THE EDUCATION BILL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14281, 1 August 1908, Page 14

THE EDUCATION BILL.

Sir,—The increased salaries and staffs under the new Education Bill are not what they seem. Unless provision is made to •prevent schools being reduced in grade much harm will result from the bill. Kindly allow me to give an example; A country school of present grade 11, with average attendance of 154, has a staff consisting of a head master and three assistants. Under the new bill it will be placed in a grade equivalent to present grade 10, with a consequent loss of two assistants. The remaining two teachers consider an increased salary dear at the price.-I am, etc., July 28- First Assistant. Sm,-Nbt only teachers, but very many members of tho general public, have, since the opening of Parliament, been looking forward with no little interest to the introduction of the bill promised by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Eduea-•t-ion to improve the salaries of teachers. Now that a copy of the bill has reached my hands, you will, nerhaps, allow me to examine the proposed amendments of salaries so that teachers and others interested may know the exact nature of the changes proposed. Wo may begin with congratulations to the Minister on the great advance he has mode in tho recognition of the justice of the teaohers' olaim for more adequate remuneration since he made his speech at Dannevirke early in tho year, to which I referred in a letter dealing with educational expenditure, published in your columns on March 27 last. The measure introduced by Mr Fowkls is a serious and sincere attempt to deal with teachers' salaries, and will go a long way indeed towards removing the grave dissatisfaction and the unrest which have for so many years prevailed, and which have driven so many capable teachers into other walks of life to seek for that recognition .of their ability dcnieil to thorn in the education service. I append herewith a table which will enable comparison of salaries of head teachers as at present paid to be made with the salaries as proposed in the bill now before the House. This will show that the increases of salaries are by no ■ means equal in the several grades. This fact will be liest brought out by a comparison of what will result under the new conditions in several typical schools. Grade 1. under the new conditions, is assigned 9 pupils instead of 16 as its minimum. This is tardy justice to many deserving young teachers. Under the present system payment to teachers in a grade 0 school, up to 15 pupils in avorage attendance, is at Iho rate of £6 per head. Thus, with an average of 14, a voung teacher might serve for years with £84 as his anneal salary, liable' to frequent falls below that amount-ranging, indeed, down to _ zero if the attendance should suffer seriously through siclcness or othor of the many possible causes. It has for years been claimed by teachors that if the department sanctions the opening by any Education Board of a small school with' under 15 pupils it is its duty to sec that the teacher of audi 6chool receives a living wage, and that ho ought nof. to bo in a position to look through his i»chool window and sec on the road or in a field near by a labourer earning, perhaps, a wage higher than his own by 50 per cent, or more! The proposed new grade 1 changes that. With an at tendance of 9 to 15 pupils a teacher will now be assured of a. ininimuDiwalary of £90, and should he be fated

