The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1910. TO-DAY'S ELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 767, 16 March 1910, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1910. TO-DAY'S ELECTION.

The public, it Ms to be feared, has not shown signs of ' attaching much'importance to the election , of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, which takes place to-day. The . various, have done, practically nothing in the way of announcing the principles for which they stand: it is almost as if they did not realise that 'there is room for any conflict of principles in the disbursement of the public funds on charitable objects. For all the ac-

tivity which they have shown the election might be .nothing more than the selection of the fourteen plcasantest people for seats on the Board. In every other country in which the relief of poverty and the cure of sickness are directly or indirectly ! functions of ,the municipality or the State, there is to be found a very active public interest in the principles that should govern the administration of charitable aid. In New Zealand very . few people realise that there can be a theory in the matter at all, and this despite the fact that within the past two or ;three years the main issue has been raised often enough. The main issue', we should say, is whether indiscriminate largesse should be the rule, or whether caution and frugality .should govern the almoners. The great rise in the oost of charitable aid, Db. Valintine's strictures upon the methods followed.in granting poor reliof, and Miss Kirk's confirmatory researches—these ought to have set enough people thinking to secure the awakening of a general public interest in a, problem which has a. moral and financial importance to society.

With the exception of the gentlemen who make, up the Labour

"ticket," very few of the candidates can with confidence be proclaimed either a "wastrel" or a "reformer"

—to use the terms commonly employed in London to distinguish the reckless Socialists and semi-Social-ists in local government from their more prudent opponents. Anyone, therefore, who desired to vote only for those candidates who would always be found oh the side, of caution and who could be relied upon to resist, the costly and destructive proposals of the "wastrels" would find himself in something of a difficulty. In voting for a candidate of whom he knows nothing save that he is a respected citizen-and a man prudent in his own affairs, the elector is,not necessarily'voting for a man who will be a prudent administrator of charitable aid. Some of the worst enemies of the nation's

true interests, in New Zealand as in every other country, are men of

blameless character,: men high in the public esteem, and men eminently successful in their lives. But the electors must to-day deal with the facts as they find them, and we think that they will do well, being so much in the dark as to the exact views of most of the candidates, to vote for those who have had some experience of hospital and charitable aid administration. Mb. M'Laren certainly has stated the policy of the Labour ticket as one of "sympathetic economy." This delightful phrase reminds us of Mb. M'Laren's scheme, promulgated in June last, for the cure of unemployment. What lie advocated was "the regulation of existing industries in such a way as to prevent intermittent rushes alternating with acute periods ox stagnation," Nobody kiwwa

exactly what he meant by those words; and he probably does not clearly know himself what he means by "sympathetic economy." But we all know how his policy would work out: it would be all sympathy and no economy, or economy so tempered by sympathy as to be indistinguishable from pauperising extravagance of the most fatuous sort. The electors should make quite sure, whatever else they do, of excluding the Socialists from the Board. Where much uncertainty exists electors will probably prefer to select those who have already served on the Hospital Trustees or the Charitable Aid Board, taking care also to infuse a little new blood. The addition of a medical man to the Board would also be a safe step to take. It will be the business of the public to pay attention to the work of the new body, and when the next election occurs, we trust, the public mind will be in a condition to see that there is a wrong and right policy in the administration of hospitals and charitable aid, and to insist that the .men it elects will carry out the right one.