The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1924. THE UNIVERSITIES.

Southland Times, Issue 19291, 9 July 1924, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING, Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1924. THE UNIVERSITIES.

Auckland is pursuing its campaign for rhe introduction of special studies at the University College in competition with those already in existence. The School of Engineering in Christchurch, and the Medical and Dental Schools in Dunedin, are marked particularly for Auckland’s attack, but the approach is not direct. Now Auckland is ranged energetically behind the proposal that the four University Colleges should be given autonomy, thus placing each in competition with the other and removing the University of New Zealand from the position from which it correlates and develops the work of the various unit colleges so as to meet the requirements of the Dominion as a whole. There are many eloquent arguments in favour of the disintegration of the University of New Zealand, but they all fail to reconcile us to the damaging fact that with four Universities competing with each, other the expense to the country will be largely increased and the results will be even less encouraging than they are now. Can it be argued that New Zealand, with a population of less than one million and a-half, can support two Schools of Engineering worthy of comparison with the great institutions of the world? Can it be said that with two Medical Schools in existence the standard now secured at the Otago University can be equalled and maintained without an increased expenditure beyond our means? Can we afford two Dental Schools? Competition may be essential in our commercial system as a check on prices, but no one will argue that competition is not a costly safeguard, and the arguments of the disintegrators may be met with that same point that if the four colleges are set at each other’s throats in competition the effect will not be increased efficiency because we will not be able to afford the higher cost. Auckland, however, will have got her way, and by the lavish use of money will secure what she has attempted bluntly in the past to take from the rival colleges—the special schools they have fostered and brought to a high standard of excellence. The expansion of the governing powers of the colleges may be desirable, but some central authority .must be mem-

tained so that the clash of competition and overlapping may be controlled. Auckland seeks a commission, and that plea seems reasonable, but care must be taken that the representation on that commission, if it is granted, has not a northerly aspect. The campaign for the breaking-up of the University of New Zealand may not contemplate it, but Auckland will undoubtedly see in it the way to the realisation of her own ambitions—for her the rest of the country does not matter.