POLITICAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8222, 28 August 1906, Page 5

POLITICAL.

NATIVE SOHCOLS. The annual report on native schools presHnted to the Housa shows that the number of Maori village schools in operation at the end of 1904 was 100. In 1905 three schools were opened, two were transferred to education boards, and four were closed. T-ho number of children on the rolls of these scboola at December 31st, 1905, was 3,863, ao against 3,751 at the end of the preceding year. The regularity of attendance at the schools increased from 81 to 84 per oeur. The total expenditure on native sohools during tbu year was £24,077, which includes £95 paid from native school reserves funds and £2,000 from civil list for native purposes. Deducting £36, recoveries from various sources, the result is a net cost of £24,011, for the year 1905, as against £24,881. for the previous year. Included in this sum is expenditure on new buildings and additions, £2,560; on seoondary education (including boarding-school fees for holders of scholarships from village schools, apprenticeships, hospital - nursing eoholarohips, university scholarships and travelling expenses of scholarship holders), £2.116. The staff of the village schools included seventy- . three masters, twenty-one mistresses, in charge, eighty-seven assistants,, and fifteen sewiug teachers. The masters received salaries ranging from £9O 16s 8d to £269 5e lOd: the head mistresses from £6O to £176 13s 9d; the assistants from £9 8s 4d to ' £SO; and the sewing teachers from. £6 ]6a 3d to £lB 15s. TO-DAY'S BUSINESS. After the usual formal business has been disposed of when the House resumes at 2.30 o'olook to-day, the work of setting up the sessional committees will be continued. Only four of the seventeen committees have yet to be set up. If time then permits, Government Bills may take up the remainder of the afternoon. In the evening, at 7.30 o'clock, the Premier is to read bis Financial Statement. . This usually takes over an hour to deliver, and then, after the Premier has arranged with the Leader of the Opposition as to the time when the debate on the Statement will be opened, the House will adjourn. A lengthy and keen detate is expected to follow the delivery of Sir Joseph Ward's policy, which Will be contained in detail in the Statement to be presented this evening. THE SEDDON GRANT. The Government Whips have been at work amongst members testing their feelings regarding a grant to the late Premier's family, says the Post, and it is thought not at all unlikely that some provision, in the way of a vote, may be made in the • Estimates, which will follow the delivery of the Financial Satemeut. Lobby gossip has it that the Government is feeling in a generous mood, and that the vote may be £7,000 or £IO,OOO. Some of the members of the Government side of the House cannot see why the grant should be measured by the length of service of the Premier, for they Consider that ! the poaition was a well-paid one, and should have proved remunerative to a man who ocoupied it for so | many years. Others, again, protest against making any grant to families of deceased Premiers. If, they say, a Minister's family is to be given a grant, then the principle could easily be extended so that the families of members of Parliament could alao reoeive an allowaDoe. "What was good for the goose, would be good for the gander!" as one member put it. There are others who would give a sum only if the ciroumstanoes of a family were such as to render it neoessary. Tba Opposition favour a grant equal to that given to Lady Atkinson and. Mrs Ballanoe (£3,u00).