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illuminating and clearly indicates a case for further investigation. The time is not far off when more advanced factory legislation and largely increased factory inspection will have to be taken in hand, but this possibly has already received your Excellency's considera- tion.
I cannot help mentioning the financial position of the Widows and Orphans Pension Fund.
As far as I can find no fund has been set apart to meet these liabilities. We collect the subscriptions and pay them into our cur- rent account and use them as the revenue of the Colony. I find on page 11 of the Estimates the sum of $19,000 is expected to be received next year.
A provident fund of this nature should, in my opinion, be absolutely secure and should be kept separate and apart as a Trust Account. I believe there was a time when there was a separate fund for widows and orphans but this has long since been merged in the Colony's general funds.
The Colony may at some future time be called upon to make a capital provision for these liabilities.
I see there are two grants to the University, one of $50,000 and the other of $40,000, (items 25 and 26 on page 102 of the Estimates). The University serves a most useful purpose not only as an educating factor but in providing the Colony with useful citizens. I am some- times inclined to wonder whether either this Government or the commercial concerns of this Colony avail themselves sufficiently of the facilities which our University provides. It appears to me there must be many positions which our University graduates could fill with ease and possibly distinction.
My personal opinion is that our contribution to the University is wholly insufficient.
The conception that the University is a luxurious appendage to the ordinary educational course still lingers here, though it has been entirely abandoned in England. Universities are no longer the preserves of the intellectual rich but are accepted as an integral part of the community's life. They are expected to perform a social service for the whole surrounding district by maintaining and improving the cultural standards, by providing a steady stream of highly educated men and women for the various professions and commerce and by increasing the sum of human knowledge.
There also seems to be an impression abroad that because a University accepts Government assistance it must of necessity sacrifice its dignity and lose its independence. If that were so, then there is not a University in Great Britain that can command respect. They have had to ask for a substantial dole which has been the
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