The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1878. NEW SCHOOL COMMITTEE, DUNEDIN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 248, 1 February 1878, Page 11

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1878. NEW SCHOOL COMMITTEE, DUNEDIN.

* On Monday evening last, the election of School Committees was held throughout Otago and Southland. As we write, the returns outside Dunedin and its suburbs are unknown to us. This, however, is not a matter of much importance in considering the general result, as the return for Dunedin affords a fair specimen of what may be looked for from the working of the new Education Act. As we anticipated, the same busy bodies who hitherto assumed the role of representatives of householders in this city have come to the front. There was a meeting in the Athenaaum, at which it is said six hundred persons attended. It must have been a very crowded meeting for the hall in which it assembled is not capable of accommodating so many with ease. But of this number it is clear from the number of votes recorded in favour of the successful candidates, 'that there were many non-householders present. It may be regarded as certain that cumulative voting was, if not universally, at least generally adopted. We may rest assured that each voter did all he could for his favourite candidate. The total number of votes for the successful candidates amounted to 1346 ; now divide this by seven, and the result will be 192 and a fraction ; but let the number stand at 193. One hundred and ninety-three householders then, out of about five thousand in the Dunedin school district, attended this meeting and voted for the members of the School Committee. The names of the seven gentlemen elected are — Messrs. Fish, Nathan, George Bell, Kobin, Ramsay, Sherwin, and Professor McGregor. These gentlemen collectively represent 193 householders, out of five thousand. Mr. Fish, who obtained the highest number of votes represents 46 householders, and Professor McGregor, who obtained the lowest number, represents the respectable number of 15 householders. For the information of people residing in Dunedin, it is not necessary to give a description of the fitness of these gentlemen for the position in which 193 of their fellow-citizens have placed them. But for the enlightenment of our friends at a distance, we may just say that the gentleman who was put at the head of the poll is the last man in this community to whose keeping Catholics would confide anything they valued ; and another prominent member of the committee is the proprietor and editor of the Evening Star, which not very long ago grossly libelled Catholics. There is then one portion of this community to which this committee is most odious, and there is another portion — the overwhelming majority — which is not represented by it. We venture to affirm that, were a poll taken of all the householders of Dunedin, the majority of this new School Committee would not be elected. The householders as a body would not put rude, uneducated, and insanely bigoted men on their School Committee. But what is most deplorable in this affair is, that the law arms this new committee with some tremendous powers. Amongst these, is the power of putting the compulsory clauses of the new Act into force. According to law, therefore, these representatives of 193 householders, whose good sense and love of justice and decency have been strikingly illustrated by the choice they have just made of committeemen, are authorised to coerce a population of five and twenty thousand people, invade the privacy of homes, pry into the affairs of families, and come between the consciences of parents and the duties they owe to their children. And what qualifications under an educational point of view do these gentlemen possess? Have they, it may be asked, been munificent in their contributions towards the erection and support cf schools ? If so they have, unfortunately, hidden their light under . a bushel. Have they made great personal sacrifices in the cause of education 1 Let us see : last year Mr. Fish attended fourteen meetings of the committee — which had a paid secretary — and Mr* Bell,

eighteen ; Mr. Ramsay, fourteen ; Mr. Sherwik, twenty-one ; and Mr. McGregor, twelve. These figures do not suggest great labours or distinguished personal , sacrifices. If they have done anything more, they have loved to do it in secret, not letting, we suppose., the left hand know what the right did. Oh yes Iwe were nearly forgetting there was a deputation to the Education Board to protest against the monstrosity and unheard-of want of justice, on the part of the Board, in even suggesting to the committee that the people, whose children were, to a very great extent, educated at the expense of the public, ought to contribute at least one moiety of the expense of erecting new school buildings. This was, of course, a very laborious and disinterested personal sacrifice, for which the 193 householders are intensely grateful to Messrs. Fish, Robin, Sherwin, Bell, Ramsay, and McGregor. And, indeed, such a proceeding did deserve some striking token of recognition, for it is not every man in the community that possesses the daring required to take part in such a deputation. The majority of Dunedin citizens, it is to be hoped, have too keen a sense of justice, too much care for their own character, too much decency' of feeling, and too high a sense of honour, to ask the community at large to provide school buildings for the accommodation of their children, whilst rejecting with scorn and indignation the proposal, that they should themselves help, even in some degree, to bear the expense of such a work.