TEACHERS' DEMANDS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12078, 15 June 1920, Page 5

TEACHERS' DEMANDS.

MINISTER DEPRECATES BELLI COSE RESOLUTIONS.

Resolutions recently passed by meetings of teachers were commented on by thß Minister of Education on Saturday.

"The position," said Mr Parr, "is quite clear, A little over a fortnight ago tho New Zealand Educational Institute, which represents all teachers, placed before me for the first time specific claims with regard to increased salaries, I then told the Institute that I would place their repreßeutations before Cabinet as forcibly as I could, I have carried out this promisa, Such, however, are tha moustroaa differences between efficiency and pay in many cases in the teaching profession, that it took Mr Caughey and myself nearly a fortnight considering a fair 'scheme by which the meritorious should get higher reward than the iadifferpflt. The mattes is now before Cabinet. The Finance Minister informed me last week that the teachers' salaries would be considered with other branches of the Public Service. Whea Parliament shortly meets, no doubt announcement will be mads of the Government's views, if not before. I really do not Know what oaore coplc have been done for the teachers in the short time that I have hold office. In view of these facts, bellicose and unreasonable resolutions from one or two districts do not help matters. Indeed, foolish tactics may often spoil a good cause. The rather thinly veiled threat of the Oiago teachers to go to any length—even direct action, I presume—does not help me in the slghtesfc in my sincere endeavours to better the conditions of the profession,"