LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13605, 26 November 1907, Page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

EDUCATION IN THE BACK BLOCKS. Sir,—l'Vtrust you will' grant mo a little space in your valauble paper for a few comments on the report of the Education Board's 'meeting of * October 30, re education in the back blodks, in which it was stated that, through inquiries made of tho requirements of schools for the same, ib was found that there are now only three places unprovided for, viz., Kaharoa, Broadwood, and Marakopa. These threo places may. be all that the Crown - Lands officers may have reported on, but the secretary and members of the Education Board know full well that.' there are any. amount of children in the back blocks that are unprovided with tho means of education, and, although applications for schools or teachers : have been made, they have been declined in a great many cases. I have been in communication with tho Education Department and Auckland Board for two years to try and get a school or teacher appointed here at Honikiwi, and have filled several application forms for same, giving the' names of over 40 children, half of whom are of school ago. The children included in the abovo are about half European and half Maori. The reply to the Board was that " The inspector reports there is no necessity for a school at Honikiwi."' But no inspector has ever been hero to see. Our European school is at Otorohanga, 11 miles distant; the native school is at Rupo, eight miles off. To facilitate matters, we asked the Hoard if wo built a fehool would they' supply a teacher, and in December last got a reply that they would do so. We applied to the Crown Land Board for a site; the latter granted 10 acres; the settlers here then bought tho material for a good building, and got it carted on to the ground, but in February the secretary reported' that, in the opinion of one of tho inspectors, there was no need for a school at Honikiwi, and that the Board would take no further action in the matter, and since then they have refused us permission to erect the 'school on the sito that wo have got for them, and our material that had been carted in 11 miles has lain there in a stack all winter. The .Hoard and its officers, in mv opinion, do not care the least whether the children in the hack- blocks get any education or not. But I have an idea that the members of the Board know very little of the correspondence sent to the office. Sir, I say that it is an absolute disgrace to the Board to have treated us the way it has done. lam sure other districts are treated the same. B. BrjDDENV

UNREST IN INDIA: THE CAUSE OP IT.. Sir,—l have been reading an article that appeared, in your paper, entitled "The Unrest m India." Advices from India state that it .is only in Calcutta and Eastern Bengal that there is any trouble, and it is ' all confined to the educated Bengalis, the most despicable race in India, who never have suppled a soldier, and never could. I hey go Homo to England, study for the law, come out again with, their heads full or all that is worst of the western world and have wild notions that they will brins about a reform and make a United States of India. , Impossible fools that they are! India could never bo united. In the first instance, no Punjabi or Rajput, or Sikh, or Dogra would ever unite with the Bengali. If wo left India to - its own devices, the State of , things in Bengal would be, as aptly deS? "*? 1 T ff ag ° b * an old Rajput prince not a home "™?l, ated > and not a rupee left in Bengal within six monthsThis being so, the idle blather .of these Bengalis is all the more contemptible *?' > : : ' : .- /■ -:■;:■■■ R.ks.

THE TE ORANGA HOME FLOGGINGS +l l n ir '^ "? Stinted thanks of every thoughtful and humane member of the community will be due to you for your TimeTv and outspoken sub-leader of oveiidate S 22 #° » bove - Will you allow me as. one, who, m connection with the Auckland refuges and Cosfcley Home for the Aged Poor, has had many years' practical stUdy of, and dealings V?}' the vicious Regenerate class which forms such a very large proportion of those who find their way into our -public institutions, to have audience of a word or two on the subject? it would say then, at once and deliberately, that such treatment of inmates as complained of smacks of old-time barbarism arid is '; ; '- : totally out of line with the advanced andl advancing philanthropy and humanism of the present era: and one quite fully agrees ' . with you sir, that what "makes the whole tniuffl a hundred times worse'' <is the startling If act that Mr. Fowlds himself, as the ' Minister m charge, of our eleemosynary institutions, gives his sanction to the commission of such barbarities. :; ; i Such : treatment as flogging young • women of 20 with 7 a strap " and the cutting off of their hair is radically ' wrong, and kills every.genuine and generous effort made for their restoration ";, to moral > health and rectitude. If Mr. Fowlds does not know, ho ought to know that the overpowering forces of heredity and a negative , environment it is which explains the physical .and moral, degradation of these young women, also that recourse to the strap and the shears constitutes for the victims a a brutal environment and a deeper degradation still. There is, I claim, a living spark in ■the soul principle of every degenerate, and, if kindness can neither discover that spark nor fan it into a flame harshness never m. can and never will. By kindness I do not ' mean that morbid and maukish apology for kindness which is so much' and so mischievously in evidence to-day f in our public instijtutions, but a real heart and head kindness which can be felt, which is firm, which has ; the genuine ring of sympathy and help and ; compassion in it, and which is disinterestedly determined to 'lift: up .and! enlighten along lines of ; modern science and modern / thought. '•;. It is surely crass ignorance which - urges a correspondent of yours• to advocate «' ■ , that'; it 'would be " far better in many cases 7 to commit women to prison than to the so- " called homes," and to tacitly deplore the fact that "wo cannot even flog men for prison offences." , All prison environment for men ■ and women who, in every instance, are more sinned against than sinning, is, degrading , f and dehumanising ;to the : very last and lowest degree, and should be improved out lof existence. I protest, sir,* - that wo. require 'no prisons, no reformatories, no floggings, no .hair-croppings and "such like indignities to further harrow the spirits _ of our unfortunates and outcasts; which, under a right - environment, always seek to climb to purity , V and righteousness. While our comparatively • uncivilised social state continues to manufacture its;, appalling crop of criminals and | degenerates we * should iirovide: true homes •'■ ''■'" I for such, and such homes should be in the i God-made country, in the pure air and sunshine, and away from the corrupt and cor- 7 rupting influences of the man-made; cities and towns, if any tangible and permanent - good is ever jto bo accomplished. Such ,' homes should be under the care of' accre- -,;:*■> dited humanists and philosophers, who, as , ' such, : . would bo conversant with the prin-. ciples underlying the cause and cure of v;co :'..•'.' •and crime and sin and shame, : and whoso sympathies and kindliness and/ firmness•<:-**" would act as a positive force making for the.--controL and betterment of all those within, the circle of their benign influence. Had I theso scandalous indignities been perpetrated by t-ho officials of the To Oranga Home on their own initiative there would doubtI less 1 have been a full public inquiry instituted by the Government at once; but as they ' '■'■ had the sanction of the Minister himself, why, of course, Mr. Fowlds does not consider an inquiry necessary. _ Expediency ; and political interests'., against principle : again! John Moss.; November 20. ' - * *