TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION SCHEME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12420, 1 August 1902, Page 4

TEACHERS' SUPERANNUATION SCHEME.

As the proposal to establish a superannuation fund for public schoolteachers and officials is one to the principle of which we have .given cordial support, it is gratifying to us to know that the Minister of Education expressed his approval of it to the deputation that interviewed him on the subject at Wellington this week.' But it seems to us unfortunate that a representation should have been made to Mr Walker by the principal spokesman of the deputation that can only bo described as misleading. For Mr Davidson, as a member of the Executive Council of the New Zealand Educational Institute, posed before the Minister as a mouthpiece of the teachers of the colony. Now, the Educational Institute itself comprises less than 50 per cent, of tho total number of public school teachers in New Zealand. An arrogant assumption is involved on Mr Ravidsou's part when he professes to voice the opinions on the subject of the superannuation scheme of the 50 per cent, of the colony's teachers who are not members of tho Institute. Probably enough they are all fairly well agreed as to the necessity, in the interests of the education system itself, for the establishment of some scheme, but most certainly they are not agreed that the modus operandi which Mr Davidson favours is one that should be adopted, and most certainly the claim that the executive of the Institute may be regarded as their mouthpiece in reference to this matter canuot be justified. The executive is not even entitled to be

regarded as the representative of the Educational Institute on the subject of the superannuation proposal. Mr Jeffery points out in a letter which we publish this-morning that the Institute has notyet been afforded any opportunity of' expressing au opinion upon the proposal ; and it is notorious that within the ranks of the Institute there is a wide difference of opinion regarding the basis upon which tlie scheme should bo founded. The only meeting of teachers that has been held in the colony to discuss tho matter has pronounced decisively against the proposal which is. as our correspondent puts it, "fathered by Mr Davidson," aud, though that was not a meeting of members of the Institute, its conclusions are distinctly of value as indicating the state of feeling in the profession on the subject. Mr Davidson was so hurt by the decision that was then adopted that, forthwith, in terms that hardly admitted of any modification, ho intimated his intention of retiring from the special committee which was appointed at the last annual meeting of the Institute to examine the proposals for a scheme of superannuation. Yet a fortnight later we find him slipping quietly away to Wellington to interview the Minister in the dual capacity of a member of the executive of the Institute and a member of the Superannuation Fund Committeo from which he had publicly resigned, and apparently advocating a scheme which, while it has not yet been considered by the teaching profession as a whole, has been condemned by the only meeting of teachers that has been held to-discuss the matter! Mr Davidson contrived to make it appear in the remarks he addressed to the ■Minister that there was substantial unanimity among the school teaohers of the colony upon the proposals which the exeoutive of the Educational Institute supports. He seems to have said nothing from which it might have been gathered by the Minister .that there is a strong feeling among teachers that those proposals are, in Mr Jeffery's words, "based on injustice to so many,"land that, if adopted, they " will be the cause of great disaffection." It is highly desirable, however, that the Government should recognise, when it is considering the question, that there is a serious objection on the part of a large number of teachers to the suggestion that the increments which would accrue to their salaries through the • higher scale of salaries that was drafted by last year's Commission being brought into operation should be appropriated as a Government subsidy towards a superannuation fund.