CHARGE OF REPUDIATION

Taranaki Daily News, 13 December 1930, Page 9

CHARGE OF REPUDIATION

EDUCATIONAL SUBSIDIES CRITICISM FROM HAWKES BAY. PROMPT REPLY BY THE MINISTER By Telegraph.—Pregs Association. Napier, Last Night. “This means that. subsidies approved by the department for works which are in hand or have just been completed will not be. available, and the department in the meantime at least is. repudiating it® responsibility,” said Mr. G. Maddison, chairman, at the meeting of the. Hawke’s Bay Education Board to-day, when advice was received from the department that owing to the lack of funds no further subsidies could be approved this year in connection with voluntary contributions. The board looked upon the matter as serious for school committees and appointed a deputation to meet the Minister, who. is at present, at Napier. ” ’ ' Interviewed late.; to-night, the Minister of Education, the Hon. H. Atmore,. said he did not think such language was justified by a responsible member of an important board, and certainly such extravagant terms made it difficult for the Minister to observe that courtesy which was. necessary for the smooth running of business in connection with education.' He felt sure that the citizens of Napier and residents of the district generally recognised that the present Government had met the educational needs of Hawke’s Bay in a generous manner. . If Mr, Maddison believed that an act of repudiation had been committed it whs rather inconsistent for him to. send a deputation to wait upon the Minister, and it certainly wds most unusual for the chairman of a responsible body to use an insulting term in reference to the Government as a preliminary to waiting upon a member of the Government and asking for consideration. Mr. Atmore said the deputation had waited upon him and he had replied that where works had been completed or fully entered into prior to the receipt of the notification subsidies were to be continued. He considered that a moral claim had been established and the matter would be dealt with on his return to Wellington. He again expressed his regret that any 'public man should have used such an “ugly and discourteous word.”