A REDUCTION EXPLAINED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14303, 24 February 1910, Page 6

A REDUCTION EXPLAINED.

THE EDUCATION VOTE.

MINISTER BLAMES PARLIAMENT.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Wellington, Wednesday. Replying- to-day to a deputation from the Wellington Education Board, which protested against decreased education board subsidies, tho Hon." G. Fowlds, Minister for Education, said it was always an unpopular thing for a Minister to bo in the position of having to deal with a reduced allocation of money for a particular purpose. It appeared to him that there had been a good deal of misunderstanding, which it would be well to remove.' As to tho maintenance vote, which was wrongly stated to have been reduced, ho claimed that the Department had as many schools to look after as any Board in New Zealand. He instanced the case of the native schools. These were in isolated districts, and he would say that the average of the native schools was greater than those under the control of any board in the North Island, and yet the education boards had been allocated more than 50 per cent, alcove the amount required for the maintenance of schools under the control of the Department. Very few of the boards had spent much moro than half the money that had been paid to them for rebuilding, and in this connection the average for the whole of tho Dominion was only 39.3 per cent. So far as the vote for education was concerned, the Department was not responsible, but the Government as a whole. The natural increase for the vote this year was £103,000, and with a stationary revenue it . was clear that the position had to be considered. The fact that only 59 per cent, of tho rebuilding vote had been spent throughout the country surely showed that no great harm would come by reducing the vote for this year. The argument that the money received for the sites had been less than the actual amount spent, held good to a certain extent in the Soutli Island, but to follow a different policy to that now pursued, the giving of half the cost of a site, would mean that there would be no inducement to economise. Tho Department had no desire to take away the responsibility of boards, nor yet to centralise, But it had to*, insist on some sort of supervision in the expenditure of public money. The money distributed amongst the boards was all that Parliament had allocated. In one case a sum had been voted for the rebuilding of schools destroyed l by -fire, and if this was not' wholly spent there might be a surplus for distribution. - It was possible that the Department might be able to do a little more to bring the maintenance vote up to: the standard laid down in 1903, but the rebuilding vote could not. be increased. Next year he hoped the revenue would be up to its natural level. He could not, the Minister said, pay out money that had not been voted by Parliament. i ' i -