FRIENDLY SOCIETIES' GRIEVANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3021, 19 October 1908, Page 5

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES' GRIEVANCE.

PROPOSED INCREASE OF MEDICAL FEES. ACTION BY UNITED MASTERTON LODGES. The members of the British Medical Association in New Zealand propose to increase the charges made for the services to the Friendly Societies' of the Dominion. Briefly, the position is this:--At present the majority of lodges pay their doctors 15s per member per annum for medical attendance, and for this figure tbey attend lodge members residing within a three-mile radius of their surgeries. The British Medical Association has now notified the lodges that their members intend charging 20s per member per annum for members living in a city, and 25s per annum for suburban and country members, and in addition a fee of 5s for each candidate they examine for admission. This will mean that every lodge will have to increase its initiation fee by 5s and its contributions to members by at least one penny per week, and the whole of this increase will go into the pockets of the doctors. As such a step would, it is considered, have the effect of seriously retarding the increase of membership of all lodges, the lodges state that they intend opposing the proposals of the British Medical Association by all possible means. The Wellington Friendly Societies' Council has taken the matter up, and this body represents over four thousand lodge members. The Council intends arranging for a conference of delegates from all lodges in the Wellington Province. This conference will represent over twelve thousand members.

Bros. O'Sullivan and Robertson, President and Secretary, respectively, of the Wellington Council, are at present visiting the Wairarapa towns, bringing this matter before the Societies, and yesterday morning they addressed a large meeting in the Foresters' Hall, representative of all lodges in Masterton, which had been called by the local Friendly Societies' Council. Mr G. E. A. Hood, Chairman of the Wairarapa Friendly Societies' Council, occupied the chair, about seventy lodge members being present. The visitors put the position, as outlined above, very clearly before the meeting, and after a thorough discussion, it was resolved, on the motion of Mr S. Deugarde, that the Wellington Council be requested to convene the proposed conference as early as possible, and that each Masterton Society would send a representative.