THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9096, 3 July 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1888.

The meeting called to consider the question of retrenchment in the education expenditure of the colony has declared against the form of retrenchment proposed. It has said that it will not have the age of entrance at the public schools raised from five to seven years, and it will not have the curriculum of free education limited to the Fourth Standard. It is prepared to favour the principle of retrenchment,but the application of the principle in the form of curtailment of any of the privileges conferred by the system is irksome. This form of the retrenchment movement is so common that we do not feel disposed to specially censure any particular manifestation of it. Everybody likes retrenchment in the abstract, but when it assumes concrete form, it is only acceptable when it is applied to the deprivation of other people of their comforts, but not ourselves. There can be no one surely who would not wish that our education system should be liberal to the very last degree; and that it should extend even to the giving of University degrees to all not only gratuitously, but with maintenance* during the continuance of the period of study. But the unfortunate limitation to such liberality would be unhappily fixed in the incapacity of the State to bear the burthen. Similarly the present system of giving gratuitous education to the Fifth and Sixth, and ren the Seventh Standard is quite desirable if in any way justified by the financial condition of the colony. In a sense the colony may be regarded as financially capable of much which sober reason would regard as being inadvisable, and the interjected remark at last night's meeting that " there are millions more in the Custom House," no doubt conveys to some minds justification for any amount of extravagance. But when we consider that the State has given some eight or nine hundred thousand pounds of borrowed money for the erection of school buildings, generally wooden, and that a little over half a million of people are called on to contribute nearly four hundred thousand a year for giving free education, most sober - minded people will consider that there should be some limit to such profuse liberality.

However, the meeting last night determined that it is all right ; and that the circumstances of the colony are not such as to demand any resort to sobriety of, "thought in relation to the magnificence* of expenditure on our education system. No one, of course, can question that the principal appeal last night was to the feelings of a class. It was sought to be shown that the limitation of the age of entrance to seven years militated against the interests of those who required that their children, even in their infantile years, should be taken in charge by the State ; and that the limitation of the standards of education, would prevent the children of the poor from obtaining the benefits of superior education. If it is held that the State schools should act as nurseries, of course the former contention is correct, although it might be held that the object could be attained in a much cheaper method. Three pounds fifteen shillings per year, which is the amount of capitation drawn for all children, however young, enrolled in the public schools, certainly seem a good deal to give for merely taking infants off the hands of those who are either unable or unwilling to mind them until they attained years; at which they could adequately benefit by public school instruction. With reference to the other contention that the limitation of the standards of education would operate against the interest of people of limited means, it is simply met by the circumstance that as a fact such children are not continued as a rule, and that those standards are mainly for the benefit of those who are enabled to retain their children at home, and are not necessitated to send them out to employment at an early age. As a matter of fact, those standards are maintained for the benefit of those who are best able to pay for the education of their children ; and, as the funds to support those standards are taken from the Customs revenue and other forms of taxation contributed by the whole people, the poorer classes are called on to support an extent of education that is mainly er joyed by the well-to-do. This is a phase of the question that is perfectly apparent to all intelligent men; but, as it is of the evils of our public life that the more intelligent classes will not put themselves to the trouble of taking an interest in public affairs, it is in the nature of things that those who aim at popularity should address themselves to the prejudices of those who are present in the greater number.

The determination of last night is the dictum of unreflecting prejudice, and apart from the fact that it is not in the interests of the class that supported it, it of course pays no regard to the circumstance that the colony is weighed down by an amount of taxation which it is ill able to bear. That the day of reckoning is looming up in the future there can be no manner of doubt, and those who have refused to retrench when retrenchment might save the system of education, will be compelled to see retrenchment enforced in such a manner as must imperil the very existence of the system of education itself. From every part of the colony is heard the ominous sound of warning that the system will break down under its own weight, and its enemies are those who, yielding to the temptation of flattering prejudices, shrink from honestly telling the truth

to the people. That the colony will not bear the continued strain which is put upon it by the present costly administration of public education must be patent to every intelligent man in the community; and on those who prophesy pleasant things will the duty rest of showing in what way the evil is to be averted.

We feel it our duty to draw attention to the case of the boy Alexander Duncan, who was recently charged at the Police Court with feloniously setting fire to an outhouse attached to the Kohimarama Industrial School. Shortly, the facts are as follow : On j June 7th, a day after the fire, a detective proceeded to the school to make the usual inquiries. Apparently the' zealous officer engaged was soon satisfied that incendiarism had been committed, for within an hour of his arrival j he arrested the boy Duncan, a former inmate of the school, but boarded-out with Mr. Hawes, of St. Heliers. The lad was lodged in the Parnell lock-up for the night, brought to the Police Court in the morning, remanded for seven days, and thereupon despatched to Mount Eden Gaol, where he shared a cell with two individuals who have since been transferred to the hard labour di vision. At the expiration of the remand the boy was again placed in the dock, but. the police were not ready to go on with the case, and a further remand . for seven days was applied for. However, by this time counsel had been secured, and a strong piv.est being made against the boy being sent back to prison, the Bench adjourned the hearing for three days only, and released the boy on his own recognizance. For the third time the case was called, and Mr. Earl, for the accused, very sensibly suggested to the police that the case be withdrawn until a proper enquiry as to the origin of the lire had been made, and offered to submit the accused for examination. To allow consideration of this proposal a further remand was granted, the accused being ordered however to find sureties for £100, which he had great difficulty in doing. At the end of the week it was announced that no enquiry would be held, and that the police elected to proceed with the prosecution. During the hearing it transpired that the boy had been arrested solely on the strength of his having been about the premises on the night of the fire, singing with the other boys in the schoolroom, as he had often been before, and the fact that a matchbox and some matches had been found in the vicinity of the building similar to a box of matches discovered by the detective in the accused's bedroom at Mr. Hawes's house. But a strange feature in the matter is that on his examination-in-chief the detective confidently swore that the two matchboxes were identical in shape, size, brand, and label, and it was only on being sharply crossexamined that he was forced to admit there was a considerable difference between the two labels. His explanation was that he had not _ noticed the difference until counsel pointed it out. Mr. Whitcombe, in dismissing the charge, very properly remarked that " The case seemed to have been founded on a vague suspicion, which was entirely unsupported by the evidence." Now, we have a right to ask, and we do ask, why was this boy, who, according to Mr. Hogan, is the best boy he ever had in the school, arrested, punished by imprisonment, and kept in a state of mental torture for three weeks ? Who is responsible for this wanton cruelty to an unprotected friendless orphan ? The treatment Duncan has received, assuming him to be innocent, as we must, is sufficient to embitter him against society for the rest of his days. Would a son of one of our "leading citizens" have been treated in this manner ? If proceedings so scandalous as these are allowed to pass unnoticed, then there is no longer any guarantee of safety to personal liberty. The evidence put forward by the police, if it went to prove anything, tended rather to show the innocence of the accused, but innocent or not the lad was arrested and suffered imprisonment on " vague suspicion, entirely unsupported by evidence," and it is to this we enter our protest, and it is on this account that we say he is entitled to ■ substantial redress.