J. MITCHELL.!

T—l3a.

50. Mr. Guthrie.] Does your Board support the establishment of District Councils ?- No; w< most emphatically object to it. We do not see the necessity for them. 51. With regard to the election of the Board, do you think the proposal in the Bill an improvement upon the present system ?— No. I think that no matter what principle you adopt in regard to the election of any body that principle ought to apply all round. By giving to the ratepayers of the urban districts the right of electing members of the Board you will be taking away from the School Committees of the urban areas a privilege that is enjoyed by the rest of the School Committt t - of the district. The rural Committees will still enjoy the privilege of electing the members of the Roard, which will be denied to the members of School Committees in urban areas. 52. Ts it the experience of the Board in your district that there is a demand for some otlier foim of franchise than election by Committees ?—No. It has been urged only in one particular direction. There has been no general pronouncement of opinion upon the subject at all. 53. Is there a demand in your education district for a change in the method of electing School Committees in the direction indicated by the Bill ?—No. In our district the present option- that of prior nomination is very little adopted. The general practice is the nomination of the School Committee at the meeting of householders, and it is, I take it, one of the means of drawing people to the meetings of householders. Tf your Committees, particularly in the country districts, were nominated prior to the meeting of householders you would have no meeting of householders. You would never have anybody to whom you could present your accounts and your report. 54. Do you think there would be a danger of withdrawing from the School Committees a certain amount of local interest? —Anything that is calculated to diminish interest in School Committees must have a baneful and bad effect. 55. Is your Board in favour of a Dominion classification and scheme of salaries for teachers ?— Yes, always provided you begin at the right end. T have always advocated—l have done it before both the Royal Commissions- that the right way is to begin by determining that there shall be an individual payment and not a payment contingent upon the attendance at any school. 56. Under the present method of payment of salaries would you be in favour of Dominion grading ? Dominion grading would have no value whatever for the teacher unless it was accompanied by a grading of salaries—not a salary based upon position, but a salary given to the man—a salary carried by his grade. 57. Are you in favour of the centralization of the inspectorate ?- No. I have already given my reason. 58. Mr. McCaUum.] Do you not think that householders should have sufficient interest in the election of School Committees to send in the nominations before the meeting?— That would apply all right where, you had'a population fairly concentrated, but in the country districts a man would have to go hunting round to get the nomination filled up, and there is so little inducement offered to men to join the Committees that you would find very few people willing to take the trouble of getting the paper filled in. 59. T suggest that all those who are nominated a week before tq) to the number wanted- live. or seven, or nine should be declared elected, and there should be only a contest for the extraordinary vacancies on the night of election. Would not that create an interest which you have not under any of the schemes ?- Tt might, but it would carry a very serious danger. The most objectionable man in the community might be the first man nominated under that system, and the fact that he was so nominated and there was not a sufficient number nominated to create a contest could not be disclosed. The Chairman of the Committee could not, when he had received a nomination paper, declare who was nominated and who was not until he posted them the week before. Tn .that case the most undesirable man in the community might be the first man nominated for the Committee under your proposal, and he would necessarily be declared elected —a man that the householders would not vote for. 60. Mr. Havan.] Have you gone into this question of the £250 being withdrawn ?—Yes. It does not affect the Otago Board materially. I can see that it will affect the finances of the smaller Boards, but it does not seriously prejudice the finances of the Board in Otago. 61. Threepence fttrthing. is it not?— Yes; but if the Inspectors are centralized the balance remaining in that direction will more than compensate for the loss of the £250. 62. Auckland, Hd.; Otago, 3|d. ; Hawke's Bay, 6d. ; Southland, 6d. —that is, doing away with the £250 : is not that very inequitable ?— I grant you that the principle of granting a first payment in all cases is a very proper one. Tt has been continued and extended to the secondary schools. We have adopted that principle in regard to the payment of our School Committees. We make a first payment and it goes up to a certain point, and thereafter our payments to School Committees are based upon attendance on a graduated scale. 63. Are you in sympathy with a Dominion scale of allowance for Committees ?—Tf you are going to fix the scale on the basis on which it is fixed in the Bill we shall have all our School Committees in Ofago up in arms, because we are paying more than the 6s. T think our payment works out at 6s. 44d. 64. Mr. Hogben.] And the minimum is ss. 6d. ?—Yes. 65. Mr. Hanan.] You are in a very much better position than Southland ?— -Yes. A larger body with larger schools is necessarily so. 66. In that respect you have the advantage of a district like Southland, have you not ?— Yes. 67. Do you think that is fair ? -Do you think there is nothing unfair in connection with the whole thing ? Do you think it is possible for human ingenuity to devise a scheme that will work out absolutely fairly ? 68. You might devise something more equitable, could you not ?-- -I might, certainly,

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