South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1889.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5027, 7 June 1889, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1889.

Mu Fisheb would abolish Education boards, for their extravagance. He says they have spent on buildings £30,000 more than was necessary to erect all the schools in the colony in brick [or stone, and £90,000 more than was necessary to build them in wood. Furthermore they have during the last ten or twelve years spent £38,000 in fees enough to put up a year’s additions to the buildings. We are not in a position to say whether Mr Fisher’s figures are correct or not —we fancy we have met with them before—but if there is one reason for which, above all other reasons, education boards deserve capital punishment, it is their extravagance in building. Look round this little district of South Canterbury, and see how schools have been put up in far more expensive styles thanthey need havebeen—to improve the taste of the people, it was more than once asserted: and now, what spectacles of beauty run to seed they, many of them, are ! It was proposed some years ago, that the Education Department should have prepared a complete series of plana for schools of all sizes, and in various materials, by which means the local architects’ fees might have been avoided, or at all events much lessened; but this idea met with no favour from the boards, and the result is that a large part of that £38,000 has been spent when it might have been saved. But admitting that the education boards have been extravagant in building, that is not a sufficient reason for abolishing them. They have much other and important work to do, and whether they on the average do this well or ill, there is no likelihood that any other form of local body, still less likelihood that any central authority, would do it better.

Mb Fisher in his address had a good word to say for the tariff. The increase in the Customs duties had enabled several large manufacturing industries to keep afloat. The Pitone mill, a comparatively small one, was an instance. The manager of the Kaiapoi mill told him that it was just a question whether or not the mill should be closed, and the tariff turned the corner for them. That mill employed 1200 hands, and paid about £15,000 a year in wages, and the case was the same with the Oamaru mill. Brass and iron foundries had been started and enlarged, and many things were now being made in them which were never made there before.