Correspondence.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 406, 19 March 1909, Page 1

Correspondence.

[While freely opening our columns for the discussion of public matters we do not necessarily identify ourselves with the opinions expressed by correspondents, We wish this to be distinctly understood.]

HOSPITAL CONTRIBUTIONS. (to the editor ) Sib, —The news in your issue of March stb, that the Kawhia County has been brought under the Hospifa' and Charitable Institutions Act, 1908, and created part of the Waikato Hospital District, will probably interest very few of your readers, but ibe fac< is of great inaportance to the c unty. It makes the County liable to contribute to the funds of the Waikato Hospital and Charitable Aid Board .every year, and the experience of country districts everywhere else is that the rale levied under the Act- increases yearly. The towns require tbe Charitable Aid and Hospital rates, and the country has to pay for it. It is tbe old story—“ The devil made the towns and they live on tbs country which God made.” The Horowhenua County, which has no towns of any size in it and a healthy self-supporting population, pays one third of all its rates to Wellington as Hospital and Charitable Aid rates. It will pay Kawhia far better to pay in full for any hospital attendance than to contribute for tbe benefit of the Waikato towns.—Yours, etc.,

F. W. MACKENZIE. Wellington, March 12.