D.—l

XV

Hospital and Charitable Institutions. The principal work carried out under this heading during the year was providing more adequate accommodation and equipment at the quarantine stations at Auckland and Wellington ; the establishment of a new St. Helens Hospital at Wanganui; and improving the accommodation at other similar institutions throughout the Dominion. Some expenditure will be required during the current year for the military hospitals that have been taken over from the Defence Department to adequately equip them, for the purposes for which they are intended, and to complete the quarantine stations which were commenced during the previous year but which were not entirely completed. Education. During the past financial year the expenditure out of loan-moneys on Education buildings was easily a record. During the war the necessity for economy led to the restriction of capital expenditure wherever possible, and consequently when peace came large arrears of work had to be overtaken. During the year 1920-21 the total expenditure on Education buildings was £459,292 —£244,721 from the Public Works Fund and £214,571 from the Education Purposes Loan. Of this total £279,659 was for new primary-school buildings, £67,216 for technical schools, £43,910 for secondary schools, and £37,243 for the University colleges. At the end of the year the grants promised but not paid amounted to £825,661, as against £560,051 for the previous year. The total new authorities issued during the year amounted to no less a sum than £724,902. Though much has thus been done to meet the pressing needs for more and more school accommodation, unfortunately, owing to the very high cost of building and to the large arrears referred to above, the provision made falls far short of the essential requirements. The present financial stringency has again necessitated a restriction of the expenditure, but the Government is fully aware of the needs of the country, and is only awaiting more favourable financial conditions to revert to its progressive building policy. In some districts where additional accommodation is urgent the residents have come to the assistance of the Government by subscribing to the Education Purposes Loan the sums required to provide. the additional school buildings, and in this way buildings are being undertaken that otherwise would have been postponed for a considerable time. Lighthouses. The erection of the automatic fog-signal on Tiritiri Island was completed, and the fog-signal handed over to the Auckland Harbour Board. The necessary apparatus for automatic lights on the Ninepins Rock, Gable-end Foreland, and Mercury Island Passage arrived during the year. The tower for the Ninepins light has been received, and the erection of the light-tower is now in hand. During the year the Wigham light, in Helensville Eiver, Kaipara Harbour, has been replaced by an automatic acetone light. As East Cape Island has become dangerous as a site for the lighthouse, a new site on the mainland has been decided upon, and the transfer of the lighthouse from the island to the mainland will be undertaken this year. HARBOUR-WORKS. During the year very little has been done in the nature of works in the harbours under the control of the Government. All the biioys and beacons in the harbours under the control of the Department have, however, been regularly overhauled, cleaned, and painted, and where necessary new moorings have been put down. TOURIST AND HEALTH RESORTS. The total expenditure incurred during the year was £19,041, as against £6,194 for the previous year. The greater part of this expenditure was incurred at Rotorua, mainly on the completion of the work of replacing the wooden water-mains by cast-iron ones. This work, which has been completed so far as the town is con-