The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 1881.

Kumara Times, Issue 1489, 6 July 1881, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 1881.

In consideration of the changes which are taking place with regard to the revenue of certain institutions, it behoves the people of this district to make the most strenuous efforts to provide for the efficient maintenance of the Kumara Hospital. The withdrawal of Govern-

merit subsidies renders this absolutely necessary. The general tenor of the " Hospitals and Charitable Institutions •Bill" now before the House of Representatives indicates that for the future these institutions must provide their own funds as best they may. It is true that the Premier, when moving the second reading of the Bill, said something about a certain proportion of the funds coming from the Consolidated Revenue, but it is equally true that in another part of his speech he used these words—" but the subsidies are now things of the past.*' In addition to this, it must not be lost sight of that the Bill will in all probability be so mutilated in committee by the- most parsinonious Parliament ever elected in New Zealand, that the subsidy part of the measure may be rejected. Under these circumstances it will be wise for the people of this district to make suitable and immediate provision for the due maintenance of our local Hospital. That such an, institution is a positive necessity no person of common sense will for a moment deny. Although we have fair meana of communication with both Greymouth and Hokitika, still, urgent cases unfortunately occur frequently where the removal of a patient for a distance of many miles would very seriously jeopardize his life. The very nature of the occupation of a mining population involves a continual risk of accidents more or less serious, and this fact of itself is a sufficiently cogent reason for the maintenance of a local Hospital. But it is a self-evident fact that such an institution cannot be kept up unless adequate funds are provided. It is also a painful fact that subscriptions have not come in of late on a generous nor even adequate scale, and it is a somewhat humiliating cir. cumstance that the miners iu other parts of the West Coast furnish funds to hospitals.more liberally than is the case in the Kumara district. "Where the fault lies we are unable to say. A fairly representative committee exists, and we doubt not they have made reasonable efforts to canvass for subscriptions ; but extraordinary exertions should now be made if the Kumara Hospital is not to become a thing of the past. "We appeal to everyone in the district, miners in particular (whose lives and limbs are daily at stake), and we do so earnestly, to take a more active interest in the very existence of our local Hospital, and in providing suitable funds, thereby to ensure the carrying on the charitable work of caring for those whom sickness or accident has made a charge upon the community.