XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS 377 



Board to 4)e, and such Board shall accordingly be deemed to be, 

 a Board in default, and the Education Department may pro- 

 ceed accordingly ; and every act, or omission, of any member 

 of the School Board, or manager appointed by them, or any 

 person under the control of the Board, shall be deemed to be 

 permitted by the Board, unless the contrary be proved. 



" If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board have 

 done, or permitted, any act in contravention of, or have failed 

 to comply with, the said regulations, the matter shall be referred 

 to the Education Department, whose decision thereon shall be 

 final." 



It will be observed that this clause gives the 

 Minister of Education absolute power over the 

 doings of the School Boards. He is not only the 

 administrator of the Act, but he is its interpreter. 

 I had imagined that on the occurrence of a dispute, 

 not as regards a question of pure administration, 

 but as to the meaning of a clause of the Act, a 

 case might be taken and referred to a court of 

 justice. But I am led to believe that the 

 Legislature has, in the present instance, deliber- 

 ately taken this power out of the hands of the 

 judges and lodged it in those of the Minister of 

 Education, who, in accordance with our method 

 of making Ministers, will necessarily be a political 

 partisan, and who may be a strong theological 

 sectary into the bargain. And I am informed by 

 members of Parliament who watched the progress 

 of the Act, that the responsibility for this unusual 

 state of things rests, not with the Government, 

 but with the Legislature, which exhibited a 



