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appears inadequate, and your Commission recommends that the amount of subsidy on bequests or devises be brought up to that to be granted on voluntary contributions —viz., £i for £l —where expenditure is upon capital works or endowments approved by the Minister. kSEPA rate in stj TUTION s. Para 4. The extent to which the Government should contribute towards the funds of separate institutions under the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act. It is impossible to report exhaustively upon each of the separate institutions without a personal inspection and a local inquiry, which time would not permit. Your Commission has no difficulty from evidence submitted in making its recommendations with regard to the Mercury Bay Hospital, Oamaru Hospital, Jubilee Institute for the Blind, and the Reefton Ladies' Benevolent Society. (a.) The Mercury Bay Hospital had, by last returns available — i.e., for the year ending 1920^ —an average of one bed occupied per diem at an annual cost of £928*1 per occupied bed. The average cost for the Dominion is approximately £150. Your Commission recommends that this hospital cease to be a separate institution, and be merged in the Coromandel Hospital District. (b.) Evidence showed that the Oamaru Hospital has been conducted efficiently and economically under its present constitution and management, and your Commission recommends that it remain a separate institution under the Act, and receive from the Government the same scale of subsidies as Hospital Boards. (c.) Your Commission recommends that the Jubilee Institute for the Blind at Auckland should, as an educational institution, be under the Education Department, and such financial assistance as the institution requires should be contributed to it by that Department, instead of by the Health Department as at present. This would necessitate the removal of the Institute from the list of separate institutions, and this your Commission recommends. (d.) The Reefton Ladies' Benevolent Society is now carrying out its charitable work with the co-operation of the Inangahua Hospital Board, and your Commission considers that the work could be more effectively performed if the society were affiliated with the Board, and have representation from the Board on its council. Your Commission therefore recommends that the society be removed from the list of separate institutions. (c.) Your Commission has no evidence before it to justify a recommendation suggesting any alteration in the status of the remaining five separate institutions, but recommends- that they receive the same scale of subsidies as Hospital Boards on voluntary contribution and bequests." CHARITABLE SOCIETIES. Para. 5. The extent to which the Government should make grants in aid of various charitable societies and institutions. There appears to be no uniform system by which financial assistance has been given by the Government in the way of grants to charitable socities and institutions. Apparently each society, on an application for assistance, has received such grant as the Minister thought fit at the moment. No scheme or definite basis seems to have been adopted. The result is that the allocating of these grants is now in a state of confusion : some societies, for no apparent reason, get larger grants than others equally deserving. Your Commission recommends that a definite amount be voted each year, and distributed among the various societies upon the recommendation of the respective Hospital Boards, having regard to the nature of the work carried out, the number of inmates, and the amount of voluntary contributions received. Special consideration should be given where the Government takes advantage of the services rendered, as in the case of inmates being committed to the charge of institutions, or maternity institutions being used for training nurses.