INFLUENCING VOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 23 June 1923, Page 7

INFLUENCING VOTES.

1 —-- ♦ . MINISTER REPUDIATES CHARGES i (BY TELEGJt\T>fT PRKBS ASSOCIATION ) WELLINGTON, June 22. ', In the House this afternoon the Hon '' C J. Parr said he wished to make a statement m reply to certain charges against ins administration of the Education Department to the effect that he had set up a district high school at Momnsville in an unlawful manner, not ; to meet the educational needs of the ; district, but to influence votes at the ' lauranga by-election. : The Minister said the Auckland Edu- ■ cation Board and the local committee had been consulted, and the chief inspector for the district had urged the establishment of this school, which the Council of Education had approved. Mr. Parr said the Council of Education only met half-yearly, and it was unfair to keep schools back so long for the council's approval. Therefore provision was made before he came into office under which district high schools could be established provisionally, subject to the approval of the Council of Education. ! AH the requirements had been complied with in the case of Morrinsville, which was treated in the same manner as three coincident applications for similar schools in other parts of the country. The Minister considered the charges had been made as a result of disappointed political feeling, following on the Liberal defeat at Tauranga. He was sure the members who made the charge would not care to test the matter in a court of law.