,to remain for six years in with position the payment made to him will reach £120. From the 1906 Education Report (the latest to hand) I loam that there aro 376 grade 0 schools in tho Dominion—i.e., almost onefifth of the total (1847)! About one-half of these have an attendance ranging from 9 to 15, and their teachers will materially benefit by tho new seale. Many are uncertificated, and thoy will consequently, under the 10 per cent, clause, suiter sonic reduction hereafter, when the annual iucremont has raised tho salary over £80, but wo have at least hero an irrcdueihlo minimum fixed, which will enable a young man in charge of a small school to live, awl a-lso devote some portion of his earnings to improving his scholastic status. At tlie other extreme of the new classification we have grade 10 schools—those with over 600 of an average attendance. Of these thero are 23 in New Zealand. There is only one of these in which the head tcaoher is receiving the maximum (£400), consequently he will receive no increment to his salary in 1909. < .In the case of the others, the total increment* range from £5 to £40. Those teachers* of the present grade 21 (attendance 600 to 660) will, receive £10 increase to bring them up to the minimum (class 10, £370), together ■with the £5 increment under tho bill, cluuso 7, subsection 2. ' Those teachers in schools at the bottom of grades 8 and 9 will benefit liiucb more than their fellows above thera. For ex- . ample: The head teacher of a school of 281 to 330 (grade 14) receives at- present a salary of £290. Of such sohools there are 17 in the Dominion. If the attendance is 301. or over, the head teacher will receive the salary of grade 8, the minimum, being £310. The increase in salary, with the £5 increment, will consequently be £25, or rather more than 8J pet cent, on his present salary.' In six years the total increase in salary of the teacher under consideration will be £50, or about 17 per cent, increase on his present salary. If, however, the school has an attendance between 281 and 300, tho teacher will be placed in grado 7, and receive only a . £5 increment in 1909 and a total increase of £20, or rather less than 7 per cent, on his present salary. A teacher at the too of grade.B in a school of 421 to 480 (and there are 13 such) will recoive a total increase of only £20,- or 6| per cent, on his present salary. Teaohers of present grade 10 (of whom there are 34) are equ'allv fortunate with those of grade 14. Their present 'salary is £235. The minimum assigned to these in the new grade 6 is £240. Their increase on January 1, 1909, will consequently be £10. By annual -inorement their salaries will rise in six years of £270-a total increase of £35, or 14 l-3rd per cent, on present salarie Least fortunate are the teachers of the proposed grade 5, with schools of 81 to to 120 average attendance. Of these—the toacliors of part of grade 8 and all of grade 9—thero are now about 110 in the Dominion. The present salaries of these grades arc £215 and £225. The proposed salary of the new grade 4 is £210 to £240. The teachers transferred from present grade 8 can only receive five 'onnual increments and of the present grade -9 only three suoh increments. The total increase'on the present salary for the-80 teachers of present grade 9 is thus only 6 2-3 rd per cent.—an increase surely-quite disproportionate to the increase in the'higher grades. The teachers now in charge of schools graded 1 to 6 will all benefit, those in, the lower grades much more than those above. For example: A teacher in a school of 36 to 40 has now no assistant and a salary of £160. Under the new scale he will bo at the lower end of grade 4, and will have an assistant—a long-felt want, at last turdi|y supplied—and un increase of £25 on January 1, with subsequent increments of £5 until his salary reaches £210, a total increase of 31£ per cent, on his' present 6ala.ry. The teachers at tho top of tho new grado 4, now classed in grade 8, if their .school attendance .is between ?6 uud 80, and thero are 27 such,: will receive no increment whatever!. Their present |

EMPLOYERS AND THE AUCKLAND , TRAMWAY STRIKE. Sir,—lt is to be hoped that the employers of Otago will refrain from following the example 0 f the employers in the north, who have been so freely criticising and condemning; the decision of' the Special Board of Conciliators constituted by the parties for the settlement of the questions in dispute in this strike. The employers should allow the workers to have a monopoly of such criticism except in extraordinary circumstances. That a mistake, and a very great one, has been made- thoro can. be little doubt, but it was on the part of the Tramway Company in agreeing to refer questions of such a kind to any outside authority. In so doing the company lias jeopardised the rights and weakened the position of every employer in .Now Zealand, and it, will require prolonged and consistent action on the part of the employers to counteract the effects of such, weakness. The surrender of the right of dismissal would be fatal to that private enterprise upon which all' industrial progress 'depends. Arbitration ia very good, and the growth o( the _ sentiment in tavour of arbitration is a thing to be fostered, but, just as in international complications, issues must arise in which a reference to arbitration would involve a sacrifice of honour, so, m the relation of employer and employed, questions are certain to arise which in the very nature of things admit of no* compromise; and of this nature wore some of the questions referred to the Special Board over which Dr M'Arthur, S.M., presided. •sLabour troubles may bo broadly divided into two groups—those which involve questions of wages and those that involve a principle. A principle is not a thing that can be arbitrated, for the mere submission to arbitration means surrender. Broadly speaking, disputes of the second class do not permit of the successful application of arbitration, because when such disputes are foroed oh an employer it becomes a choice between surrender of the management of his business and suspension of it." As an example of such a principle we may lake the demand made by the Blackball miners, and since taken up by the Conference of Trades Councils that before dismissals can take place there must bo a ballot of the employees. The Socialist leaders of unionism are even now preparing the way to this by getting up the cry of " victimisation," and if the employers were to surrender the right of ridding themsjves of agitators whose business it is to undermine discipline, they would deserve no consideration or sympathy. Private enterprise would become impossible if employers were to surrender the right, to rid themselves of agitators of the kind that were responsible for the Sydney strike, or men as to whose honesty they have doubts: and our Government and our employors might well lake a les«on in firmness from the Premier of New South Wales. The guiding principle is clear a,nd simple —that employers, individually and collectively, must withstand all attempts on the part of organised labour to doprivo [ thorn of the control of their businesses. ' "They have rights who dare maintain . | them." Labour has its rights is well as , the employer, but organised labour pos- ; seses no rights thut do- not equally belong io labour outside of trade unionism.—l am, ; etc.. ~ July 31. J. MacGbegou.

