Mr W. J. Habens, secretary of tho Education department, wrote as follows:—"I have the honour, by direction of the Minister of Educa tion, to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the Cth inst. In reply to your expression of your hoard's dissatisfaction with presentarrange ments whioh do not allow your hoard a voice in regard to the management of the Cavcrsham Industrial School, I am to say that that institu tion is not a local school, but is open to receive children from all parts of the colony, and that if your board wishes to establish a local school under sections 2 and 8 of' Tho Industrial Schools Act 1882,' the Government will give duo con sideration to a proposal having the establish ment of such a Ideal Bchool for its aim."

The Secketaet read a reply to the above letter, containing the following clauses:—" lam directed to say that whilst the committee is aware that under existing law it is competent, under special circumstances, to commit or trans-

fcr children from othor districts to the Caver-1 sham Industrial School, they would remind you that the school was originally established by the Provincial Council of Otago as an institution for local requirements, and is, moreover, only odg of several schools of the same kind existing in the various centres of population throughout the colony for precisely the same purpose, and therefore is it facto, if not in point of law, a local institution. The fact that tho school is open to receive children from other districts

does not, in the opinion of the committee, take away its local character, practically, nor weaken in any degree the right of the board to exercise control over the school in respect of the children for whose maintenance it is required to contribute. Tho main argument adduced iD favonr of the passing of the Hospitals and Charitable Institu tions Act was that it would extend the prin ciple of local self-government, but tho Bystem established under the act in regard to the maintenance of children in industrial schools is just the reverse ef this. To create a body simply for the purpose of levying a local tax, which it has to hand over to a central colonial department to expend, is in the opinion of the committee opposed to every fair principle of representative government. 