South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2351, 29 September 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1880.

Tiik resident surgeon of the Timaru Hospital lias tendered lus resignation. Ho other course consistent with selfrespect was open to him. The Government has decided to reduce a salary, which at best, was but a poor equivalent for professional services, and the Commissioners in a quite gratuituous manner decided that private practice must be prohibited. The hospital may in time recover itself, but at present it is going to the dogs. Hitherto it has had the character of being a wellmanaged institution. Its mortality bill has been a light one, complaints respecting its internal management have been unknown, and, thanks to an

efficient, industrious, and careful staff, it has been a tolerably good model of what an hospital ought to be. But the ten per cent reductions have had just the effect that might have been anticipated. Not only the resident surgeon but the best of the servants of the institution have resolved to quit a service which rewards fidelity in this backhanded manner. Of course the main items of expenditure will not be diminished. A A-cry slight amount of mismanagement or extravagance will upset the economical arrangements agreed upon in Welliington. The articles known as perquisites and necessaries are so elastic when submitted to negligent, unskilful, or unprincipled fingers that they can be made very expensive. Had the Timaru Hospital been a source of complaint, or vexatious discussion, there might have been some excuse for a proceeding that would lead to reorganisation, but the contraiy has been the case. The result is far from assuring. For the sake of saving a few shillings annually an efficient and reliable staff is sacrificed. This is retrenchment of a Quixotic type. It is the act of a mad bull rearranging a Chinashop.

Wc do not blame the Commissioners. Their position is undignified and disheartening. They have been treated with the utmost disrespect. With regard to the reductions their opinions and feelings were not in the slightest degree consulted. Hid they recoil from such contemptuous treatment the act would be perfectly natural. It is only by an amazing sacrifice of personal dignity that they can continue the position of puppets directed from Wellington. The Timaru Hospital,—yesterday one of the finest institutions of its kind in the colonics, to-day demoralised and practically in ruins—is a telling illustration of the baneful effects of centralism. Its condition is the result of what may happen to local institutions governed from a distance. The salaries and wages of its staff might just as well be regulated from the Colonial Office in London as from Wellington. How the Commissioners can quietly cat the leek and submit to this illegitimate interference with their administrative functions wc arc unable to understand. Is their position simply honorary or is it one of profit that they cling to their scats at the sacrifice of their self respect ? Ho they recognise fairly the humiliation of the position they occupy? Are they content to be automatons dealing out the crumbs that fall from the treasury without being consulted as to their number and size ? As citizens identified with South Canterbury can they sit quietly while an important local institution is ruled and regulated from a foreign source ? They arc called Commissioners, and they arc supposed to be administrators, but their functions arc entirely ignored. In effect they are required to shut their eyes, open their mouths, take the nourishment which their wet-nurse allows them, and say nothing. The victims of Uo-thc-Boys Hall were not more helpless.

If the Commissioners of the Timaru Hospital properly appreciate their position, the question whether they should not follow the example of the staff of that institution, and mark their sense of the contemptuous treatment they have received by resigning forthwith and in a body, will be a subject for their consideration. Wc have no wish to hamper the Government in their peculiar system of retrenchment, but we see no other way in Avhich the Commissioners can preserve their dignity, and escape from the dilemma in which they have been placed, in faking such a decisive step they will, wc are convinced, be strongly backed up by public opinion. No one denies the right of the Government to exercise a certain amount of control and supervision over local institutions that arc subsidised by the State, but when political administration degenerates so far as to ignore local opinion and intermeddle with the wages of domestics, it is time for public opinion to interfere. Wc shall await the action of the Commissioners with some curiosity.

The Dunedin Bench, presided over by Mr I. IN’. Watt, has given to the colony another proof of its extraordinary eccentricities. On Monday an elderly man named John Burt being charged with drunkenness, denied the offence, and made the somewhat astounding statement that “He had been committed to the Asylum without his being allowed to ask a single question, or without a single word appearing in the newspapers about it; that he had been kept 27 weeks in the Asylum, and that since he had got out he had been subjected to continual persecution by the police and others. Mr Watt said the fact that he had been kept so long in the Asypnn was some proof that he had been rightly sent there ; but Burt did not agree with this, and hinted that lie had a grievance against Mr Hume. However, he intimated that he intended to take proceedings to get at the bottom of “ all the mystery ” shortly. The Bench, having listened patiently to his harangue, said they were uncertain whether they ought not again to submit him to medical examination, but under all the circumstances they would discharge him.”

The above is quoted from the “ Otago Daily Times.” It furnishes a somewhat alarming picture of the kind of individuals who iigurc on the throne of justice and preside over the liberties of elderly colonists like John Burt. The case of this man is evidently one for further enquiry, but apart from that it seems a nice state of affairs that in a civilised country a magistrate in the pay of the Government, who is supposed to be in the possession of sound reasoning powers, can be found arguing that a lengthened incarceration in a Lunatic Asylum is a proof of insanity. We wonder how this righteous Justice would like to bo quietly transferred to a lunatic ward for six months, and then informed when be complained of the unlawful deprivation of liberty, that his long detention “ was some proof that he had

been rightly sent there.” Then again, under the cwcumstanccs the threat of the bench that they were doubtful whether the unfortunate appellant should not again be treated as a lunatic was peculiarly heartless. It is to be hoped that something more will be heard of this matter, for if the facts are accurately stated, the bench that dealt with this peculiar case is a scandal to the colony.