salary in grade 8 is £215. The proposed maximum salary in grade. 4, in which they will be placed, is only £210. Consequently for these 27 unfortunates there is no prospective increase. Wherein does their offence consist that they should bo singled out for treatment so invidious? Nor can they bo sure that clause 7, subsection 2— A teacher employed in a public school at the commencement of this act shall not, to long as he remains in the same position. iec«ive « salary lower than that to which he would have- been entitled under the principal act, had this act not been passed— will apply in their ease. For must not this be read and construed with subsection 7 of the same clause? This reads: If, owing (o a'reduction in the grade or sub-grade of auy public school, % salary of a teacher is reduced to an inferior grade or sub-grade while he holds the same position as before, he shall thereupon receive, as his salary the maximum salary of the grade or sub-grade lo which he has been so reduced. I fear me that by 1910 the teacher of suott a school as I am considering will find that subsection 7 will be applied in his ease, and his salary become £210. Timeo Danaos et dona fcrcntes. 'Hie second schedule dealing with Btaff6 and salaries of assistants is exceedingly complicated—more so, indeed, than is really necessary,—and much space would 'bo required to illustrate in detail- the changes involved in these salaries. Otto or two examples only will suffice; The first assistants in schools of attendance between 281 and 420 receive salaries ranging from £190 to £215. Under the now grading they "will rant its equal to a head teacher in a Class V school, and receive a minimum salary of £210, rising by yearly increments of £5 to £240. In a school of over 600 the first assistant at present receives £240. Under the new scale, ranking with a grade 7 A, head teacher, 'ho will start at £270, an immediate increase of 12£ per cent, on his salary, and rise by yearly increments of £5 to £310. This is the evident meaning of clause 7, subsection 6, of the bill, and jrives him an ultimate gain of nearly 30 per cent, on his present rate of pay. Whether a first assistant in such a school should rank as equal to the head teacher of. a school of the attendance of 210 to 250 is a question open to discussion. His work is certainly important, but, where the general management of the school is good, tho work of the first, assistant in a school of 600 is certainly.neither so onerous nor responsible as the work of a head teacher of a grade much lower than 7 A. Similar generosity seems dealt out to tho lady who occupies the position of mistress, usually third, though sometimes second assistant, in the larger schools. In a school of just over 600 the third assistant will rank with the head teacher of a grade 4 school, and will receive a. salary of £180, rising to £210. Under present conditions her salary is £170. If the mistress is second assistant her present salary is £180. Under tho new condition, she will rank with the head teacher of a grade 5 school (attendance 81 to 120), with a salary ranging from £210 to £240—an immediate gain to the lady of 18 per cent, rising ultimately to 33 1-3 per cent, on her present salary. In the foregoing. I think I have very clearly shown that, while ail credit is due to the Minister for his effort; to improve tho salaries of teachers, much still remains to be done to equalise tho benefit to be conferred, and not, as the bill certainly will do if passed into law in its present'form, inflict upou a very considerable number of teachers a serious injustice, w-hilo conferring, substantial benefits upon other and not-more deserving members of the profession. I had intended to comment upon other proposals of the bill regarding assistants, probationers. • and tho appointment of teachers. This letter is, however, alreadv long, and, with your permission, I shall return to these subjects later in another letter.—l am, etc., Sotjtbxaxd Teacher.

