HOSPITALS & CHARITABLE AID

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 209, 10 May 1912, Page 8

HOSPITALS & CHARITABLE AID

curs- : itr the minister FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS. By Telegraph —Press Association. Palmerston N., Last Night. The Minister for Internal Affairs gave a most interesting glimpse of the Government's mind in his address to the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board today. lie said that few realised the magnitude of the work done in assisting the poor. Last year old age pensions cost £335,000, the hospitals spent £237,000, and charitable aid £IIO,OOO. Of these two last amounts the ratepayers provide one half and the (Government the other. The magnitude of these figures indicated the necessity for prudence in their administration on the part of those locally responsible, and the care exercised by the Chief Officer, Dr. Valintine. There was an undoubted tendency to establish in connection with charitable aid a pauper class. Watchfulness on the part of the boards and the Government was necessary to prevent a person making a system of living on charitable aid. This should be made impossible if legislation and watchful administration could secure that end. The figures given indicate that about 15s per head for the entire population of a million of people was being spent on hospitals and charitable aid and pensions. That was a very large sum for a country with a virile and healthy people. Wherever he went the need was impressed on him for the necessity of providing settlers in the backblocks with medical assistance, and, where medieal men were not available, with trained nurses. Above all things it was impressed upon him that they should provide maternity nurses for those women who go out as pioneers of civilisation into the backblocks. It was their dutj to push their nursing system to such a state of efficiency that they would b( aWe to send nurses out from such a centn as Palmerston, which was the hosipta for a large district. Here it was not pos sible immediately to establish a St Helens Hospital. They should have i maternity ward at the general hosipta to help maternity cases and' to trail maternity nurses to go into the back blocks. He wanted also, with the as sistance of the boards, to "establish ai energetic campaign against tuberculosis He proposed to establish a scientifi library dealing with the disease at t'h Cambridge sanatorium, where they >hai | an enthusiastic scientist and student o the disease in charge. The literatur , could then be sent to inform the board as to the up-to-date methods of dealini with the scourge. Palmerston woul< perhaps be the leading inland city o the Dominion, and the hosiptal a centr ■ for a large district. He hoped the boar j would bear in mind thie necessity o L papers on the most scientific lines. Di Valintine and the Department would b ' always ready to assist them in this. ! THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL. Speaking on the Local Governmen 1 .Bill, the Minister said that the Bill ha 1 been handed down to "the present a<i ■ ministration hy its predecessors, and s I far as the subjects were concerned the ■ were going to make a determined effor to place it on the Statute Book. Ther ' were between 600 and 700 local bodie operating in New Zealand for one mi! lion people. In many of thtese bodie the cost of management reached 25 t ! 35 per cent, of the rates collected. I: ■ some cases the cost of management ex - cneded the rates. It would be pueril , to allow such a state of things to con tinue. The Government had no desir to take away any rights and privileges but to increase the power and respon sibilities of local bodies. They had ni desire to shunt the responsibility of Par liatment, as far as finance was con corned, on to the people of the country but the time had come when Parliamen must not continue to be regarded as i milch cow, to which any body of in dividuals could go to obtain what the; wanted. There should he some soum system of finance, and there should b i some responsibility placed on the local . ity that got the money. He hoped tha , the day of the roads and bridges grant and subsidies to local bodies, without re sponsibility, would cease. Mr. J. G. Wilson: "How will you fi: education?" Mr. Russell said' that it was not in tended that there should he any differ ence as to primary education, in that t-h< locality should supply any funds foi primary education, but when they cami to the large demands for technical edu cation they were on another class oi subject. While the entire responsibility of primary education must be maintained in the State, the responsibility for technical education and "embroideries" of that class must be shared Iyj those people who wanted them, and by the Static. There were extravagant demands being made in large cities for huge technical colleges at the expense of the State. The present Government did not necessarily pin itself down to all the details of the Local Government Bill as introduced by the Ward Government. They desired to see simplification, economy and measured efficiency, and a sense of responsibility on the part of the committees for the working of local government. Nothing had been more subject to criticism than the roads and bridges grants, and there had been no one more persistent in retaining them than the gentleman who preferred to be most opposed to the system and opposed to the Government. He could name members of the Opposition who obtained thousands and thousands of pounds more for their districts than gentlemen on the side of the Government. The system was bad. The conference at Wellington on May 21 would comprise gentlemen who could bring to bear experience of local government. It was a conference of advice or "round the table talk" on local government, which would enable i the Government to see whether New Zealand wanted local government reform, and what reform it wanted. A' great number o,f offices would be abol- | ished. and perhaps those so wiped out | would object, but it was for the people ; of New Zealand to say whether the present expensive and ridiculous multiplication of local bodies should continue. If the people did want it to continue, ther must accept the .inevitable and let it go on, but it represented a great wast - of power and of money.