PUBLIC OPINION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2554, 16 July 1909, Page 7

PUBLIC OPINION.

THE DOMESTIC PROBLEM. The Hon. G. Fowlds, Minister of Education, says that he is “very hopeful” about the establishment of the much-wanted chair at Dunedin, and he states that his department is .giving the matter some attention. It is sincerely hoped, in all quarters of the country, ■that the present admirable plans will mature. The enterprise, if carried on •successfully, with diplomas and degrees for industrious students, should ensure for domestic science its proper dignity in the eyes of the country at large. If the Dunedin chair becomes dsV accomplished fact, the good effects ■rosy easily be much more far-reaching than trie friends of the project now expect, through their anticipations of valuable results are not small. —Wellington “Post.” THE GOVERNMENT. Changes in Government are most advantageous for the country, and it is ten thousand pities that the Liberal party have reigned so long. There would have been no necessity for retrenchment had there been quicker . changes in the Ministry to keep down expense-,. Liberalism is a good thing, hut there is too much of a good thing sometimes, and it lias been so with the present Government. The people now sadly need a change and a decade of ■economicrl but progressive administration, otherwise Maoriland will be a nice •country to live out of. Our public expenditure has so outgrown the people’s needs as to increase taxation enormously. Millions have been wasted unnecessarily, and added to Maoriland’s burden of public debt, and a stop must bo put to the extravagance of the present Government. —•‘Tapanni Courier.” THE CABLE SERVICE. Had there been no Stock Exchaiiges In England! the late war scare might not have occurred, and, certainly, if we had not enjoyed the blessing of cable news at 3s a word, the scare would have been' all over before we would have heard of, it, we would have been saved a million or two, Parliament would have, sat as usual, and Sir Joseph would have stayed ■ with us for the winter. It is time we had more and cheaper cables’, or none at all. —“Tuapoka Times.” ROYAL COMMISSIONS. If ever there was a state of things that called for the appointment of a Royal Commission, it was the departmental extravagance that even Sir Joseph Ward thinks it necessary, in his Cjovernment’s interests, to reduce by a "considerable amount.' "When the Go- • vernment confess that the state of the Civil Service calls for a retrenchment policy that will save £250,000, it is' clear that a Royal Commission which will recommend such a change as will, in the long run, save millions is urgently needed. But the Government will resist to the utmost the suggestion that a Royal Commission, with a wide order of reference, should'be set up to inquire into the Civil Service. And what has been said of the. Civil Service administration applies equally to the general administration of the railways. Where the need for thorough investigation, is of national importance and transcending urgency, the Goverment have refused to allow anybody to move excepting their own Ministers. They reserve the machinery of a Royal Commission largezly for trivial purposes, or to suit their own party needs. When circumstances cJarnoi* for sunlight and disinfectants, •they refuse to move. —The “Dominion.” STATE FIRE INSURANCE. If the State Fire Office is to be maintained for the purpose of keeping the. rates down, it will never he able to fulfil its mission until the rates reach sound bottom. Then you may build your regulator. If you begin the regulator in tho air, as it were, you turn the State into a beast of burden to carry the losses of all unprofitable concerns. And of such a policy the end is plain enough. The moral is that it is impossible to give the public the benefit of tire public credit and control except on business conditions. Before the State can consent to increase the rates of insurance, the question of the necessity for the increase must be faced and threshed out on its merits, not on tho assertions of the reckless people -who orv against “monopoly” with deaf ears. ■—Southland “News.” , EDUCATION OF THE YOUNG. The obsession from which the primary, education system is beginning to shake Itself free was, that cultivation of the memory was the be-all and end-all of rational effort, and that this was to he achieved by proceeding upon the assumption that the youthful mind was inanimate. It. was a grotesque theory, and had grotesque results. The new ideal goes to tho opposite extreme, and, taking its stand on experience and reason, points to the better way; and if in making the change some of the “usual studies” are forgotten, the loss will not be regretted by people who realise that th'e true object of primary education is to train the faculties to observation and .reason. Auckland “Herald.” PRISON REFORM. We have abandoned, for the most part, the system of brutal punishment once adopted in the treatment of the criminal, and since it would be absurd, in this matter, to adopt a purely negative attitude, the only reasonable course is to accord him such treatment as will lead to his improvement and tend to build up his character. The notion is still far too prevalent that punishment must he an integral feature of ou r prison system. If this view were just we should do well to revive the old brutal punishments which modern humanity, has discarded. It his come to be pretty generally recognised that the average criminal is mere or less a victim to his environment, but there is no need to labor this contention. The criminal, ~ like other human beings, is susceptible tgLgood influences, and it is clearly betteriSin the interests of society, that tho Uncased prisoner should return to freed6if#.(ifter a systematic course of refor- > mat? re treatment than after a period of pWely negative detention. —Patea '/■ “Press.”' ’ COST OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS. “Under a system by which a portion of the cost: of'buildings would be raised / locally,” says the Minister of Education, “the quality and standard could be fixed by the ’ people .in each district.” The principle which Mr Fowlds invoices is exactly that oi which we have ' for years 'urged the application to the allocation of public works expenditure of an ossentvdlv local dm meter. The soundness d the principle is plain and

indisputable, but it must be applied in a cautious and equitable manner. In neither case would it be fair to penalise ,the undeveloped and sparsely-settled districts by a heavy tax after other districts have been helped to a better position from the general fund. Solely on ■ the assumption that this obvious demand of equity would be ignored, the I chairman of the Auckland Education ! Board has repudiated Mr Fowlds’s sug- | gestion. “It would be putting a tax on settlement,”.he says, “if the State were to compel local districts to find a large proportion of the cost of new ' school buildings.” A sliding scale, or the discretion of some non-political au- ■ irity, to be regulated according to prescribed principles, must guard such districts from injustice, and it will no doubt be difficult to adjust the matter, satisfactorily. But the present arrangement is clumsy, wasteful, and intolerable, and if the principle advocated by the Minister of Education is once recognised as sound, the difficulty of adjusting its operation so as to* save undeveloped districts from hardship, should not prove insuperable’. It might be well for the department to consult the Education Boards on the noint at once an a tentative fashion.—Wellington. “Post.”