254
tee at the request of the Govt. furnished plans & sections of
the proposed new building; the Estimate of carrying these into
effect as furnished by the Director of Public Works was
$18,000.In the result the Govt. made a definite offer to the Committee of a free site and a building grant of $8,000 upon
the conditions that the Committee undertook to erect the
building and hand it over to the Govt, within a reasonable time
and guaranteed the amount required to pay the salaries of an
adequate teaching staff for a period of not less than 5 years.
The building when completed & handed over to the Govt. was to
be let to the Committee at a nominal rent for school purposes
or vested in trustees and the Govt reserved the right of me Easuming
serving the land & buildings in the event of their being no
longer used for such purposes.
The Committee declined to give the required
guarantee and pressed for an increase of the building grant from $8,000 to $12,000. The Govt. was unable to comply with this
request, and after further correspondence the offer was finally withdrawn on the 18th. September, 1897.
P.S. The special grant of $50 a month does not
appear to have been drawn since February, 1897, the school hav-
ing been closed about that time.