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Henry Ainslie Parkinson made a further statement. (No. 40.) Witness : I wish to say, on behalf of the New Zealand Educational Institute, that the relative salaries paid to men and to women under the Bill, and the positions that are arranged for women, especially those amongst the assistants, have the support of the Institute.

Wellington Public Schools Assistant Masters' Association : Statement of the Principles it stands for, with Supporting Evidence showing the Anomalies existing under Present Conditions and under many which the new Bill foreshadows. (No. 41.) While recognizing and duly appreciating the reforms which the new Education Bill now before Parliament proposes, such as a Council of Education, centralization of Inspectors, the election of Boards on a wider franchise, larger fields of promotion, and in some cases a more liberal scale of salaries, this association still strongly affirms the following principles, and trusts that the Minister of Education will generously and justly embody some of them, if not all of them, in the new Bill: — 1. Payment of all Teachers on the Bases of Efficiency and Service. (i.) The injustice due to the present basis of payment—viz., average attendance—is not only creating a very bitter feeling in our ranks, but it is also deleting from our profession the very best of its male material. We are told that it is the intention of the Government to pay on a just basis later, but that at present the educational organization will not permit of the classification of teachers for such a scheme of payment. We reply that every teacher in the Dominion is at present classified. Presumably such classification is for the purpose of marking their efficiency to their employers. Why are they not paid accordingly ? If the State places no value on this elaborate classification, in which the Inspectors (the very same men who will classify later) give marks for efficiency, we ask, what is its use ? If the State does place value on its classification of teachers, why does it not pay in accordance with such a classification ? Even if the State intends to alter the system of classification later, the present one would be far more just on which to base a temporary schedule of payment than the basis of average attendance. (ii.) Under the old basis and under the new Bill we have the following terrible anomalies : — Case A : A married male teacher left the primary department to take up secondary high-school work in 1905 at a salary which rose to £270, while the first and second assistants in the primary department were getting £240 and £155 respectively. Since then he has been classified as aBl and has secured a B.A. degree. The first and second assistants will secure, under the new Bill, £270 £290 and £210-£240 respectively, while his position falls into the £180 -210 grade. Is this a just way to reward increased efficiency ? Case B : In 1910 a married male teacher was receiving £195 and a house valued at £25 a year rental ; total, £220. He came to Wellington to increase his efficiency by taking a course of education at a University college. He is now a B.A. and is classified as 81. He is also first assistant in a city school. Yet his salary is now £210, and he has a rentage of £55 a year to pay —an encouraging state of affairs after three years' severe study ! This teacher has had six years' country service and ten years' city service. These cases might be multiplied, but they will suffice as types. We strongly urge that the Minister make some effort to have these anomalies removed, not by special consideration of individual cases, but by payment on a just basis. 2. Separate Grading of Male and Female Teachers. (i.) Nature fitted men and women for different functions in life. Their work in the school is often of a different context, and always different in influence, necessarily and valuably different in different cases. (ii.) Men can better stand the severe strain of the teacher's life than women. The State recognizes this, for it requires the man to work forty years compared with the woman's thirty years before granting retiring-allowance. (iii.) Men ask for far less leave of absence than wqmen. We therefore urge, in justice to both sexes, that they be separately graded, and therefore that there be— 3. Separate Positions for Male and Female Teachers. (i.) The State not only places men on the same basis for payment as women, thereby driving men from the service by cheapening labour and robbing the service of its necessary virility, but it specially favours the cheaper labour by protecting it. (Vide new Bill, Sixth Schedule, clauses (c), (d), (c).) (ii.) Hence we urge that a protective clause for male teachers be inserted in the new Bill—viz., " That in schools of Grade Vc and upwards the first two assistants shall be males." 4. House Allowance to all Married Teachers. This scarcely needs stressing, but we may note — (i.) The married man represents to the State the invaluable service of his wife as well as of himself. This the State should and must recognize. (ii.) The State is encouraging celibacy by not paying house allowance. There are only 40 per cent, of male assistants of marrying age in the service of the Wellington Education Board who are married.

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