EDUCATION RESERVE.

Opunake Times, Volume IV, Issue 197, 22 May 1896, Page 2

EDUCATION RESERVE.

It will be fresh in the minds of our readers that the Town Board and other local bodies throughout the district passed resolutions condemning and diversion of the reserve for higher education in Taranaki set aside for that purpose by the Goverment. At the time it was not very clear why puch a resolution should be passed, and therefore it could only be taken as an affirmation of a principle in case any such diversion should be proposed. The Minister of Lands had a communication forwarded to each local body which had protested asking on what grounds such resolution had been passed. In this the Minister scored as no definite reason could be assigned. Since then, however, a deputation has waited on the Minister for Education urging the establishment of a University at Wellington and suggested the confiscation of the Taranaki reserve. The Minister favored the establishment of the University and pointed out that legislation would have to be enacted to enable the Taranaki reserve to be absorbed, so that now the Minister of Lands will be able to see the grounds upon which the resolutions were passed. We should be very pleased to see a University established in Wellington, but cannot see the justice of robbing the Taranaki district for the purpose. There is talk of establishing high schools at Hawera and Stratford, and think that the legitimate purpose of the reserve would be attained if the revenue from it were devoted in aid of both of these schools. They would afford convenient means for parents in the Taranaki district to obtain more than a merely elementary education for their children without the great expense they would be put to in having to send their children so far away from home to Wellington. No doubt our members for the Taranaki district will keep their eyes open and see that no such diversion is made.