abolition of the capitation allowance of fonr shillings to children who . have passed the sixth standard as tending to weaken the primary system. At a meeting ot the Education Board to-day the proposed alterations by the Government were dealt with. With regard to the grants' to normal schools a memorandum was adopted whioh, among " other things, stated that the proposed reduction of the capitation grant to £3 15s per head and tho discontinuance of payments on account of scholars undei* six: years of age will so seriously reduce the ' income of the ■ Board as to render it impossible to maintain the normal school in a proper stateof efficiency, if at all, without the grant hitherto received from Parliament ; that of 305 students who had received training in the institution and had left at the end of 1886 no fewer than 227 were reported as being engaged' as teachers in the, public schools of the colony, while a large proportion of those who had then discontinued teaching had ' before doing 'so rendered valuable publio services for longer or shorter periods, and' the Board .confidently affirmed that but -' for the services of so - large a nnmber of intelligent and scholastic teachers as have been trained in its . normal school it would' . have been impossible to procure a auffi- -.- cient number of properlyqualified teachers' for the public schools ofthe district ; thkt ' the nnmber of students at present in attendance is 67; that the Board, by the withdrawal ot the present grant, -. will be unable to fulfil its legal obligations, not only to the present students of the institution, bnt > to' the entire body- of Eupil teachers, 152 in number, who have een induced to enter the Board's service under the pupil-teacher regulations, and ■• the normal school regulations, which are in operation by the express sanction .of the Minister of Education. As to the difference to be made in the calculation _ of the capitation it .was resolved "That the Board desires to represent to the Government and Parliament the great hardship and inconvenience that will result from the payment of the capitation on the strict average instead of the working average, not only as affecting the Board's means, but also in view of the fluctuation that would take place in the returns and iii_ consequence in the payment to committees and teachers, more especially in outlying schools, where the attendance is ■ injuriously affected by bad rdads and bad weather. Tho Board therefore urges the great inadvisability of making the proposed change."