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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2873, 9 June 1882, Page 2

OuR-morning contemporary has fallen foul of Mr Sutter’s ; Bill for’amendingthe constitution .of, the . High, School Board -of Governors. .Ini his usual spirit, our conterapprary does not hesitate tp, impute , motives to the inovgr of a Bill, which does not precisely fit in with his own peculiar ideas of the fitness of things. He therefore says : —““We cannot help" thinking that Mr Sutter’s motives iu Hating this action are not very lofty or public spirited, but are) ebri! the contrary; almost entirely personal. He want to , drive certain persons, whom he does ■ not happen to like,.out of the Board; of Governors, and to get in certain others, whom he docs like, or at all events whpnx, it would ..suit, him to; have in?’’ This will"appear to any.; intelligent - reader, to be a .perfectly gratuitous assumption, which develops into a.cparse insult when-the“ Herald ” proceeds to say “Ifis ' a-grievous thing when a representative of the people thus catries His private grudges and prejudices into his actions as a public man.” The high moral tone adopted by thd “ Herald ” will not throw dust in the eyes of the public. "Mr Sutter has the public interest at heart quite as much as 1 our contemporary ever had/; and to say that as “ Member’for Gladstone he is.surely paying a very poor compliment to his constituents^’,is to talk the veriest nonsense. He knows perfectly .well that the principle'of representation as opposed to 1 that of nomination, is heartily supported by the public of South Canterbury, as applied to every public institution. Mr Sutter sits in Parliament as a representative of the colony, as well as in the capacity of Member for Gladstone. It matters very little whether the bulk of the High School Board approves the Bill or not. They are in no sense representative men, and their very existence on their present footing is contrary to the wishes of the people. The particular clause of the Bill, which provides that “ casual vacancies” are to be filled by the Board itself,, our contemporary professes to consider unjust.' If he will consider, for a moment, the unnecessary. trouble caused by going through the process of election in . cases of .casual vacancy on the Board of Education, he will see that’ the- plan .proposed, will, in reality, expedite business. Casual vacancies only occur farely. Why not fill them .up at once? At.a hastily convened meeting of the Board yesterday (q| which, we had no notice), the following resolution, proposed by Mr LeOren,seconded by Mr Belfield, was passed, Mr Olulee supporting and'Mr Gillies dissenting—- “ The Board of Governors for the Timaru High School have no reason; to think or believe its present consti-; tution is in any wsly Unpopular,"arid so far works well in the interests of the school, are opposed to the alteration as proposed by Mr Sutter as a M.H.R., and that the Bpard request the Chairman to forward this resolution to the Minister of Education and to the Members for South: Canterbury.” This resolution speaks for itself, and shows that members of the Board favor the nomination principle, notwithstanding their protestations to the contrary, in other' places.’ The Rev.' Mr Gillies supported the elective principle, and inoved the following amendment, which, however, was not seconded—“ That this Board cannot approve of the Bill proposed by ; Mr Sutter, .as it r stands,, , but has no objection to the general principle of an elected instead of. a nominated Board.”