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tion, in empowering the Hospital Boards to pay a pension after retirement after ten years'continuous service of any officer or servant of the Board. lam glad to record the action of tho Waikato Hospital Board in taking advantage of this clause and awarding the full pension allowed to tho Matron, Miss Rothwell, who retired in May after almost thirty years' service. The Nurses' Memorial Fund has served a very useful purpose in assisting nurses who from ill health or age are unable to earn a, living and have insufficient or no income. There are now nine annuitants under this fund who receive an equivalent Government subsidy. The amount on the estimates for this purpose should beat least double what is now granted ; and it may be pointed out that, in the absence of a superannuation scheme for the nurses other than those; who are Civil servants, the subsidies to this fund merely meet in a, small measure the demand which has been made, both in Parliament and outside, for some years past for this provision for nurses. The Memorial Fund now amounts to £9,000, and when tho Maekay bequest of about £8,000 is paid over it will be in a position to do more in assisting the many other nurses needing help. The income only of the fund is used for grants or annuities. Home-nursing Lectures. These lectures have been carried on during the year chiefly under the auspices of the Women's National Reserve. The classes have been numerous and well attended in some centres ; but the call for this class of teaching, which originally started after the influenza epidemic in 1918, has not been maintained with the enthusiasm with which it started. It is intended to include such teaching in the activities of the Red Cross organization, and probably with tho ordinary lectures and demonstrations given for years by the St. John Ambulance Society the need of homo-nursing instructions will be filled. SECTION 2.—MIDWIVES ACT. During the year two examinations have been held under the Midwives Act, at which 111 candidates presented themselves and 107 passed. Thirty-three midwives were registered from overseas. The Cromwell Maternity Hospital was recognized as a training-school under certain conditions. The Wairau Maternity Hospital, Blenheim, was also recognized as a training-school, the first term commencing in December, 1920. The lack of midwifery nurses in tho country is still a hardship to settlors, who either have to do with the unskilled help of a neighbour or go long distances to a maternity home. Many country districts are making efforts to have, a cottage hospital primarily for maternity cases, and with a room for emergency cases of sickness or accident. The St. Helens district midwives are also doing good work, and are much appreciated. There are now ten of these nurses —stationed at Ashburton, Lumsdon, Patea, Groymouth, Westport, Hokitika, Lyttelton, Petone, Rotorua, Otautau (combined general nursing). It is hoped in the near future to add to these midwifery nurses in town districts whore medical aid is available. In more remote districts the full qualifications of nurse and midwife are needed. To bring midwifery trainees into line with those training for general nursing the regulations under tho Midwifery Act were amended during the year, and only a nominal fee is now charged pending the proposed amendment of tho Act. In other countries the fee for midwifery training is still high, ranging from £30 to £50. There has never been any lack of applicants for the, vacancies at the St. Helens hospitals. State Maternity Hospitals. A. now State maternity hospital has been established at Wanganui. The building prepared by the Red Cross for convalescent soldiers, no longer being required, for that purpose, was purchased by Mr. Hope-Gibbons at Wanganui, and handed over to the Department for a St. Helens Hospital. It has been added to and altered, and is now an excellent maternity hospital for its size, containing ten beds. Comfortable quarters are provided for the staff. The house stands in fine grounds ; a garden in which sufficient fruit and vegetables can be grown is already laid out. Miss Elliot (sub-matron, St. Helens Hospital, Wellington) has been appointed Matron ; Dr. Douglas Wilson, Medical Officer. The long-deferred new building at St. Helens Hospital, Auckland, has at last been commenced. The Hospital has many times during the year exceeded its proper number of cases, and many applicants for admission have had to be refused. The accommodation is also badly needed for antenatal treatment. At Christchurch St. Helens, as the, projected new building at Addington must still be deferred, some necessary additions for staff accommodation are now commenced. At each of these institutions, owing to the. new system of supplies, it is necessary to build new store-rooms large enough to .contain a six-months supply. There have been few important changes in the personnel of stalls of these hospitals. Miss Inglis, Matron, St. Helens, Wellington, who was granted six months' leave and an additional two months on account of ill health, returned at the beginning of April. Miss Newman, St. Helens, Christchurch, was granted throe months' leave on account of ill health. Dr. William Irving was granted indefinite leave to go to England, and Dr. Anderson has taken his place. Dr. Tracy Inglis resumed his charge of St. Helens, Auckland, in January, 1921, Dr. Stride, who had filled that position most satisfactorily during Dr. Inglis's absence on military service, retiring after five years. In the St. Helens hospitals 1,246 cases were confined during the year ; 1,255 children were born alive, and there wore forty-ono still-births. Deaths of mothers were six ; infants, twenty-five. The number of confinements of women in their own homes was 579, with no maternal and no infant deaths. one set of triplets was born at Auckland, but only two survived.