AN ELECTIONEERING DEVICE.

Observer, Volume XXI, Issue 1179, 3 August 1901, Page 2

AN ELECTIONEERING DEVICE.

Prejudicing School Committees. The daily newspapers have been very quiet about the soeoe at the Board of Eduoation last week, when Mr Farrell mentioned the leaflet called the Standard or Slanderer, or something o( that kind, whioh had been oiroulated amongst eohool committees, and whioh contained a Beries of untruthful statements concerning the retiring members of the Board, evidently cunningly framed with a view to destroy their prospects of eleotion. What weight can be attaohed to the value of the state ments in the pamphlet may be gathered from the fact that the members of the Board denied all knowledge of it, that some of them condemned it almost as vehemently as Mr Farrell, and that no one had the oourage to father it. And yet there is very little doubt that the precious production was inspired by a member or members of the Board. It betrays inspiration in every line, and withal is so devoid of fact and malioious of purpose that its object is manifest. One statement may be taken as an example of the whole. It is asserted that the oost of inspection of the Roman Catholic schools is £1000 a year. Now, as a matter of fact, it only costs £2000 a year for the inspection of the whole of the sohools in the provincial .district, and the Roman Catholic schools involve no additional outlay. i If the author or inspirer of that pamphlet sat at the Board table, his earß must surely have tingled, for Mr Farrell was unsparing with the lash of oritioismand condemnation. His language expressed in unmeasured terms his oontempt for the writer, be he member of the Board or otherwise, who could, under the cloak of anonymity, send to oountry oommittees a oiroular so malignant in its tone and unjust in its statements for the sole purpose of destroying confidence in the retiring members of the Board, who had done their work bo faithfully and conscientiously, and of stirring up a bitter, ness of feeling to prevent their eleotion.

Most of the members of the Board conourred in Mr Farrell's denunciation, and disavowed either sympathy with or knowledge of the leaflet. Mr Muir declared (hat he did not write it and had not contributed a penny towards the cost. This may be accepted as a disavowal also. Then who was responsible for the wretched electioneering devioe ? Probably light will be thrown upon the mystery ere long, for the printing of the document iB now being traced, and it is being ascertained how and by whom the advertisements were obtained. Unquestionably, however the election goes, more will be heard of thiß matter.