South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1889.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5028, 8 June 1889, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1889.

The Circumlocution Office, How-not-to-do-it, When Charles Dickens wrote his tallinsr satire on the Government offices .at Home, he may or may not have ha d a particular department in bis min d. Perhaps he had ; perhaps all the d apartments were “ tarred with the same brush.” Dickens is dead, and more “ sensational ” fiction crowds his works in to the upper shelves. Some people dc > not read fiction ; or have never read Dicikens ; or failed to learn, or have forgotten, the lessons he teaches. The room bers of our Education Board must be of this class. How else can one explain ttheir slavery to circumlocution, their adherence to the principle how-not-t.o-do-it ? For months past, we migl it say for years, the Board has been aware that the Timaru Side School standis in need of painting; stands in its corner section a disgrace to its owners. More than one member of the board, "has visited it. Only a mouth ago a. member, by special request, gave in a special report upon it. Yet on Thu rsday, when the Committee,for —oc« forf /eta how many times this makes —asks tbr*t the school be painted, and submits

an estimate of the cost, the same old circumlocutory, how-not-to do it system is stuck to. “ Resolved, that Mr Jackson be requested to examine and report.” This time the committee preferred a double- barrelled request. They wanted some repairs done to the fencing at the Main School, and as this was the first time the request for this work had been made in that form, and as the estimated cost was considerable, the board may be excused for desiring further information and advice. May be excused, on what appears to he the generally accepted principle that committees have no sense, and cannot be trusted to give advice concerning matters entailing an expense over, say, £5 unless they offer to pay half. It would not be at all surprising if acting up to how-not-to-do-it causes the bill, when it comes to be paid, to be half as big again as the estimate at present. But if the fencing required further consideration surely the painting did not. That work ought to have been put in hand right away.