POLITICAL NOTES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VII, Issue 292, 4 October 1917, Page 3

POLITICAL NOTES.

PAY OF SOLDIER SCHOOL TEACHERS. (Parliamentary Correspondent. Wellington, Oct. 4. The anomalous position of school teachers regarding departmental pay after enlistment was mentioned in the House of Representatives yesterday by Mr. Poland, who asked the Minister for Education whether the Department could see its way clear to alter the present system, and increase the pay of teachers who enlisted as privates and non-commis-sioned officers, so that they might be placed on the same footing, as far as departmental pay was concerned, as teachers who went awaj with commissions. Mr. Hanan replied that the. question was really one for the Minister for Defence. As .far as his own view was concerned he had placed it before Cabinet for consideration. CAMP PERQUISITES.

A somewhat remarkable question without notice, was submitted to the Minister for Defence by Mr. Payne, who desired to know if there was any arrangement with the Defence Department in the direction of allowing officers whose homes were three or four miles away from training camps to have sent from the camps to their homes consignments of coal and provisions. He had been told, he said, that as much as one ton of coal had gone from the camp to an officer’s home. He react a telegram from an officer at Trentham camp to another referring to certain consignments. He desired to know if these goods were being paid for > Sir James Allen: I know nothing about (it, you had better give notice of you)- question and I will make inquiries. THE EFFICIENCY BOARD. The Prime Minister replied in the House yesterday to public criticism that the reconstructed Efficiency Board had become a semi-political bodv. He said that this was not the case. The Board’s usefulness had not been impaired. _ The five non-political members of the Board would undertake whatever inquiries were considered necessary or desirable under lhe order _>f reference which had not been altered. The reports of the Board would oe submitted to himself and Sir Joseph Ward, and in the event of the Ministerial members of the Board not agreeing with the other members’ recommendations, a full meeting ot the Board would be held to disjuss the points in ln the event of the chairman and four non-politi-cal members of the Board not agreeing with the Ministerial members, their reports would be submitted to the Government This was the arrangement, and it would, he believed, obviate any of the difficulties that had been experienced :n the past. ~