POLITICS IN EDUCATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23717, 25 July 1940, Page 8

POLITICS IN EDUCATION

Profound regret will be widely felt at the organised attempt of the Labour Party to capture the three vacant seats in the Auckland urban representation on the Education Board. Only in this area was the attempt made, three Labour candidates being officially chosen to contest tho election. The fact that two of them were hopelessly out of the running—they polled individually less than half of the average votes obtained by the three successful candidates —shows that the one Labour candidate to win a seat owes his election to personal rather than political qualifications or else that the two defeated were not approved by Labour voters in spite of the official nomination. So far the result can be taken to indicate a wholesome refusal to endorse Labour's party-political entry to the contest. For such an administrative body, entrusted with care for the education of children irrespective of the party colour of their parents or guardians, it is manifestly desirable that members shoufd be chosen with sole regard to their personal fitness. Mr. Morris, the elected Labour candidate, may possegs this fitness; his

chairmanship of the Newton School Committee and his years of service on the School Committees' Association, together with the vote for him in third place among the elected three, suggest that he does. He has now an opportunity to prove that party-political considerations do not dictate his actions as a member of the board. Labour politics are not necessarily a disqualification for good service unless they are imported thus to a sphere where they are palpably out of placq. At any time it would be wrong to make political partisanship a matter of controversy in these elections; at the present time, when sharply divisive conduct is bound to tell against unity for the winning of a momentous war, it' argues an inadequate appreciation of the importance of that.