The Globe. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1564, 22 February 1879, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1879.

The report of the meeting of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board of yesterday itnot pleasant reading. The tone of the debate was such as is not creditable to the bulk of the members of that body. We would first call attention to what we cannot help calling the indecent haste displayed in the whole proceeding. The Board, on the 11th instant, passed a most important resolution, a resolution which, it is evident, should have required the greatest consideration, and yet, in such haste are the Board to hurry matters to a crisis, that its correspondence with the Government on the subject is carried on by telegraph. These are go-ahead days, no doubt, and perhaps the Board may lay the flattering unction to its soul that it has displayed, marvellous sharpness in so acting. But we feel sure that the public will agree with us in thinking that they have considerably overshot the mark. It is not as if the Medical Staff was inefficient, or that any damage was likely to be done to the interests of the Hospital, by communicating with the Government in the ordinary way. Far otherwise—the Board itself is loud in its praises of the efficiency of the Staff. Mr. Brown himself quite coincided on this point with his colleagues, but he practically lays the haste displayed down to the reason that " ho has a great public duty to perform." Is it a man's public duty to rush important Acts through by telegraph ? Is it a great public duty to show marked discourtesy to a number of medical men who have performed their duties to the satisfaction of all concerned? Then again, look at the manner in which the meeting was convened. It was summoned for the purpose of considering tho purport of a telegram from the Government to the Board. And yet the chairman of that Board absolutely goes round beforehand and endeavours to obtain from some of the members their signature to a paper which would have entiroly prejudiced all free discussion at the mooting. And not only this, but he omits to lay the paper before Dr. Turnbull, who was just as much a member of tho Board as anyone else. We can look upon such action only in tho light of an endeavor to spring a mine on that gentleman. The meeting, too, was called with improper haste, and although we do not lay such stress on the fact that

it was not held in the ordinary place of meeting, as was done by Dr. Turnbull, yet wo cannot help thinking that it would have been bettor had the ordinary course been pursued. As for the plea that the place was altered to suit the convenience of tho members, it is too ridiculous to be entertained for an instant. It is not five minutos' walk from Cathedral square to tho hospital, and if time pressed, surely it was open to any member to pay the largo sum of one shilling to bo conveyed to the latter spot in duo state. To our minds there is no doubt whatever that tho whole course of proceeding was marked by such haste and waiit of the ordinary ainenitios of lifo, as would be displayed by men who were anxious to carry a point at all hazards in tho shortest possible period of time. And who are the Board who are attempting to do all this? A body who have a permanent claim on the gratitude of the public at large ? A body who can afford to stretch a point because of tho services they have performed through a lengthened term of office? By no means. They are a Board elected as a stop-gap. They are a Board that absolutely do not know their own status. One would have thought that such a body would have been one to deal gently with a staff who were carrying on their useful work boforo the Board was in existence at all. One would have thought that they would havo been extromnly tondor in disturbing the status quo. Ono would havo thought that they would have been glad to havo seized upon tho receipt of Colonel Whitmoro's telegram in order to effect a com promise with tho men for whom they profess to entertain such regard. Nothing of tho sort. They immediately proceed to extend their discourtesy from tho staff to the Colonial Socrotary himself. They treat his communication as containing ideas that are not for ono moment to bo taken into consideration. Mr. Brown poses majestically. Ho has " a great public duty to perform," and sooner that not do it ho will resign. He will no longer give the Hospital tho benefit of his services or of his advanced ideas on the proper method of negociating and discussing important acts. Well—oven if he woro to resign, perhaps his country would, in the long run, bo reconciled to the loss. Wo havo not in any way alluded to the general question over which this storm in a tea pot has been raised. We have purposely abstained from discussing the relations of the staff to ih<s Board, or of both to the Government, nor havo we said anything about the staff's action in communicating direct with the Government. We havo merely expressed our strong disapprobation of the method which the Board has employed in bringing the affair to an issue, and of its discourtesy to a very painstaking and efficient body of professional men. Had the Board met the staff and tanked the position over in an amicable spirit, a very different state of affairs to that now existing might have been the result.

Maori journals are once more to the front. The "Waka Maori" lias started again, and has reached its twentieth issue, and the " Arawa" will shortly be published at Rotorua under the auspices of Mr Robert Graham. The latter will be, as is the "Waka Maori," written in both Maori and English. The Maoris themselves are not noted for literary ability, and have seldom ventured to start journals on ?,their own account. Their most ambitious attempt was the " Hokioi" published by the Waikato natives in 1862. It was printed on a press given by the Emperor of Austria to two young chiefs who had visited that country in the Novara. The editor was a Maori and the journal was written in the interest of the King party. Sir George Grey started an opposition paper under the editorship of Mr. Gorst. The Maori editor, finding himself worsted in the combat of words, collected his pressmen together, and breaking into his adversary's establishment carried off the printing plant, and bundling Mr. Gorst and his belongings into a canoe, sent them floating u gently down the stream." The convincing logic of this proceeding was too much for the editor of the opposition paper.