D.—l

XVI

Extensive additions to provide for kitchen, bakehouse, workshop, store, staff dining-room, billiard-room, and nurses' quarters are being carried out by day labour at Hokitika Mental Hospital, while the usual maintenance-work has been attended to. Maintenance-work has been carried out at Seacliff, and a new unit has been completed at Waitati. A day-room extension has been erected on the women's side of the main building at Sunnyside. At Hornby the alterations and additions have been completed. Hospitals and Charitable Institutions. Among the works carried out during the year was the renovation and improvement of military hospitals taken over by the Health Department from the Defence. A very considerable amount of this renovation-work, however, had to be postponed owing to financial circumstances, but must be proceeded with as soon as funds will permit. The St. Helens Hospital accommodation, recently erected at Auckland, and which is almost internally completed, is of brick and provides for thirty-seven beds, together with all facilities and requirements for carrying out the functions required in a modern maternity hospital. Similar accommodation is required in Christchurch, and as soon as finances will permit this important work Will be taken in hand. In the meantime the present buildings have been put in repair, and additional accommodation has been provided for the nurses. Education. During the past financial year the expenditure on educational buildings was £565,670 —£563,201 from the Education Loans Account, and £2,469 from the Public Works Fund, the latter amount being expenditure not provided for by the Education Purposes Loans Act, 1919. This expenditure exceeded by over £100,000 that for the previous year, which was at that time a record. The large expenditure was owing to the fact that during war-time the amount approved for the erection of educational buildings was reduced to a minimum, and after the war closed very substantial grants were approved to overtake the arrears of urgent works, the cost of which had greatly increased. So difficult was it, however, to obtain the necessary labour and materials that there was considerable delay in carrying out the work, and consequently much of the expenditure during the past year had reference to authorities given during previous financial years. In this connection it may be pointed out that, while at the end of the financial year 1920-21 the unexpended commitments were £825,661, at the end of the last financial year the amount was only £366,766. Of the total expenditure for last year £328,228 was for primary schoo s, £101,199 for technical-school buildings, £81,197 for secondary schools, and £39,071 for University buildings. Circumstances, however, necessitated a considerable curtailment of sums approved for new buildings, and the total new grants for the year were only £105,424, as against £724,902 for the previous year. Grants were confined to cases of the greatest urgency, and were made as far as possible for actual school accommodation, chiefly in backblock districts. Wherever possible, temporary accommodation in the form of rented buildings is being utilized in lieu of providing permanent buildings. At the close of the year there were before the Department applications amounting, under all heads, to £600,376, of which £461,403 had reference to public schools. The urgent necessity of providing funds for the many pressing requirements is fully recognized, and it is hoped, in the not-far-distant future, to revert to the progressive building policy initiated a few years ago. Lighthouses. Owing to the site of the East Cape Lighthouse at East Island having become dangerous, it was decided to transfer the lighthouse to the mainland. Its removal was undertaken during the latter part of the year, and its re-erection on the mainland is nearing completion.