Page:The Extravagent Expenditure of the London School Board.djvu/11

 has the cost of building schools been unnecessarily high, not only are the Board Schools, as regards cost, largely in excess of the Voluntary Schools, but the cost of the Board Schools is still increasing—it increases half-year after half-year, and tenders for Schools, which will ultimately cost £12 and £13 per child, are now accepted without comment. It is a great step from £7 to £13 per head, and the question naturally arises, "Is this rate of increase to continue?" A large number of Schools have yet to be built, and any practical man would at once scout the impossibility of building efficient schools for less than £13 per child. It is a question for the ratepayers now to decide whether the old régime shall continue, or whether some attempt shall be made to curb this extravagant expenditure. This subject is of the greatest importance, for whereas other items can be remedied year by year, the cost of building these Schools is spread over a long term, and when once incurred, commits the ratepayers to an annual expenditure for fifty years.

As previously stated, it is not intended to discuss the cost of the several School sites, but reference cannot possibly be withheld from the extraordinary amount of the legal and surveyors charges connected therewith. The first published accounts in which this item is specially distinguished, are for Lady-day, 1874, when it amounts to £10,502, for acquiring land of the value of £55,749. This proportion would appear sufficiently extravagant and unreasonable, but the subsequent amounts show it to be gradually increasing, until it becomes in Lady-day, 1876, £20,445, for the purchase of land to the value of £82,718, or nearly 25 per cent. Land in London is generally dear enough in all conscience, but surely from these figures, the expenses in acquiring it must be dearer still.

No item of the London School Board points to a more vivid picture of thoughtless extravagance, marking out the system under which this department has been conducted as