• THE DUNEDIN GASWORKS. Sin,—l have before mo a most elaborate article on " Mechanical Gas-stoking" by a Munich gas engineer, which claims attention on acoount of the supposed advantages and benefits to be gained by employing mechanical gas-stoking machinery, in preference to tho hand system of charging the retorts. Now, when I was reading tho report of tins Munich gas engineer, what appeared to me as somewhat peoulkr was tlie idea of comparing the yields of gas for 1902-3 (hand stoking) with those of 1904-5 (machine 6toking), and placing the whole credit of tho increase for 1904-5 to tlie mechanical stoking plant. This is most unfair, espeoialiy in a city of the dimensions of Munich. There would in all probability be a largo increase in 1-ho number of gas consumers for 1904 and 1905 over 1902 and 1903, and in consequence there would ho a greater output of gas, necessitating an in- ' creased manufacture of gas, irrcspectivo of the system of chafing the retorts that might . ho in vogue at. the works. In our city alone, according to tho reports one hears, the manufacture per annum lias increased ' enormously, and hero the -retorts are not charged with the mechanical stoker. • Then again, according to the article, the yield of gas for tho year 1904-5 was 384 | million cubic feet, and the coal carbonised to obtain this was 35,386 tons. This works [ out at an average manufacture of something ; like 10,852 cubic loot per ton o! coal. Com- , pare this return with the phenomenal re- [ turns recorded at our city works, and were , tho Munich expert ever to fca.ni our re- . turns, I feel sure he would iumg his head . in sliaine for someone, i am assured tliat . returns cf 13,700. 13,600, and 13,900 cubic '. feet per ton Iravo been recorded in the city , works. If such be eo, the Dunedin Uas- ! works must stand isolated far above all , otlicr gasworks in the v;orld. It has even [ been whispered to mo that returns of 14,000 ! cubic feet and over have been obtained. : , Will you please grant the favour of inform- . ing me what has been tlie highest ever obL tained, and also of giving me the total > amouut of coal gas manufactured in the . Dunedin City Gasworks since the beginning r of the iinanoia! year (April 1 last) and the t coal carbonized for the santo time.? t Another thing thai "struck me as odd when t reading tho article by tho Munich gas ex- ; pert was his statement that he attributed E tlie high manufactiire in tlie llunieh Gasi works to the fact that under tlie system of 5 mechanical charging the mouthpieces of the - retort! do not remain open so long as thev - do under the hand system of charging. To - mo it would scorn thai, the longer the i mouthpieces remain open, with tlie assist--5 anoo of tlie gentJa exhauster sent at a • mercy pace, the greyer will tlie station, i meter register; and, using the words of I my informant, "it do «o a,t times in our t works." It is a pity that instead of wit--3 nossos being asked at- a certain late inquiry if it is the custom to slow down the ex- - haustar when drawing the retorts they had l • not been asked if it is the custom to set the 1 exhauster going at a good "bat" (hiring 3 charging; then perhaps a different answer • would have, been given. With reference to 1 the late gas inquiry, it. has beau liinted to • me that a letter of Mr H. B. Courtis's came up, and the charges made in it were, of I course, denied by the gas inanagor, but ' when this official was given tho opportunity to reply to the letter he wisely refused. There is just one other thing I consider requires further light thrown upon it, and r that is tho question of the ammonia, con- - cent-rating plant. The plant has kept tho f prasenl. staff busily employed for something a like two years without, any success, and s what 1 want to know—and what. I as a s ratepayer have a right to know—is what do i- wo pay those two or three managers out ■. at (lie City Gasworks for, and pay hands somely too? Is it just simply to supply u* .with the compound that is wow beintj soldi

to fjas consumers? And how long arc the ratepayers goinj; to tolerate this kind of admmistraitioni it is to be sinccrely hoped that somo good will result out of tiro late inquiry.—l am, etc., Dnnedin, July 23. DISGUSTED.

COMPARISON OP PROPOSED MBW SALARIES OF TEACHERS WITH THOSEAT .Education Amendment Bill (just inh-oduced). Education Amendment Act, 1903. r. i Average . ■. Average Grade. attendance. . Salary. Grade. attendance. SiW I BtoS LaZtm ° 'I 015 if0^ tod - B. £105 to £120 _ _ •II 16 to 35 A.*»Jo«85 1 16 to 20 £m 13. £135 tO £l,l0 J 01 4„ or. mm III 26 to .15 A. £150 to £165 3 q 6 to !P £\U B.flGo to £1S0 < 33 i0 .„ n, m IV 3C10 80 flA) to fpo- i PaHoniusclasfil^din^ Class IV.' 5 41 to 50 £1K G 51 to 60 £180 ' 7 61 to 75 £195 V 81 to 120 mo U>m I P,aHot 9 °thi3 classlncluded in new Class V VT A ioi « im -i 9 91 to 120 £225 V IB \tol\ fflJIoffll 1( ' 121 to 150. £35 VII A. 201 to 250 £H0to&» J 0 ° ** B. 251 to 300 £290 to £310 M 201 to 330 WS TT1Tr , , 14 281 to 330 £290 UI1 ££ IZ\ ,310 to £310 " C - 101 to «0j 15 331 to 390 ' £300 10 391 to 420 £310 IX tft&&} £340 to £370 " *•****» ». C. 551 to 560 J lg 4B1 1o 5J0 f33Q 19 511 to 570 JJ3-10 _ „ 20 571 to GOO £JS0 X Over 600 £370 to £400 21-20 over GOO JOT-WOO rising by increments of £a ( for each suc- - . ————______ oecding class,