The Committee emphasized the fact that Education, which cost £17,200,000
in the year before the War, was to cost the tax- payer £59,300,000 next year, and that the total cost, in rates and taxes, would be £103,000,000. The percentage grant system deprived the local authorities of any incentive to practise thrift. Elementary education now cost £12 4s. 4d. per child in attendance, as compared with £4 16s. 6d. before the War. Children undersix should be excluded ; the average size of a class should be increased from thirty-two to fifty pupils. The teachers' salaries—now two and a half times as large as in 1914—must be reduced, and teachers should contribute 5 per cent. of their salaries towards the superannuation fund. The cost of " special services," including medical inspection and treatment, should be reduced by a fourth. The grants for secondary and technical education should be reduced by £3,500,000 to £6,050,000. The Univer- sities grant should be £1,200,000, or £300,000 less than for this year. For Great Britain the reduction in the State expenditure in education would be £18,000,000.
