The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1917. OUTRAGEOUS HOSPITAL LEVIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 13 August 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1917. OUTRAGEOUS HOSPITAL LEVIES.

(With which is incorporated The Tar hape Post and Wairaarino News),

It has been laid to the charge of farmers of the British Empire that nothing would rouse them to fight for changes that would tend to their improvement, but on the other hand, they would stolidly, adhere to all customs methods and usages with an indifference that was inexplicable. We think that we can now venture to say without fear of much contradiction that that period Has passed; the New Zealand farmer, at any rate; has quite grown up; he has passed well out of the adolescent stage, and is asserting himself with advantage to himself and to- the whole country. There are already too many of the piebald professional politicians in our Parliament, that are wasting time and money in useless verbiage. In this district we have one instance of what appears like indifference of farmers to their best interests; they are being rated fo,r thousands of pounds a year without any shadow of hope that they or their district will receive any benefit therefrom. The levy we refer to is being increased year after year, until it has become a serious drawback to the progress of the district. Last year the Wanganui Hospital and Charitable 'Aid Board made a levy on the Kangitikei and Waimarino counties and the Upper Wangaehu Road Board of nine shillings in the thousand pounds, this year it has been : increased to ten shillings and fourpence. Only a few years ago it was about half that amount. It is time farmers began to look at the profit and loss aspect of this levy; to consider just what they get in return for the thousands of pounds they are annually paying to a seemingly incapable Board to spend in Wanganui. We think we are correct in saying that this Board is about to spend several thousands of pounds in the erection of new buildings, and it has freely been rumoured that Wanganui realises that this district can have no interests in common in their expenditure, and that the time has arrived when a final effort of exploitation of this territory so far distant must be made for "WanganuTs advantage, if it is to come off success-

fully .They know that owing to its hugely increasing rateable value and closeness of settlement it will demand hospital accommodation and convenience that it is impossible for Wanganui to furnish. We have more than once pointed out the absurdity, inhumanity, and cruelty of taking patients a hundred miles first from such backblocks and then by rail to Wanganui, in fact, this sort of procedure is keeping up a scandal that should not be allowed. We ask farmers and settlers in our counties, boroughs and road districts, to seriously view the stupidity of maintaining this anomalous linking up of unrelated districts from a profit and loss point of view, if consideration for broken, maimed and diseased bodies does not sufficiently appeal to them. The rateable value of districts that Ihave no right to be linked up with Wanganui county and borough, those within the Rangitikei and Waimarino counties, is nearly nine millions, the levies demanded by Wanganui amounts to £8,741 annually, and who can say to what extreme this irresponsible Wanganui Board will not increase them year by year, past experience is positively alarming With the ten and fourpenny levy Rangitikei county alone will have to pay about three thousand pounds. Is it in farmers’’'interests they should go on paying these huge sums without any voice? Wanganui says they must pay and they have to pay, there is no appeal. Responsible experts have made careful estimates and have shown that the Rangitikei and Waimarino | counties can have their own hospitals, ! situated at Marton, Taihape and Eaetihi, just whe.re they can be of maximum service, at a far less .cost than the useless connection with Wanganui involves. These hospitals can be brought into existence where they are j wanted in Rangitikei and Waimarino, on an annual levy of seven and sixpence, which proves beyond any shadow of doubt that the Wanganui levy is outrageously excessive. Wanganui knows that the unnatural partnerships cannot continue and it seems as though it is intended to make- these far distant districts put up hospital buildings in Wanganui that will last that town for the next half century. With this j year’s lew. the eCmTvnlent .n,f ten find J

fourpenee in the thousand, the Taihape Borough will al'erTie have to contribute nearly £l6O, and the struggling progressive boroughs of Ohakune and Eactihi will be proportionately burdened and have no hospital accommodation of any kind. We trust that the whole of the Waimarino county will join with Eangitikei in bringing about a system of hosptal service that is of desperate urgency, in either Eaetihi o,r Ohakune, for the northern end of the district. When settlers want a new road they have to. borrow fo.r it, and then they are strangled in the after upkeep of it by demands made for the erection of buildings, that can never be of any service to them, owing to distance and difficulty of travelling. A man meets

with an accident, and his life is sacrificed by trying to send him to Wanganui. The northern towns of the Waimarino are entitled to have a hospital in their midst, more especially as if could be established at more than one fourth loss money than is being paid for no hospital at all. We urge upon ratepayers in the Hangitikei and Waimarino counties the fact that they are continuing a bad business; they arc paying through the nose for a hospital system that is valueless to a great part of their territory; they have no voice in estimates of expenditure; or, where the money shall be spent. Huge sums are being swamped in new buildings in Wanganui, while populous centres are without any hospital accommodation at all. Whereas by taking management of their own affairs; mak-

ing their own levies, and having them spent by representatives who have an intimate knowledge of requirements they would reduce the annual levy now made by Wanganui by nearly three shillings in the thousand annually. We would point out that our contentions are not based upon haphazard estimates, but upon figures got out after exhaustive and careful work by capable, .responsible, official local Government experts < To continue the unnatural partnership with Wanganui and pay a ten and fourpenny levy; while we could have our hospitals where they would be of benefit, raise and spend our money where it would render most service, on a seven-and-sixpenny levy is little short of criminal indifference. Rangitikei, Waimarino and Upper Wangaehu should unite to end this hospital fiasco, even then, for a hospital district so uniformly settled, the area would be on the verge of being unduly large, as it would extend over 100 miles of thickly peopled territory.