SCHOOL BUILDING GRANTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15332, 15 June 1910, Page 8

SCHOOL BUILDING GRANTS.

[Pee. Press Association.] WELLINGTON, June 14. Allegations of political wire-pulling to induce grants for school buildings, made at a recent meeting of the Hawke's Bay Education Board, are strongly resented bv the Minister of Education (tho Hon Georgo Fowlds). " [ feel it nocessary," states Mr Fowlds, " to show that the particular member has misrepresented the facts. He savs' that the Board has constantly recommended tho Department to make a grant for Milltown School, Gisborne, that all such applications have invariably been refused, that a grant has been made only when outside influence has been brought to bear on the Minister, and that the conditions have not altered in the slightest degree since the Board made its first application. Tln> facts are that the Board first applied for a grant last August, and was informed that as the building of the high school then in progress would have tho effect of releasing a large number of places in the main Gisborne school, itdid not appear that the time was ripe for the expenditure. The Board did not renew the application until last March, when, as I was about to visit the district, I postponed settlement of tho case until my return. A grant was authorised in May. There has. therefore, been neither continual application nor invariable refusal, while, on the other hand, there has been a material alteration in tho conditions, the high school having been opened, and the main primary school again filled to its full capacity.